Dear colleagues,
It was a pleasure to speak at last months’ British Aviation Group (BAG) annual dinner on behalf of Aerobility.
At the annual dinner we introduced the Equal Skies Charter and invited all aviation and aerospace businesses to take 10 minutes to help us change the world.
The Equal Skies Charter aims to see more people with disabilities working in the aviation and aerospace industry which will increase the amount of lived disability experience in the sector. This knowledge can then be used to help to improve the experiences of people with disabilities in the future, something that is timely as we begin to look at future flight.
Our charter is a collaborative endeavour and members already include Aerobility, NATS, Bristow, 2 Excel, London Biggin Hill Airport, The University of West London, UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Saxon Air, Blackbushe Airport and Evenbreak.
I know many of you may be asking yourself ‘what’s the point?’ and this is a valid question. However, if you think that hiring disabled people is ‘just a nice thing to do’ you would be wrong. Hiring disabled people will be beneficial to your business for two reasons:
- People with disabilities are overcoming challenges and issues every day making them natural innovators and advocates.
- People with disabilities often have a desire to work to the highest standards making them dedicated and hard working individuals.
At the BAG Annual Dinner the Equal Skies Charter launched its’ first research project which aims to give an overview of disability employment in the industry and we are asking organisations of all sizes to contribute. This will allow us to gather data to help understand the potential barriers currently faced by disabled people working within the sector and organisations looking to hire people with a disability. This area is under-researched making this project groundbreaking. The questionnaire only takes 10 minutes to complete and in that time you will be helping us to change the world.
To contribute to our research please visit https://equalskiescharter.org/questionnaire and please do help us to spread the word. After all we can only change the world by working together.
Kind regards,
Harvey
