Senior Manager - Skills Partnership, 12mth FTC

Put major infrastructure at the heart of tackling the NEETS crisis, argue industry and political heavyweights. * Lord Blunkett and former Skills and Apprenticeships Minister Robert Halfon to co-chair new Heathrow Infrastructure Skills Council * Government's independent reviewer into young people and work, Alan Milburn, endorses the Council's ambition to harness major infrastructure, such as Heathrow expansion, to create opportunities for young people * The Council will report on how Heathrow expansion and other infrastructure projects can maximise opportunities for young people * To support this, Heathrow pledges in expansion plans to develop skills plan to deliver 5,000 apprenticeships and training opportunities for young people to help deliver a third runway. Heathrow, Make UK, TUC and senior former government figures have today announced the launch of a new Council aimed at harnessing major infrastructure projects to tackle Britain's NEETS crisis, an ambition endorsed by Alan Milburn, who is currently leading the independent review into young people and work established by the government. At a time when nearly one million young people are not in education, employment or training, the new Heathrow Infrastructure Skills Council will bring together businesses, trade unions, colleges, and training partners from across the UK to examine how infrastructure projects, like Heathrow expansion, can unlock and maximise opportunities for young people, by helping to create clearer routes into skilled careers. To support this ambition Heathrow has pledged, as part of expansion plans, to develop a youth employment and skills plan setting out how it could deliver 5,000 youth apprenticeships, traineeships and other entry-level pathways. This comes in addition to unlocking 108,000 jobs nationwide, spanning engineering, construction, logistics, sustainability and the wider supply chain, helping many people across the UK take their first step into important and rewarding careers. The Council will be co-chaired by former Education Secretary and Home Secretary Lord Blunkett and Robert Halfon, former Skills and Apprenticeships Minister and now Executive Director at Make UK. Through their experienced leadership, the Council will identify practical measures that may be adopted by Heathrow and other major infrastructure projects to identify job opportunities for this generation of young people and the next. The Council's findings will culminate in a report outlining recommendations for Heathrow, the wider infrastructure industry and the Government. To inform its recommendations, the Council will meet four times in regions across the UK. Each meeting intends to hear directly from local employers, colleges, training providers, and young people about how to best secure the skills pipeline to build Britain's future infrastructure. The mayor of each host region will also be invited to join following the Prime Minister's recent announcement that 16-19 funding and employment support will transfer to mayors. Mayors and local authorities will play an even greater role in connecting local training to the jobs major infrastructure investment will create. The establishment of the Infrastructure Skills Council reflects Heathrow's ambition to ensure that investment in nationally significant infrastructure leaves a lasting legacy by equipping a new generation with the skills needed for long-term careers. Lord Blunkett, co-chair of the Heathrow Infrastructure Skills Council, said: "Given that the Government is serious about tackling youth unemployment and closing the skills gap, they must continue to progress nationally significant infrastructure projects with absolute urgency. Heathrow is at a watershed moment, with a pipeline of projects that could transform the lives of its young people. These projects, like Heathrow expansion, will not only deliver economic growth; they will create apprenticeships, training opportunities and pathways into skilled, rewarding jobs for the next generation. That is why I am proud to support this new Council, which will develop practical recommendations to ensure these opportunities are fully realised. Its ambition must be not only to build the infrastructure Britain needs, but to recognise that this cannot be done without building the workforce that will deliver it." Robert Halfon, Executive Director at Make UK and co-chair of the Infrastructure Skills Council, said: "Large and vital infrastructure projects create significant opportunities for young people. But opportunity only works if there are clear pathways in - through apprenticeships and technical training that lead to real jobs. The skills ladder matters here. Heathrow need young people moving from school into structured training that actually connects to these projects, with clear progression and decent careers. The Infrastructure Skills Council is working to join those dots between employer demand, major projects, and the training routes that will fill them. That's how Heathrow build the infrastructure Britain needs and the workforce to deliver it." Alan Milburn, Government youth employment adviser and Chair of the Milburn Review, said: "Nearly one million young people in Britain are not in education, employment or training. Unless Heathrow act, Heathrow risk a lost generation of young people. Turning that around means giving young people a reason to believe there is a future for them in Britain's economy. Major projects like Heathrow expansion have the potential to make a real difference by connecting young people who need jobs to opportunities, skills and experience that can change the course of their lives. I welcome this initiative from Heathrow and the creation of the Infrastructure Skills Council. If Heathrow can harness major infrastructure investment to give many more young people a stake in Britain's future, that will be good for them and good for the future of its country. It is a win-win." Sian Ellliott CBE, Director of Organising and Skills, TUC: "High-quality training and good jobs change young people's lives, while giving businesses the return on investment they need through a secure pipeline of skilled workers for the future. As major infrastructure projects like Heathrow expansion move forward, workers' voices must be at the table to help ensure those opportunities deliver good, unionised jobs to communities across the UK. That is how Heathrow deliver growth in every postcode and is why Heathrow is proud to be part of this Council, bringing the experience and expertise of unions to the conversation and helping to ensure national infrastructure projects deliver for working people." Heathrow's CEO Thomas Woldbye said: "Heathrow expansion is an incredible opportunity to futureproof the UK's critical national infrastructure and to build the skilled workforce the nation needs. We want young people in every region and nation to share in the benefits of expansion, gaining the training, experience and pathways into rewarding careers that major projects can provide. This is a nationally significant project that will inspire, train, and develop the next generation of skilled workers, leaving a lasting legacy."

