A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives May 8, 2018, to establish an aviation maintenance workforce development pilot program.
Introduced by a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers, including Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.), Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), and Rep. Brenda Lawrence, (D-Mich.) H.R. 5701 is designed to encourage more men and women to pursue careers in aviation.
“H.R. 5701 would incentivize businesses, labor organizations, schools, and governmental entities to work together to pursue strategies to develop technical talent and encourage workers to pursue aviation careers,” Graves said. “Studies show that in just four years, we will not have enough aviation maintenance technicians to meet the demand for those services and skills in the aviation industry.”
The bill was quickly lauded by the aviation industry, as a coalition of 20 general aviation groups sent a letter of support for the bill to House congressional leaders.
The letter to House leaders noted: “An analysis by Boeing suggests that 118,000 new technicians will be needed in North America over the next two decades. The consulting firm Oliver Wyman has forecast that demand for aviation maintenance technicians will outstrip supply by 2022.”
The House bill would create a new program administered by the FAA to provide grants of up to $500,000 to support aviation maintenance workforce development activities.
The legislation encourages local collaboration by requiring that grant applications be jointly submitted by a business or labor organization, school, and government entity.
The House bill is similar to a Senate bill (S. 2506), but the House version includes high schools as educational institutions eligible to participate in a grant application.
“As the trade association representing government-certified repair stations and avionics manufacturers, the Aircraft Electronics Association strongly endorses this legislation to provide a viable pathway for training our next generation of avionics technicians and aviation maintenance technicians,” said AEA President Paula Derks. “There is a severe shortage of skilled technicians in the aviation industry, and forecasts indicate the problem will continue to worsen in the next few years. This legislation will help ensure that the United States remains the world leader in all facets of aviation, and will instigate the creation of thousands of high-paying jobs employing skilled workers in the future.”
“The shortage of qualified maintenance workers touches all aspects of our industry, and we must all work together to find effective solutions,” added National Business Aviation Association President and CEO Ed Bolen. “We hope this important legislation will help by promoting aviation careers and ensuring that companies using business aviation have the technical professionals they need to operate safely and compete globally.”
The wage is to low for experienced A&Ps. In 2007 i was making 23.00 which wasn’t bad.
I got laid off along with a bunch of others.
I got called back in 2014 at 20.00. Now today I’m a QA for an aviation flight school and get 23.00.
Yeah who! After over 10 year im at the same pay scale.
The pay for a professional A&P with my amount of skill should be at least 28.00.
But the flight school industry doesnt want to spend that on someone that has experience.
A new person that has no experience that is right out of A&P school gets 20.00, 3.00 less than what a professional pay.
I got out of the Navy in January of 1967. Three weeks later I got a job with American Airlines as a junior mechanic, no licenses. Three years later I got my A&P.license. I spent 32 years at American. Great career. The current A&P tests are way behind the times. The FAA needs to redo the tests to current technology.
It’s a thankless job and you are considered unskilled labor. The FAA. should set a better standard for this profession. I can’t believe in this industry you can not transfer experience and value to another employer. Ten ,fifteen,twenty years means nothing. You can run and taxi every fleet type and know everything about every system and remain current and expanding your knowledge. Not to mention working midnights ,weekends,holidays ad overtime in inclement weather. The toll on you home life and physical body is not worth the pay. The stress and unrealistic demands to maintain everything else you need to do the job. The only thing that keep you going is in the end is you love aircraft. But aviation is a thankless job not a profession. There are plenty of warm bodies of unqualified people buying there A&P tickets. They are not interested in aviation and have no mechanical ability. Good luck.
I have been a Helicopter Mechanic for 15 years. I have worked and lived in many US States and moved my family quite often. The machines are very expensive, insurance, parts and routine maintenance are costly. Technicians are classified as unskilled labor, need only be 18 and read write and understand the English language. I think driving dump trucks pays about the same. Unfortunately many jobs are based on contract bids, and the lowest bidder is awarded said contract. Government contacts are public and anyone can view them. If we, the tax payers new that the cheapest company didn’t win the contract , we would protest wasteful government spending, but if you were riding in the aircraft you might not want the cheapest maintenance or cheapest pilot.
Cheaper is not better.
The problem is that all the companies require experience how do you get experience when you have none
This is what you get when you try to disobey the laws of economics.
With A&Ps, we have access to many “related fields.”
Abundance of related fields drives up expected wages…. But airlines won’t pay.
Everyone I meet thinks I’m making big bucks, when in reality I’m not even on par with auto dealerships.
Tesla just called, I guess I’ll go see what’s up.
The whole training regime needs to be updated, I’m afraid the reality is a far less educated class are becoming A and P’s and the trade is sinking in appeal to the intelligent who do the real fixing. It is a miserable profression, lousy hpurs, days off and worzt of all cyclical that lays off every time the economy turns. Seniority is everything, when you start over it’s brutal.
A much better program would be to have the airlines hire prospective mechanics and start them working in a check or hangar environment working on real aircraft while giving them training on the fine points. After 30 months they can be signed off to take their written tests and then the oral and practical. When the AMT gets their license the airline will have a mechanic that knows the aircraft inside and out.
