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Government to fast-track aviation worker vetting
The government plans to streamline lengthy background checks for new aviation workers.
It aims to help ease staff shortages that have caused hundreds of cancelled flights.
Aviation minister Robert Courts wrote to aviation bosses to waive the requirement for new hires to wait for full clearance before starting training.
UK airlines have cancelled up to 1,000 flights a week because of chronic staff shortages due to understaffing and Covid-related sickness.
“All of us will be concerned about the situations some passengers have experienced over the past couple of weeks,” Courts wrote, according to the Sunday Telegraph
“The Department for Transport has been working hard to identify solutions to help ease the current difficulties.”
It will be ‘balanced against the risk of insider threat and other security factors.’
The UK is now set revise current EU legislation to onboard new workers quicker.
New hires would still need to have full security clearance before starting on the job.
Security vetting and background checks can take longer than three months.
Johan Lundgren, chief executive of easyJet, said the airline has100 staff awaiting clearance.
“Using our post-Brexit freedoms, we are looking at ways to help industry speed up job reference checks,” a government spokesperson said
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