Aviation sector faces hiring headache

• Executives at this year’s Farnborough Airshow are concerned about shortages.
• Hiring mechanics has become more difficult since the global financial crisis.
• Montreal’s ÉNA aerospace centre is down 20% from 2019 levels.

As COVID-19 devastated aviation, Christophe Gagnon, a 21-year-old student of avionics, gave thought to dropping out of school. However, he persisted, and today the industry is in critical need of more people like him to keep planes in the air.

Repair facilities and suppliers are vying for students like Gagnon, who received numerous employment offers while still attending the École nationale d’aérotechnique (ÉNA) in Quebec, Canada’s aerospace heartland, two years after lockdowns almost brought the aviation sector to a halt.

The employment surge shows that the air travel industry is recovering more quickly than anticipated, but it also foreshadows a coming labour shortage that is driving up costs and could lengthen maintenance periods as the sector makes a clumsy comeback from its greatest crisis. Executives at this year’s largest aerospace expo, the Farnborough Airshow in London, which begins on July 18, are concerned about shortages.

Executives are tense about sourcing mechanics even though a lack of airline cabin crew has grabbed headlines due to recent flight cancellations. According to Naveo Consultancy, spending on aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul is anticipated to total about $84 billion this year.

“We are having a lot of trouble. Abdol Moabery, CEO of GA Telesis LLC, a commercial aerospace company, said, “We can’t acquire enough people.

Despite providing raises of up to 10%, Telesis is putting more effort into employee retention as rising housing costs in the company’s South Florida location prompt some employees to consider offers in more cheaper places.

For aircraft manufacturers like Boeing Co., the high-margin services sector is appealing as air travel recovers. The American aircraft manufacturer predicted that during the following two decades, the world’s aviation industry would require 626,000 new maintenance technicians as opposed to 612,000 pilots.

According to executives, a lack of aviation maintenance engineers, who verify an aircraft’s airworthiness, might cause flights to be cancelled or appointment times for repairs to be delayed.

COVID-

A pre-pandemic trend of workers retiring or migrating to other industries, including the automotive industry, was hurried up by 19 job cuts, and schools are not graduating enough students to replace them.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the typical FAA-certified mechanic is 53 years old, or 11 years older than the average American worker. According to the Aircraft Technician Education Council, enrollment at U.S. aviation maintenance technician schools increased 0.55 percent in 2020 after COVID-19 struck, down from 13 percent in 2019. (ATEC).

In comparison to the pre-crisis period, hiring mechanics has become noticeably more challenging, according to Frank Bayer, head of human resources at Lufthansa Technik AG (LUFT.UL).

When commercial aviation suffered during the pandemic and there was a labour shortage, Canada’s Cascade Aerospace, which fixes military aircraft, could hire about 100 people annually, according to business executive Scott Cadwell. For seasoned workers, “it’s crickets out there right now.”

IMAGE REDUXING

In order to draw in more students, the trade organisation Aero Montreal in Quebec is organising its first industry-led campaign this autumn using both traditional and digital media as well as influencers.

For Montreal, the third-largest aerospace centre in the world, enrollment at ÉNA is down 20% from 2019 levels.

Aero Montreal President Suzanne Benoit forewarned that her company would be unable to supply its products in two or three years if nothing changed and young people continued to show little interest in the industry.

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According to a Wells Fargo survey of companies that provide aviation maintenance, repair, and overhaul services, the labour scarcity got worse in July, with 60% of those surveyed reporting that it had a “significant impact” on their business, up from 35% in the previous survey.

In contrast to pilots, who can make up to six figures per year, mechanics and other professions typically have late shifts and lower compensation. The average starting hourly wage for a mechanic in 2021 was $22.36 according to an ATEC poll.

According to Alex Dichter, who oversees the transport, logistics, and infrastructure group at consulting firm McKinsey, mechanics require a major image makeover.

“If you were to survey high school students and ask them what they want to be if they didn’t want to be physicians, attorneys, or businesses… Few young people express interest in becoming mechanics, he said. “There’s some catching up to accomplish on that front,”

Both Lufthansa and Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd (STEG.SI) claimed they were enhancing trade compensation.

In order to keep up with the demand, Constant Aviation, which maintains private planes, recently increased technician pay by 10% and announced $15,000 signing bonuses for qualified veterans.

According to Kent Stauffer, the Cleveland-based company’s chief safety officer, booking maintenance slots, which formerly required a few weeks’ notice, must now be done six months in advance.

Stauffer claimed that by not paying more, the industry did itself harm.

“Now everything is catching up to us.”

WANTED: STUDENTS

By 2028, an estimate from the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace predicts a shortage of 58,000 trained professionals. Nevertheless, because to capacity issues and low completion rates, institutions that teach maintenance, avionics, and structures only produce around 25% of the required number of graduates.

Robert Donald, the council’s executive director, stated that “business needs to build its own training programmes” because institutions “do not have the capacity to train what industry needs.”

According to Grant Stevens, chief corporate services officer of KF Aerospace in Canada, which performs heavy maintenance and upgrades for commercial aviation, the company is currently tripling the number of new hires it trains from beginning.

A younger generation of workers is cognizant of this necessity.

Frederik Gagnon, who is not related to Christophe Gagnon but attended the same school for aircraft maintenance technology, said he had no issue obtaining work, just as Quebec native and ÉNA student Christophe Gagnon had multiple job offers.

A job interview came about less than a day after Frederik Gagnon submitted his application.

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