Our review of the first half of 2021

It continues to be a difficult and uncertain time for the aviation sector with the on-going restrictions on air travel worldwide, but it is heart-warming to see how our industry has pulled together to support each other wherever possible. With domestic travel returning and hope starting to grow around the return of widely available international travel, thanks to vaccination programmes, we thought it would be a good time to look back at 2021 so far.

Despite the challenging circumstances across the industry, we have had the opportunity to meet many new faces (virtually of course) and have welcomed 25 new clients on board since the turn of the year and we now have over 170 registered certified users of our tests worldwide all of which have taken and passed all elements of our report interpretation training. We have been working closely with clients to ready them ahead of the new EASA regulations around pilot psychological profiling, working quickly to on-board new clients with immediate recruitment needs and are encouraged to see recruitment continuing in the industry.

As well as the new clients we are also delighted to welcome 7 new affiliates/channel partners within our network, working with us to promote best practice testing and assessment within the aviation industry. If you would like some information on how to join our network of channel partners, then please contact us.

The aviation industry is a unique market and continues to require a specialist approach to assessment. We are currently able to support our clients with assessments for Pilots, Cadets, Instructors, Cabin Crew, Bizjet Pilots, Dispatchers, Maintenance Technicians/Engineers and Senior Management and we are continually updating and developing new tests to support the industry. We welcome input from clients who would like to be involved with supporting these new tests and assessments.

As part of our practice test offering to help candidates familiarise themselves with and reduce anxiety around the pilot aptitude testing process, we have launched a series of direct entry bundles tailored to support direct entry level Captains and First Officers who are going through the recruitment process. The direct entry practice test bundles are available alongside our popular cadet level practice bundles.

ADAPT Update

2021 has already been busy for our ADAPT team as we have introduced several new features within our ADAPT system. We have shared the highlights below and if you would like more information on any of these new features or assessments please contact us.

• Our Remote Invigilation Solution – Allowing clients to have one of their invigilators present during online assessments to facilitate our ADAPT tests online. Find out more about our remote invigilation solution.
• E-commerce Hosting – Providing the opportunity for candidates to purchase client assessments directly online to reduce the administrative burden for our clients.
• Dashboards – A quick and easy to interpret view of a cohort of candidates in one place. Candidates can be grouped based on demographic data and the results of different assessment activities can be compared to identify variations.
• Client On-Boarding – The ability for clients to access our ADAPT demonstration platform anywhere at anytime, without the need to request access from the Symbiotics team. Get FREE Demo Access to the ADAPT Client Portal.
• Narrative Reports and Verbal Feedback - Introduction of narrative reports and verbal feedback sessions to support clients with the implementation of the EASA regulation for Psychological Assessments.

People Update

It is great to be able to report on positive developments and additions within the Symbiotics' team.

We are delighted that Rhodri Manley has joined the team as an Aviation Consultant. Rhodri gained his ATPL in 2000 and has flown the Jetstream 41, Airbus A320, A330, Boeing 757 and 767 over his career to date. Having experience in recruitment, management and tech training, Rhodri joined the Symbiotics team in May

Connect with Rhodri here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhodri-manley-bsc-72286a34/

We are also delighted to announce that Hannah Davies has been promoted from her position as Sales and Marketing Director to the role of Managing Director.

Connect with Hannah here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-davies-symbiotics/

Events Update

Throughout the first half of the year events in the aviation industry continued to be held virtually and we have attended many of them. We have also had the pleasure of Richard Brecknell, our Technical Director, and Karen Moore, our Principal Occupational Psychologist, being invited to speak about industry issues at several events.

We presented at the following shows;

• Virtual RAeS Conference – Mental Wellbeing and Human Performance
• Global Airline Training & Simulation Virtual (GATS-V)
• Asian Aviation Education & Training Symposium (AAETS)
• World Aviation Training Symposium (WATS)

We have also enjoyed hearing from our industry peers by attending the following shows to ensure we stay present with what is happening in the aviation industry;

• Virtual RAeS Conference – Maintaining Wellbeing: Opening up in the maintenance environment
• World Aviation Festival Virtual
• Aviation Festival Asia

We held a Round Table discussion featuring industry experts on the introduction of the new EASA Aircrew Medical Fitness Regulation as a continuation on the webinar that we ran on the same topic in the second half of 2020. View the webinar and the round table discussion. We also worked with clients collaboratively to host candidate webinars designed to provide guidance in what to expect from their assessments and how to best prepare.

Thank you for taking the time to read our update and we hope that you have had a good first half of 2021. If you want anymore information on anything discussed above, or to talk about different ways we could work together then please don't hesitate to get in touch. We are also delighted to say we have some exciting developments planned for H2 including test presentation upgrades, more self-service features and we continue to embrace cutting edge technology which we are excited to be introducing in the coming months.