Airlines and the broader U.S. civil aviation industry are hoping to stave off a developing shortage of aircraft maintenance workers before it causes substantial disruptions to travelers.
"The data is clear that this is coming, and it has the ability to hit the whole industry like a freight train," said Faye Malarkey Black, president of the Regional Airline Association.
Boeing predicts that North America will need 193,000 new civil aircraft technicians through 2038, the large majority of whom would service commercial aircraft. According to a 2017 forecast by the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, demand for aircraft technicians will begin outstripping supply in 2023. By 2027, the imbalance will reach 9%.
A February Government Accountability Office (GAO) report also painted a concerning picture. The FAA, the reports stated, certified some 8,600 people annually as either aviation mechanics or repairmen between 2014 and 2018. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that annual average job openings in the field through 2028 will be 11,800.
Those numbers must be considered with nuance, however. Technicians, especially at small repair shops, aren't always certified. Conversely, the aircraft industry loses some newly certified technicians and mechanics to other lines of work, including auto repair, the shale industry and construction equipment maintenance, to name a few.
One thing that's clear, said Christian Klein, vice president of operations for the Aeronautical Repair Station Association, is that repair shops have begun feeling the crunch.
A survey the trade group will complete this month is thus far suggesting that 52% of shops are taking longer to complete work for customers than if they were fully staffed, and 27% are turning away work because they don't have enough people.
The association's 400 members include airlines, training academies and manufacturers, though they predominantly comprise aircraft repair shops with 25 or fewer employees.
Nevertheless, those small shops do plenty of work for commercial carriers. A 2016 GAO report found that contracted maintenance spending among 28 selected U.S. airlines ranged from 58% to 64% of their total maintenance spending.
Industry experts cite various reasons for the approaching shortage, chief among them the aging aviation-technician workforce. As of December 2018, the median age of certified aircraft mechanics and repairmen in the U.S. was 54, according to the GAO. Just 19% of the workforce was 38 or younger. In its 2018 Pipeline Report, the Aviation Technician Education Council found that the 30% of the workforce is at or near retirement age.
Aircraft technician jobs offer acceptable starting wages and plenty of growth potential. The council's newest Pipeline Report, which is to be published this month, will show that starting hourly rates for certified FAA mechanics average $21.54, up $1.84 from the past year, executive director Crystal Maguire said. At a hearing of the House Aviation subcommittee last month, Delta managing director of technical operations Joe McDermott testified that the airline's certified mechanics can earn a salary of more than $100,000 after seven years, not including profit sharing.
Further, heavy demand gives job seekers a leg up. Some 70% of aircraft maintenance students already have a job secured when they graduate, Maguire said. Still, the 2018 Pipeline Report found that just half of the available spots at aviation technician schools were filled.
McDermott, echoing others, said the societal shift toward college education and away from the trades is a key factor in recruitment difficulties.
"Unfortunately, the perceived stigma associated with technical education discourages young people from pursuing skill-based training," McDermott said.
Industry representatives said that other recruitment challenges include a lack of awareness about the profession among young people, entry barriers due to education costs and inadequate outreach to women and minorities.
Just 3% of aviation maintenance certificate holders are women, according to the GAO.
In some ways, the technician shortage echoes the pilot shortage that the airline industry is combating. But unlike the pilot shortage, which has already caused closures at a few regional airlines and forced stronger regional carriers to cut back flight offerings, the technician issue has yet to have a profound effect on operations.
The Regional Airline Association's Black said, "I'm not aware of any airlines that aren't able to staff up today. The lesson learned there is you have to prepare early."
Likewise, Kirk Thornburg, vice president of technical operations for Spirit, said that the discount carrier has yet to encounter a situation in which it couldn't hire according to needs or find a repair shop for specialized work.
But with the shortage looming, Spirit is now in the second year of mentoring apprentices in partnership with nine aviation technician schools. Under the program, Spirit hires 32 apprentices from partner schools each year, who get paid for hands-on experience at the airline.
Spirit made the move, Thornburg said, "in response to what we saw was going to be a very competitive market for the technician talent."
Other airlines are also increasing their outreach efforts or sweetening hiring offers. In December, for example, the regional carrier ExpressJet, which operates United Express flights, rolled out a signing bonus for maintenance technicians of up to $18,000.
And in September, the regional carrier Republic Airways began the first airline-owned technician apprenticeship program in the U.S. The program, which is operated by Republic's Lift Academy, pays students $14 per hour as they go through 30 months of training, receiving hands-on experience with Republic's fleet of Embraer regional jets.
Carriers, trade organizations and technician academies are also looking for federal help.
The first dollars are expected to come soon under a five-year, $25 million grant program that Congress passed in 2018 for the purpose of recruiting and training aircraft technicians. The program is funded for $5 million this fiscal year, Klein said, but it still must be developed by the FAA.
The industry is also calling on the FAA to move forward more expediently with a revision of the antiquated aircraft mechanic certification curriculum, which has been in effect since 1962. At the House Aviation subcommittee hearing, FAA senior advisor for aviation workforce outreach Kate Lang estimated the revision, long in the works, would be finalized in October.