What is GAAST?
What is GAAST doing?
- Bringing together states, regulators and industry to pool resources and collaborate on workforce challenges through the Global Aviation and Aerospace Skills Taskforce.
Why are we doing it?
- Workforce challenges are threatening the resilience of the system now and in the longer term to adapt to growing demand, new technologies and decarbonisation. International co-ordination to recognise the issue and subsequent action, including to support inclusion, will more effectively address workforce resilience.
How will we achieve it?
- Build a repository of best practice and case studies for the attraction and retention of skilled talent
- Draw on examples through a global community
- Demonstrate the work of the GAAST at the ICAO 42nd Assembly in 2025
- Contribute to the ICAO Next Generation of Aviation Professionals programme
- Industry, states and regulators continuing to work in collaboration to more effectively address the issue.
Core Objectives
- Sharing of best practices and experiences
- Creation of catalogues of measures for implementation by States and Industry
- Broaden the reach of actions taken by individual actors to increase their impact
- Enhance collaboration and coordination of programmes and measures
- Contribute to the work of ICAO’s Next Generation of Aviation Professionals Programme
Taskforce Membership
Taskforce Structure
ICCAIA is proud to Chair the GAAST, alongside the Vice Chair from the UK Department for Transport. The Steering Group is made up from States, Industry Organizations (as well as a representative from their membership), and the leads from each workstream. For further information, please contact secretariat@gaast.aero
Next Steps
Following two productive initial meetings - the first one in Brazil hosted by ANAC in April 2024, and the second one in Abu Dhabi hosted by GCAA in November 2024 - the taskforce held its third meeting from 28 April to 1 May 2025 in Montréal, generously hosted by ACI World.
This meeting showcased the significant progress achieved through the collective efforts of all members and provided an opportunity to advance discussions on building a sustainable aviation workforce. Key outcomes included agreement on the taskforce’s approach for ICAO’s 42nd Assembly (A42), a full review of deliverables and progress by workstream, a brainstorming session on the value proposition for the aviation and aerospace sectors, development of an outreach strategy to gather more resources for the repository, website development and content review, and the creation of materials to populate the knowledge repository.
Next steps include populating the repository with materials from all workstreams, the soft launch of the website (Phase 1), and continued collaboration with ICAO’s Next Generation of Aviation Professionals (NGAP) programme. The repository will serve as a global resource for States and industry, featuring case studies, examples, best practices, and checklists to support the attraction and retention of skilled talent across all areas of the sector.