What does the future hold for AMT's?
FAA Feedback
Thin Gray Line
The industry needs new mechanics
By Bill O'Brien
January/February 2005
This year I was honored to speak at 30 FAA IA meetings to 4,000+
mechanics, in cities that are as geographically diverse as Fairbanks,
Alaska, is from Lakeland, Florida. Some of the IAs at these meetings
told me they only came to the meeting just to be picked on by me. While
that kind of false flattery warms my soul, the real truth is that the
vast majority of mechanics would listen to a mime for eight hours to
renew their IA rather than take the FAA's IA test all over again.
Even in cities 5,000 miles apart, one universal fact becomes readily
apparent. The gray heads in the audience outnumbered the dark heads 10
to 1. Are we dying as a profession I wondered as I watched the thin gray
line file in after a break. "Where are the younger mechanics to carry on
once we retire?"
Wise men who have studied organizational design, have figured that the
ideal mix of experience and talent in any professional field is
one-third master journeymen, one-third able journeymen, and one-third
apprentices. This mix is vital for a single organization or an entire
career field to sustain itself. While, I am never mistaken for a wise
man, based on what my eyes tell me, I estimate that the mix of active
mechanics working in general aviation is 80 percent senior journeymen,
15 percent able journeymen, and 5 percent apprentice mechanics. At 61, I
count myself in the 80 percent group.
America, we have a problem. In less than five to seven years we will
lose 80 percent of our most experienced mechanics in all sectors of
aviation maintenance because 40 years have passed and it is getting
close to the time for the Viet Nam era mechanics to retire. Who is going
to replace them? If we can no longer maintain what we build, how long
can our industry, our profession, and our nation last?
* What happened?*
What has happened to our maintenance profession in the last 15 years,
you ask? Who is to blame? The simple answer is the marketplace!!!!
Our aviation maintenance industry's volatility began shortly after the
Air Line Deregulation Act of 1978. But, way back then, our industry
average age for an IA was 39 and A&P schools were turning out 7,000 plus
mechanics a year. From 1979 through 1987, we still had recessions and
job scares but the industry kind of coasted along, feeding off of the
false memory of security of now defunct Civil Aeronautic Board economic
protectionism. That momentum came to a halt in the late '80s when the
first of several large air carriers went under; names like Pan American,
Eastern, Midway, Peoples Express, and New York Air, ceased to be. From
1988 to 1991 airlines crashed due to a whole host of new market factors
and the inability to adapt to changing times. As each one died, they
collectively dumped a surplus of 15,000 experienced mechanics into an
already crowded workplace. These well-trained mechanics easily filled
the gap in aviation maintenance positions caused by the Korea-era
trained mechanics who were retiring.
In the years 1992 through 1994, large numbers of G.I. mechanics added to
the surplus work force because of the downsizing of the military after
the Gulf War. Not surprising, the supply exceeded demand, and with the
cut back in commercial flying during and after the Gulf War, mechanic
jobs were hard to find. Not only jobs were scarce but wages for
mechanics stayed about the same for most of GA while the rest of the
industry's pay scale climbed.
This cold economic fact was not lost on the high school seniors in 1994
that were looking to enter one of the many technical fields available.
Aviation still carried with it the promised magic of flight, and the
added allure of working on multimillion dollar, high-tech aircraft.
However, it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that money
makes the world go around, and these high school kids knew at the time
there were no jobs in aviation maintenance so they chose other
professions in CFI (callous free industries).
As bad as these early '90s marketplace roller coaster rides the
mechanics were on, even more severe was the pain the Part 147 schools
had to endure. Unlike the 200 hours, required to train a commercial
pilot, it takes between 1,900 to 2,200 hours to train a new mechanic. So
even in good times, a Part 147 A&P school is always 18 months behind the
demands of the marketplace. So, after the end of Gulf War, and a slowing
economy, the majority of Part 147 schools started to cut back on classes
and instructors, due to low student enrollment.
These years, 1992 through 1996, marked the first serious decline in the
number of new A&P student starts and in my opinion it was the beginning
of the longest decline in the numbers of younger mechanics entering into
our career field.
Around the last quarter of 1996, the aviation industry took off, when
our economy bounced back. New start-up carriers were being added, oil
was $24 a barrel, and the surplus of mechanics of the early '90s worked
itself down into a deficit. Now, the Part 147 schools were hard pressed
to fill the demand for more mechanics. With the industry moving again
neither the Part 147 schools or the military could fill the demand for
mechanics overnight, so outsourcing heavy maintenance to other countries
became an option for the air carriers. This new source of cheap,
well-trained labor abroad further lowered the demand for new homegrown
mechanics.
* 9-11 and the fear of flying*
Next bump in the road came on 9-11 when the flying public, watching the
destruction of the NY twin towers, no longer thought of commercial and
general aviation as a transportation system, but now those same aircraft
were seen as weapons of mass destruction. Almost immediately the
industry experienced the loss of public confidence and the fear of
flying went to a whole new level. Shortly thereafter our recovery was
stalled when our industry fortunes were inversely proportional to the
soaring price of oil. So for the last three years, the airline industry
has been experiencing the economic volatility worthy of a Mexican TV
melodrama.
