Imagine a daily workout that lasts 12h, four times a week – that is how Rohaida Haron describes a typical day in her work as a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer.
The 38-year-old oversees a wide range of duties at Asia Digital Engineering (ADE), the MRO unit of Malaysia-based Capital A, and sister unit to the AirAsia group of low-cost carriers.
These include carrying out engine and auxiliary power unit changes on the Airbus A330, and handling aircraft-on-ground recovery, as well as being involved in aircraft deregistration, end-of-lease, and return to service MRO tasks.
Rohaida, who also supervises teams of technicians at ADE, has about 10 years of experience in the MRO sector, starting in 2013 conducting base maintenance work on Boeing 747-400s operated by Malaysia Airlines.
During the next decade or so, her aviation career has taken her through motherhood – she is a mother of three – and even a stint in fashion.
Speaking to FlightGlobal, Rohaida says her interest in aviation was sparked by her father, who is also an aircraft engineer. She recalls being taken to the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace (LIMA) air show in her childhood, and to see her father at work during weekends.
“Even at home, he’s always repairing something. I think if he could build a house on his own he would,” she adds.
“It instilled in me… that maybe I am able to repair something on my own too,” says Rohaida. That – coupled with a sense of “not being able to sit still for long”, led her into the aerospace sector. When deciding what to pursue after completing secondary school, she knew she did not want to study “something that requires me to sit in class the whole day”.
She applied, under scholarship, to be a trainee aircraft maintenance engineer and undertook a five-year course, before starting working for Malaysia Airlines in 2013.
“I [still] remember the first time I saw the aircraft that I helped maintain take off – you know, I was tearing up because I felt like… this is all the hard work I put in,” she says.
Rohaida left the aerospace sector in 2018 following the birth of her second child. She found the need to balance motherhood and the long hours at work difficult to balance, took a step back, and found herself in a “completely different” sector.
A DIFFERENT RUNWAY
Totomi started in 2018, as a means for Rohaida to “get some pocket money” while she took a break from full-time work.
While she credits her father for her love of aviation, she says it is her mother’s “creative streak” that led her to fashion.
“I always design my clothes for the festive seasons and every time people compliment the outfit I wear… so I thought, maybe this is something I could do when I quit aviation,” she says.
Fashion and aviation might seem worlds apart, and Rohaida concedes she “surprised” herself at the decision to enter her new career.
Jokingly, she says: “[Before I left aerospace] I used to ask questions like ‘Why is the pressure too low’, or ‘Why is this valve not opening?’ Then when I came into fashion, I was asking questions like ‘Is this colour suitable for fat people? Or darker-skinned people?’”
But perhaps like her work in the aerospace sector, it was being hands-on – Rohaida hand-embroiders her bespoke pieces – and an attention to detail that ultimately took her label to the runway of the Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week.
Yet, even as she left, Rohaida knew that she would return to her first passion: aviation. In 2022, on the cusp of air travel’s post-pandemic recovery, she started work at ADE.
“As an engineer, I really love it – I really love being hands-on and I really love the thrill and the satisfaction that I get… looking at the aircraft fly after I finish maintaining it,” she says.
This is despite having to make “sacrifices” to balance time between family and work.
For instance, when rostered for night shifts, she makes it a point to be with her children after returning from work in the morning – despite the exhaustion from a night’s work.
“I have to be 100% for them… and I probably only rest a few hours in the afternoon after going through their schoolwork and everything else,” she adds.
‘JUST BULLDOZE THROUGH IT’
Rohaida is ADE’s only female aircraft engineer on the A330, although the company has others working on the A320.
She observes that while there had been women technicians when she first entered the industry, they were mostly in “lighter work”, like avionics or component MRO.
“Right now you can see women [technicians] pushing wheels that are four feet high, or they’re climbing everywhere. It’s a proud moment for me, when I see growth like that,” she says.
To women who are considering a career in aerospace, Rohaida gives a simple career advice: “Just bulldoze through it. [You] have to work smart, you have to be assertive, you have to be resilient, because as a woman, there [may be] more challenges on our side, but still, you just have to push on.”
