diff --git a/ci-operator/step-registry/gather/aws-console/gather-aws-console-commands.sh b/ci-operator/step-registry/gather/aws-console/gather-aws-console-commands.sh
index d8a62eab6024..d97deeeb59cc 100755
--- a/ci-operator/step-registry/gather/aws-console/gather-aws-console-commands.sh
+++ b/ci-operator/step-registry/gather/aws-console/gather-aws-console-commands.sh
@@ -35,5 +35,6 @@ REGION="$(jq -r .aws.region "${SHARED_DIR}/metadata.json")"
 cat "${TMPDIR}/node-provider-IDs.txt" | sort | uniq | while read -r INSTANCE_ID
 do
 	echo "Gathering console logs for ${INSTANCE_ID}"
-	aws --region "${REGION}" ec2 get-console-output --instance-id "${INSTANCE_ID}" --output text > "${ARTIFACT_DIR}/${INSTANCE_ID}" || echo "Failed to gather console logs"
+	PYTHONIOENCODING=UTF-8:backslashreplace aws --region "${REGION}" ec2 get-console-output --instance-id "${INSTANCE_ID}" --output text > "${ARTIFACT_DIR}/${INSTANCE_ID}" &
+	wait "$!"
 done