I paid ~$10-15k for A&P school. Graduated at the end of September of 2001. Received my A&P in October 2001. Luckily while I was a student I was already working at a flight school, because post 9/11 no aviation companies were hiring. I was making $10/hr contract signing my life away with every repair. In 2002 I was laid off because the owner couldn’t afford insurance increases. Luckily I got on with a regional airline in 2003. I left aviation, topped out, in 2015 for an industrial maintenance job where I received a wage increase on day one. I’d like to see what the percentages are of people that left aviation jobs for higher paying mechanical/electrical jobs. Until general aviation can support higher wages for A&Ps I’m afraid we will see fewer and fewer.
The job sucks no kids wanna do it pay sucks hours suck responsibility sucks were gonna make a fortune nobody stupid enough to go into it like us if you dont love it do something else
I have been a car mechanic for over thirty years, back in the early 90’a I looked into applying to a school for a A&P degree, but after talking to several aircraft mechanics I decided to stay where I was at, I think the same problem is having the same effects today.
GENERAL aviation pay is notoriously low, not at all commensurate with the skill required, not to mention the highest of responsibility. I’ve worked on aircraft for 32 years. I will never work for the paltry wages general aviation pays.
Next year I’ll have 40 years working on aircraft. Some friends I used to work with left the industry a few years ago and made more as an entry level cable TV installer than I am after 39 years in the industry. If congress wants to address the shortage, they need to do something about supporting wage rate increases to pay mechanics what they are worth. Anything else is just throwing money away.
I was an A&P for 20 years. Starting out at a regional airline. Moved into middle management and did well, but after 911 I was left go due to budget cuts. Went to work for GA and was faced with signing someone’s logbook’s as airworthy or loosing my job! Needless to say I don’t work there anymore! Its a tough road to love what you do and the challenge of doing the right thing but the pay is less than mediocre. When the local car dealerships are paying more for a similar skill set why not jump ship and work on something that can’t fall out of the sky and make more money not worrying about the liability. I would love to get back to aviation and the challenge, but there is no future in it. Until the aviation industry acknowledges the mechanics as being a CRITICAL and vital part of the operation and is willing to pay them for their skills there will always be a shortage of well trained enthusiastic people to fill the positions.
I own an FAA certified repair station, and I can tell you that throwing money at schools will not create more jobs. I cannot pay what my mechanics deserve because of all the overhead I have to pay out and the time it takes to maintain the repair station… tool calibration, maintenance publication subscriptions, insurance, taxes, replenish expired chemicals/consumables…etc…the list goes on. To be competitive, my shop rate is lower than what you pay at the ford or Chevy dealership. I’ve encouraged my children to go into any other industry.
First, I am an under 200 hour pilot. Thank you for your service. Secondly, it breaks my heart that $ is what stands between us and the dream.
An don’t forget the fact the you sign your life away every time you sign off a log book. They think we’re made of money and everyone will question why you did or didn’t do something.
I’ve been an A&P mechanic for over 30 years and it just came down to pee while I ended up working for Boeing I made good money but before that I was just barely making it
Until you can make a living wage being an aircraft mechanic congress can throw all the corporate welfare they want at A&P schools and nothing will change. I have two sons who have their A&P certificates and both of them left the industry when they couldn’t support their family.
Will you take licenced engineers from South Africa?
The only reason of a shortage of A&P’s is because aviation doesn’t pay squat. When one looks at the other trades out there, electrician, welder etc the other trades the starting pay is way more than what aviation is offering. Also compared to the other trades it cost way more to attend an A&P school. For a kid to attend an A&P school and get his A&P, FCC and a 2 yr degree will cost just as much as going to a 4 year college, then he comes out and gets lucky and finds a job making $12-$15 an hour to start. Heck just to get the A&P depending on the school, will cost $40-$60K.My son went to a tech school paid $7K to become a certified welder and right out of school landed a job making $30 an hour. So the governmaent can throw out however much for grant money they want, at the end of the day, it won’t make a difference if these aviation companies are not going to pay to compete.
A&P school does not cost that much I guarantee you that sir.
What do you think A&P school costs? I’m curious.
Completely agree. I am retired now but it was not until I had about 15 years experience that I started to make good money and I had to travel a lot to get it.
It’s not just the money. It’s having 20 years of experience and having to move or start over on midnights as a new hire every time there is a hiccup in the industry. It’s putting up with management that knows you have to start over if you leave so they can make your life pretty miserable until you are forced to leave for sanity’s sake. It’s making the same pay as an AMT that can only work on one aircraft even though you are qualified for RunUp/Taxi and Avionics on several. And you both have the same number of years with the company. Why would anyone starting out want to spend 50K for school to get a job working the Midnight shift for the first five or ten years, have to wait 10 years to get top pay and also have to work weekends and all of the holidays when they can can be a diesel mechanic, car mechanic. plumber, welder, and on and on, and get paid for what they know with weekends and holidays off?