Raghoonundun ‘Birdy’ Gunputh

Raghoonundun ‘Birdy’ Gunputh,
Product Manager Safety Training, Lufthansa Aviation Training

Raghoonundun Gunputh (Nickname: Birdy) is the Product Manager Safety Training at Lufthansa Aviation Training, where his main area of responsibility is to manage the product portfolio for SEP, CRM, Security and First Aid training.

He holds a degree in Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Open University UK.

In his past 33 years’ experience within the airline industry, Birdy started as a cabin crew on long and short haul and afterwards spent 24 years in the field of safety training. During this period, he gained the competencies as a SEP, CRM and Security Trainer and took over the role of Manager Crew Safety Training at different airlines for 19 years before joining Lufthansa Aviation Training. Within this journey, he has been involved in enhancing the designing and delivery of safety training in an ever-changing operational environment.

As a member if the ICAO Cabin Safety Group, Birdy extends his engagement in the field of safety and training in the airline industry.

His latest projects have been to introduce VR Technology at Lufthansa Aviation Training for cabin crew and explore means of re-shaping future training through ongoing projects to deal with the ever-changing nature of airline operations.

Training Paradigm Shift: Innovative Philosophy for Competency-Driven Outcomes

Ongoing reflection upon how to cope with the aftermaths of the Covid-19 pandemic not only urges us to find new cost effective means of training to sustain financial pressure on airlines. Taking a holistic view to the whole situation and the environment in which we operate, we feel a need to question existing training practices. To which extent, is the focus on the key purpose of cabin crew training in maintaining and developing competencies for coping with predictable and unforeseen situations? How far does compliance and test accomplishment overweigh the objectives behind a prescribed training?

On our roadmap of continuously improving training at Lufthansa Aviation Training, we are exploring future-proof strategies to re-design and test new training approaches for our airline customers. As we thrive to implement innovative solutions, we also look deeper into the most suitable practices for the best deliverables: competency-driven outcomes.

In this presentation, we will look at use-cases and share our experience on how to integrate knowledge, skills and attitudes to gain the competencies required by cabin crew to perform their tasks in managing safety from daily normal operations to unforeseeable emergencies. Our aim is to discuss innovative philosophy to improve Return on Investment, increase trainee engagement and deliver effective training outcomes.

In a new age of digital learning, technological breakthrough, economic changes and trainees’ increased expectation, it becomes evident that innovative training practices and suitable technology must be considered to achieve a state of the art training that leads to successful performance on the job. Our focus should be to align training and assessment with competencies needed by cabin crew to execute their tasks accordingly and manage human error to improve overall crew performance. Let us discuss promising training methods and changes that would support us on our journey in re-building a viable training system.