* So what are we going to do about it?*
First, what is the present status of the maintenance industry? My
research says that corporate aviation is by far the healthiest with
respect to decent jobs and wages. Next in line are the large and middle
size repair stations, followed by the regional airlines, then the large
airlines, and last is general aviation. While many of the large
established airlines pay more than the corporations or repair stations,
I placed them next to last because of the current job insecurity and
latest reductions in pay. But even the healthiest organization will be
fighting hard to fill mechanic positions within the next five to seven
years.
So what do we fix first? Answer: Fix the problem that is common to all.
That problem is the lack of new mechanics entering our career field. But
we must address the causes behind the problem such as the decline of
number of Part 147 schools. We have a total of approximately 172 Part
147 schools. I say approximately because some are operating at minimum
capacity. Most of the ones that are in trouble are part of
state-operated community colleges. The bean counters at the schools run
the math and correctly figure that costs of operating with low student
enrollments exceed the benefits and based on the math, they either start
to close down the school or reconfigure it to teach other technical
subjects. They fail to see the long-term effects of their actions on our
industry. Each time we lose a school, we bleed a little.
The warm and fuzzy folks might say: "Oh, so we lose a school or two, so
what, we can count on ex-military mechanics to take up the slack after
they come back from the Iraqi war." Well you can forget about it. The
military is not in a position to save our bacon again. They have their
own mechanic retention problems. I pulled up a news clip off the
Internet that said on Jan. 30 of last year the Blue Angels, the Navy's
flight demonstration team, announced there was a shortage of qualified
applications for mechanics for its 2005 season. That one sentence says
it all. Plus every school we lose, we lose $3 million in aviation
education infrastructure because it takes approximately $3 million to
start up a new Part 147 school.
So now what? I am reminded of what former Speaker of the House and
fellow Irishman, Tip O'Neill said: "All politics is local." What he
meant was, that before an issue becomes a national problem it must first
be identified as a local problem and receive local support to solve that
problem. Once identified, then that problem is moved up through the
system to the city, state, or federal levels of government where the
problem can be addressed.
For example, we have the results of a hundred different studies
performed by industry and the federal government that identified the
shortages of aviation mechanics as far back as the DOT 1993 Blue Ribbon
Study titled: Pilot and Maintenance Technicians for the Twenty-First
Century." That report and every report since stated the same conclusion,
that the effects of a shortage of mechanics on a multibillion dollar
aviation industry are incalculable.
But the word "incalculable" is just too hard a concept for the local
citizen to understand, and they did not "see" a problem, so the warnings
went unheeded. However, if in a year or two, down at the local airport,
there are daily incidents of regional jets that cannot make a flight
because there is no mechanic to fix a grounding item, then
"incalculable" becomes a real word and a local problem to the 50 people
who missed their connecting flights. Or worst yet, the word
"incalculable" might be a smoking hole in the ground because the flight
was made despite that the needed maintenance was not performed.
But, the timeline to solve this problem is short. So we need to get both
local and national industry attention on this coming shortage of
maintenance personnel and not wait for a smoking hole. At the local
level, I urge the alumni of A&P schools to support their schools with
monetary gifts and other offers of support. For those schools that are
in serious trouble, the alumni can write or visit their local, city, and
state representatives and educate them on the importance of aviation
mechanics and the schools that train them.
But don't stop at just the bureaucrats, each alumni mechanic needs to
educate local repair stations, airlines, and FBOs that they will be in
for even tougher times ahead when there are no toolboxes on the hangar
floor. We must convince them all that Part 147 schools are economic
growth poles that serve as a lightning rod that attracts new industry
and growth into an area.
For you old gray heads that are semi-retired, here's an idea. Why not
offer your services to high school shop teachers pro bono as a technical
assistant and show the younger kids what aircraft mechanics can do.
Maybe you can even convince the wood shop instructor to build an
airplane as a class project instead of making a set of matching salt and
pepper shakers.
We as individual mechanics have to get one on one with the young. We
have to show them the magic behind this profession of ours. Let's show
them how a trained mechanic can take ordinary materials like steel,
wood, and aluminum and make and maintain a machine that can fly!
At the national level, the industry trade and membership organizations
that represent maintenance, pilots, FBO, corporate, repair stations, and
regional and national air carriers better start to address this coming
mechanic shortage as soon as possible. May I recommend at least a
preliminary meeting to explore possible solutions to the mechanic
shortage to take place at the Aviation Industry Week Convention, in Las
Vegas, Nevada, that runs from March 8 to 10. At least three issues
should be addressed at this first meeting. First how do we attract young
people to our profession? Second, how do we keep Part 147 schools in
operation? Third, how do we retain good mechanics? I will also be in Las
Vegas in March giving FAA seminars at the convention. I am ready to
help. Will I see you there? Better hurry, the thin, gray line is getting
smaller.
/ Bill O'Brien is the national resource specialist for the Federal
Aviation Administration in Washington, D.C./
QUESTION:
Why go to school to become an Aircraft Mechanic when other schooled professions pay better, are more stable, and the hours of work and days off are consistent?
