The Aviation Industry Must Address the Plight of the Mechanic

The effects of the pandemic, coupled with inflation, and lost or slowed wage gains, sounds an alarm that should be heeded.

Michael Wildes

Thursday, April 21, 2022 at 07:58 AM ET

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A lack of qualified airframe and powerplant (A&P) technicians could halt the complete rebound of the aviation industry. [File photo: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

Despite rebounding commercial air travel, the aviation industry faces a critical and growing shortage of qualified airframe and powerplant (A&P) technicians.
A key factor in this shortage is the stagnation of technician wages, which have not kept pace with rising inflation, leading to a significant wage deficit.
High education costs for A&P programs, particularly at more expensive private institutions where most students enroll, combined with student loan debt, further deter new talent.
These economic pressures are causing a substantial number of aviation maintenance school graduates to take jobs outside the aviation sector, threatening the industry's full recovery and future stability.

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A report from the Aviation Technician Education Council (ATEC), a group that tracks the talent pipeline for aviation technicians, estimates that commercial air transport passenger traffic will rebound between 2023 and 2024. Recent TSA passenger data corroborates that, showing that as of April 19 this year, the 1.9 million passengers that passed through checkpoints across the U.S. represented 88 percent of people who traveled at the same time in 2019, when travel was at an all-time high.

Yet, amid the rebound in travel, unless the industry finds a way to address one particular problem, an insufficient talent pool of qualified airframe and powerplant (A&P) technicians could halt the complete rebound.