With vaccination programmes showing some early signs of success, governments are beginning to signal easing of travel restrictions later this year, prompting operators and Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) to start gearing up for a return to ‘new normal’ operations. With this comes a multitude of complex and competing challenges across every aspect of the air transport system. Industry restart requires an enormous collaborative effort, and to that end, it’s encouraging to see industry organisations and regulatory authorities taking positive steps to analyse the safety implications and manage the associated risks. Amongst the resulting guidance, however, one small but important safety issue that appears to have received little attention is that of loss of language proficiency.

“Use it or lose it”, as the old adage goes. This loss of proficiency, known as ‘language attrition’, can occur in a number of circumstances one of which, as classified by Van Els¹, is the loss of an L2² in an L1³ environment, for example, a French pilot based in Paris who works for an airline where French is the lingua-franca and who, until March 2020, spoke English regularly on international routes.

Since March 2020, many personnel have not been on active duty. This ‘extended period of low recency is both long and affects far more people and organisations at the same time than ever before’⁴. Furthermore, given the widespread restrictions on international air travel, of those who have remained on active duty, many have been working domestic routes/traffic, with increased L1 radio communications and reduced opportunity to maintain operational proficiency in English. Without the continued exposure to aviation English previously satisfied by work-related interactions, some degree of language attrition, or ‘the loss of language skills by those who have studied and then discontinued the use of a second language’⁵, is inevitable.

There are many theories on how language attrition happens and to what extent. Some suggest that if a language is thoroughly acquired then attrition is no longer likely. However, the reality is that ‘whereas native speakers can be assumed to learn the native language perfectly, L2 learners show a wide range of achievement’⁶. This would suggest that aviation professionals who hold language proficiency endorsements at ICAO level 4 or 5 are more likely than not to have been negatively affected by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Going back to industry guidance, the Safely Navigating the Industry Restart⁷ series published by IATA provides detailed guidance to assist aircraft operators and their supply chain partners in the effort to meet regulatory requirements to resume and maintain operations throughout the recovery. Bulletin 3⁸ addresses the flight crew and ATCO interface which includes pilot-ATCO communication. The bulletin points to the fact that flight crew may have diminished familiarity with phraseology, and highlights the importance of checking, confirming and clarifying to achieve mutual understanding, especially around clearances, acknowledging that while this may lead to frequency congestion, the congestion is expected to be temporary as personnel settle back into normal operations. The bulletin emphasises the importance of adherence to standard phraseology, but falls short of mentioning the ‘plain language’ skills which go beyond standard phraseology that pilots and controllers may need to achieve these communicative aims. Arguably, this ‘plain’ aviation English is more likely to have suffered from attrition than standard phraseology.

More recently, EASA published a review of aviation safety issues arising from the Covid 19 pandemic. This comprehensive review is both essential and timely, covering many issues from returning mothballed equipment to service and reopening aerodromes and air traffic services, to managing rapidly changing aeronautical information and tackling skills degradation and a lack of training and recency among personnel. Under the section which tackles human factors, the review acknowledges that ‘as proficiency decays, accuracy, speed and ultimately effectiveness of task performance will also deteriorate, such that more effort is required to perform tasks and resulting in a loss of spare mental capacity’⁹. ‘Proficiency’ here relates to wider operational skills and competencies rather than language per se. But a loss of familiarity with previously well-rehearsed routines now demands higher conscious effort. This, coupled with communication in a second language magnifies the cognitive demand on pilots and controllers. Therefore, maintenance of aviation language proficiency is, in the uncertain and unpredictable context of industry restart, more important now than ever.

What may be of additional concern in Europe is the fact that at the beginning of the pandemic, due to COVID-related restrictions and health and safety measures, EASA Member States began making comprehensive use of regulations for issuing exemptions from requirements of aircrew regulations¹⁰. Under current EASA regulations, continuous granting of exemptions may be considered for many aircrew regulations, including FCL.055 pertaining to language proficiency. In Europe, where the re-evaluation interval for language proficiency endorsements at ICAO level 4 has already been extended beyond the ICAO recommended practice from 3 to 4 years¹¹, such exemptions, if granted, could result in long periods during which aviation language proficiency remains unchecked.

We’re no experts in risk assessment and safety management, and would never claim to be. We understand the financial imperative for a quick return to operations, and that there are unprecedented challenges to be addressed. From our niche corner of the industry, we can only imagine the sheer complexity associated with restarting the aviation system safely, and rebuilding capacity in line with the hoped-for return in passenger numbers. But as our work involves supporting operations personnel with the development and maintenance of critical aviation English skills before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, we feel obliged to raise the issue of language attrition as a small but nevertheless important safety concern.

As we move towards a return to ‘new normal’ operations, we urge:

All personnel to communicate with a heightened awareness of reduced language proficiency and the potential for misunderstanding;
All expert level personnel to communicate with increased care and sensitivity when speaking to less proficient colleagues;
All personnel to communicate with increased sensitivity to the challenges, both professional and personal, that colleagues may face;
All personnel to be aware that colleagues may be wearing PPE which can reduce the effectiveness of both verbal and non-verbal communication;
Operators and ANSPs to consider providing refresher aviation English training to their personnel before they return to work;
All personnel to adhere to standard phraseology at all times.

¹Van Els, T. (1986) An overview of European research in language attrition in Weltens, B., de Bot, K. & T. Van Els, T. (Eds.) Language attrition in progress. Dordrecht: Foris. pp. 3-18.

²A second or subsequent language, consciously learnt, that is not the speaker’s mother tongue.

³The language a speaker is exposed to from birth, their native language or mother tongue.

⁴Franklin, J. (2020) Skills and Knowledge Degradation retrieved 5th May 2021 here.

⁵Lambert, R.D. & Freed, B.F. (1982). The loss of language skills Newbury House Publishers, Rowley, Massachusetts.

⁶Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Stringer, D. (2010). Variables in Second Language Attrition Studies in Second Language Acquisition 32 pp. 1—45.

⁷IATA: Safely Restarting the Aviation Industry.

⁸IATA (2021) Safely Navigating the Industry Restart: Bulletin 3: Flight Crew and ATCO Interface during Restart retrieved 6th May 2021 here.

⁹EASA (2021) Review of Aviation Safety Issues Arising from the COVID-19 Pandemic (Version 2) section 5.1, retrieved on 6th May 2021 here.

¹⁰EASA (2021) Guidelines for the continued granting of exemptions in accordance with Article 71 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 (The Basic Regulation) to aircrew as per Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011), Regulation (EU) 2018/395 and Regulation (EU) 2018/1976 retrieved on 6th May 2021 here.

¹¹EASA made this change, and it is contained in the EU Regulation 1178/2011, p.12.