Professionals that the UNAH must train to satisfy the labor demand of the Palmerola International Airport

Abstract

The opening of Palmerola International Airport, scheduled for 2021, poses challenges that cannot be postponed for Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras, due to the demands and opportunities that arise from this important infrastructure project, which must be analyzed with a strategic approach that allows this institution to make decisions aimed at solving problems and contribute to the integral development of the country, as established by its constitutional mandate. In this sense, one of the most important challenges for the university is to strengthen its academic offer to satisfy the labor demand in the central region of the country. The research aims to quantify the number of employees required by the company Palmerola International Airport, to know the human competencies and technical academic required, the careers and the academic degree of the professionals that the university must train, to respond to the labor demand of this company; concessionaire responsible for guaranteeing the operation of this airport. In this study is implemented a mixed approach, non-experimental, transversal of descriptive type. The information was collected by conducting an in-depth interview with specialists in aeronautics, operational safety, human resources and academic management, with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire. It reveals, as main findings, that the concessionaire company requires 126 professionals to operate the Airport, in its first stage, highlighting that most of them do not require an academic profile of a master’s degree. A relevant conclusion indicates that UNAH is taking decisions to strengthen its academic offer, specifically; in the aeronautical sciences two careers have been approved, which are expected to be executed in a short term.