What do you do if you're laid off in Airline Management and need to find new job opportunities?

Is not a good situation to digest, and may create you some anxiety. But the first thing you must understand is the reason behind the lay off. If you have been led by a good leader it will provide you a constructive feedback. From there you may have some hints of the areas you must work and improve. If you have been led my mediocre leaders, who are providing non constructive feedback or no feedback at all, I would say be happy of getting out of there! At high levels company politics play a big part in the organization, and you will not find always the right people at the right place. It's more about friendship and trust.

Take advantage of severance: Utilize severance to financially support yourself while seeking new opportunities. Update resume & network: Highlight transferable skills from airline management and leverage your network for job leads. Consider other aviation roles: Explore opportunities in airport operations, logistics, or regulatory agencies. Broaden your search: Think about transferable skills for project management, operations, or customer service in other industries. Upskill or reskill: Consider online courses or certifications to enhance your skillset for a new career path.

Best way to fast track to another job is to work your network. First level, will be family and friends. Let them know you are looking for new opportunities and help you circulate your CV in their organizations. Second level, customers, supplier and competitors. Let them know you are free and you are looking for new challenges. Some may know you and how you work so would be easier to land into a new role. Third level, ex managers and ex companies. If you did not burn bridges with previous employers, is time to reach them out again, and let them know you are more prepared than before and you can add value to their organizations

Do not work with options within the sector only, aviation has a lot of cross skills with other sectors. Check the whole ecosystem and see what can be transferred in terms of skills and knowledge. I would start the exercise from a more general perspective to a more detailed one. You can start with logistics and supply chain, then look other areas like travel agents, sales, services.

Always stay positive, the job market is hard and you will not always get the position you are looking for. In these days, HR departments are not like before, they are not bothering if you are not the right person, practices like never responding, driving you through lengthy processes to tell you are overqualified or just radio silence after a number of interviews is how it works. But you must take this as a blessing, imagine working for this kind of organizations that they don't care about people, despite of publicizing they do... Is a matter of time if you are consistent to find the right job. Keep networking in LinkedIn, show part of your skills in here writing and sharing with others, you never know who may be interested in hiring you