The Air League Statement on General Aviation includes the following:
General Aviation
“The General Aviation (GA) community is the grass roots or lifeblood of aviation and fundamentally important to the future of the industry. It trains the pilots and aircrew needed to supply future growth across the globe.
“The Air League is concerned that this segment of the industry could largely collapse if not appropriately supported. The UK’s aviation training companies aid exports through delivering pilots to many global airlines and consideration should be given to supporting training institutions, in order to break the boom and bust cycle of aviation training.
“The sector is already under strain from airfield redevelopment plans which are diminishing the capacity of the GA community. Pilot training is an essential role of GA and already the UK struggles to produce enough pilots to meet demand.
“The Air League is concerned by the impact of COVID-19 from a pilot training perspective, the scale of the problem can only be estimated at the moment, though based on the 9/11 experience, this will last for several years.”