UK flight chaos spills into second day after tech outage. Air travelers in the UK faced a second day of severe disruptions after a technical glitch at a key node forced Heathrow Airport and other hubs to cancel hundreds of flights, adding to similar incidents in recent years that have tested the resilience of the country's aviation infrastructure. British Airways scrapped almost 200 flights on Wednesday because aircraft and crew were out of position, the UK flagship carrier said in a statement. In total, about 291 flights representing about 5% of the 5,869 scheduled, didn't take place, according to Cirium data. On Tuesday, airports in the UK suffered more than 1,750 flight cancelations, Cirium said. The spillover shows the complexity involved in restarting operations after the severe outage, with about 8,000 flights using the UK air space on average each day. Heavy disruptions mean that aircraft and crew are out of position and extra flights need to be deployed to clear the backlog of stranded passengers. Heathrow, the UK's busiest airport, said that while operations are recovering, travelers should expect knock-on impacts as aircraft and crew reposition. The airport said it has additional colleagues on hand to support across Heathrow's terminals to rebuild the service. "We've got a lot of aircraft that were dispersed across Europe," Nigel Wicking, chief executive officer of Heathrow Airline Operators Committee, said during a transport committee meeting. "They're going to find it very difficult to get back into the UK today because there aren't that many ad hoc slots available at Heathrow for them to get back in." Gatwick Airport, the other main hub for London, said in a statement that "we still anticipate that it will take time for our operations to fully return to normal." Tuesday's outage was related to a technical issue at NATS, a public-private company based in Swanwick, Hampshire, that oversees air traffic control in the UK. The government ruled out a cyber attack. The service provider said in a statement that "this has been a very complex recovery and has created difficulties for the whole aviation network, from which it will take time to recover." Outages have become a routine problem in the UK. Last summer, an unspecified radar-related issue shut down the country's airspace. Another NATS glitch three years ago halted air traffic in the country and left planes, crews and passengers stranded. Martin Rolfe, the chief executive officer of NATS, was at the helm of the air-traffic control provider during each of these past glitches. Airlines including Ryanair Holdings Plc and Wizz Air Holdings Plc have repeatedly called for him to resign, with Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary on Wednesday calling him "an overpaid failure." "We will be doing a very thorough and full investigation," Rolfe told BBC Radio 4's Today program. "Not to take away any of the frustrations and disappointments from the people who haven't been able to travel, but we do have one of the best systems and one of the best services in the world." Rolfe, who has been CEO for more than 11 years, is set to meet with UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander on Wednesday to discuss the IT failure. The UK government holds a 49% stake plus a blocking share in NATS, while airlines, airport operator LHR Airports Limited and NATS staff fund the rest. The NATS Swanwick operations room manages the en-route airspace over England and Wales up to the Scottish border, as well as lower-altitude traffic to and from London's airports, equal to about 2.5 million flights or 250 million passengers in the UK airspace. Heathrow suffered its worst disruption in decades early last year after a nearby fire cut power to the hub and brought travel to a standstill for hundreds of thousands of passengers. The airport in the southwest of London, handles roughly 1,400 flights and 200,000 passengers every day, and about 40aircraft take off every hour at peak times on average. The disruption adds to complex operations particularly for Middle East carriers like Emirates or Qatar Airways that have seen their services come under strain in recent months because of the Iran War. Heathrow is among the busiest hubs for carriers from the Persian Gulf, with Emirates alone operating about a dozen flights to London airports a day, many on its mammoth Airbus SE A380 aircraft. Was this article valuable? Interested in aviation? Get automatic alerts for this topic.

Gatwick and Heathrow warn of delays after air traffic control meltdown. Airports including Gatwick and Heathrow have warned of further delays as they work to clear a backlog of flights following disruption to the country's traffic control system yesterday. Both of the London hubs said flights had resumed on Wednesday but warned of longer wait times and urged passengers to check if their flights were going ahead. "Following yesterday's NATS technical issue, flights are operating today, but some disruption may continue as airlines reposition aircraft and crew," Heathrow posted on X. "Please check your flight status with your airline before travelling to the airport and only travel if your flight is confirmed to be operating." Hundreds of departing flights were delayed and cancelled yesterday after NATS, the British air traffic control system, said its systems had failed. NATS said it had now resolved the issue but recovery had taken "longer than we had hoped". News updates. Stay ahead with our three daily briefings delivering all the key market moves, top business and political stories, and incisive analysis straight to your inbox. "Work is continuing to assist airlines and airports recover from today's disruption. This has been a very complex recovery and has created difficulties for the whole aviation network, from which it will take time to recover," the airline said. Ryanair has called on the government to intervene and fix the UK's "chronic" air traffic control issues after the disruption. Ryanair's chief operations officer, Neal McMahon, said NATS boss Martin Rolfe should be ousted and ministers should "put someone in charge who can do the job". NATS has been plagued by technical issues in recent years including a radar glitch last year which grounded flights for several hours at London airports. In 2023, over 1,000 flights were cancelled when a technical error caused the air traffic control system to crash and enter safe mode during one of the busiest weekends of the year.