Respected Marques Promote Aerospace Education & Careers
Wings Over the Rockies (WOTR), the Colorado-based non-profit dedicated to fostering public interest in aviation by promoting awareness of humankind’s past, present, and future aeronautical and space endeavors, has partnered with Atlas Air Worldwide, the storied cargo, passenger, and charter airline that happens also to be the world’s largest operator of Boeing’s glorious 747.
The two organizations, by dint of their newly announced partnership, have set out to maximize the scope and impact of WOTR’s Wings Aerospace Pathways (WAP)—a program that allows students in grades 6-12 to immerse themselves in the aerospace industry through hands-on, experiential learning.
Longtime WOTR supporter Atlas—in keeping with its heavy lifting ethos—has made a generous, thirty-thousand-dollar donation to the Wings Aerospace Pathways initiative. The monies will be applied to the creation of curricula and activities by which students will learn teamwork, problem solving, design thinking, applied technology, and other skills conducive to securing employment within the aerospace sector.
Wings Over the Rockies President and CEO, Maj Gen John Barry, USAF (Ret). States: “We’ve been gathering momentum around WAP during what’s now become a critical need from the industry. Atlas Air shares our mission to educate and inspire the next generation of aviation professionals and is leading a growing list of aviation industry companies addressing workforce readiness globally. We thank them for making a significant investment in doing so right here in Colorado.”
Atlas Air Worldwide senior vice president of human resources Patricia Goodwin-Peters adds: “As a leader in global airfreight, our partnership with Wings is a wonderful way to inspire the next generation of aviation colleagues as we highlight the wide variety of great careers Atlas Air offers.”
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) estimates that global passenger and cargo air traffic will double over the next two decades, thereby creating an acute need for aeronautical talent the likes of pilots, engineers, mechanics, technicians, and operation managers.
Whether or not the aviation industry truly is facing an imminent shortage of qualified pilots is a matter of debate among aerospace pundits. The Airline Pilots Association International (ALPA) and the FAA have presented compelling data substantiating their shared assertion that pilots are and shall continue to be plentiful. Air-carriers, however, have overwhelmingly disregarded ALPA’s and the FAA’s empirical data, choosing instead to apply billions of dollars toward unprecedentedly rich pilot compensation packages in hopes of attracting aviators to their respective banners.
Time, as ever, will tell definitively, and reward and punish accordingly.
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