The airline industry may be short of engineers, but is still fussy about whom it employs

David Learmount/LONDON

Nikolaos Bekiaris has completed eight years' study to gain a degree in aeronautical engineering plus two years' on-the-job training, but he cannot get a "career" job with the airlines in Canada where he lives and works. This does not seem to square with the panic calls from aviation regulators and the industry worldwide that it cannot find enough qualified engineers, but he is not alone in his experience.

Meanwhile, the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University says that 10,000 new aviation maintenance engineers and mechanics are needed every year in the USA, and the need is not being fully met. The UK also has a serious maintenance engineer shortfall, according to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The CAA adds that most of mainland Europe is not faring any better in training its own engineers and frequently makes up for that by offering better pay to qualified UK personnel hired through agencies.

A UK industry study quantified engineer shortages for last year in each of the maintenance specialisations and forecast that, without exception, the personnel shortfall would incr-ease or stay the same this year. The aircraft maintenance engineer shortage was estimated at 8.6%, increasing to 11.5% in 2000; among avionics engineers the shortage was a dire 23%, forecast to remain the same,while the mechanical engineer shortage was 10.2% below industry requirement, with a 15% shortfall this year.

These figures were flagged up by UK Civil Aviation Authority chairman Sir Malcolm Field in February at a Royal Aeronautical Society seminar on the shortage of maintenance personnel. Embry-Riddle highlighted "a similar situation" in the USA, Field points out. According to the university, unless an additional 10,000 new maintenance technicians are trained every year, US industry growth will be held back.

Field puts the regulator's point of view, which sounds bleak for the industry: "It is easy to underestimate the effect this shortage could have on your business. We, the CAA, will not be in a position to grant the essential approvals [operating licences] for your company if the required technical staff with the necessary skills and experience are not in place. Remember, without a maintenance release to service, aircraft do not fly at all." Since Field spoke in February, the CAA says there has been no increase in the number of licensed engineers coming into the industry, and there is still a marked lack of commitment to training from the industry itself.

There have been a large number of applications to the UK CAA, however, from non-UK Europeans for the new Joint Aviation Regulations (JAR) 66 engineer licence, because the UK is ready for its implementation by the deadline of June next year, whereas many Joint Aviation Authority nations are not. In addition, the CAA confirms, engineers from non-JAA countries are applying for the JAR 66 licence, which would enable them to work in any of the JAA states subject to work permit regulations.

British Airways hires nearly 50% of all UK aircraft maintenance staff, and the CAA's figures deliberately took account only of "the rest" of the marketplace so as not to end up with statistics dominated by BA's experience alone. BA's engineering technical and quality director Jim O'Sullivan, however, says that the airline has a serious shortage of avionics technicians. This means that it has had to "change working practices" to make the most efficient possible use of those it has.

The engineer's job has changed

The upside of today's unbalanced equation, the airlines agree, is that modern aircraft are better built than they used to be, with better corrosion protection and much improved engine and systems reliability, so carriers do not need as many engineers per aeroplane as they used to.

Better aircraft quality and new technology has changed the engineer's job as well. For some time there has been a theory in circulation that young people are not joining because they spurn jobs where they get their hands dirty, work all hours and in all weathers. But the airlines say the job is not the relatively crude job it once was. The work is now more cerebral, requires more knowledge and is often less to do with physical artisanship.

A large proportion of current technical delays are caused by problems with in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems. These fall within the remit of the avionics specialisation, although specialists in IFE maintenance do not need to be licensed. The people best qualified for IFE work, according to Heather Darwin, the head of international engineer agency Line Up Aviation Personnel, are those who have worked as technicians in radio, television and video. BA's engineering department speculates that in-flight entertainment in the medium-term future may well consist of power supplies and communications channels at the seats, with passengers being allowed to bring their own approved entertainment and/or communications equipment on board.

Engineering apprenticeships, which airlines seemed to have abandoned as a means of getting engineers, are making a quiet comeback. BA offers apprenticeships and sponsors engineers who want to upgrade their licences, as does BA's Gatwick-based independent partner airline CityFlyer, but they are in the minority. As the CAA says, the numbers of apprenticeships are small, are offered by few organisations, and are insufficient to supply the industry as a whole.

Meanwhile, the numbers of trained engineers leaving the armed services are lower in all countries, while the air transport industry is expanding. Darwin also makes the point that former military personnel often leave the service with a civilian licence if they have prepared themselves for departure, but the airlines always want people who can "hit the ground running". It is not enough to have a licence alone - the airlines want engineers with experience of civilian equipment and the civilian operating environment - though helicopter operators, Darwin says, often take on former military people.

CityFlyer has an agreement with a nearby college which trains young engineers. They spend a year at the college and four years at the airline to qualify, and the total cost of the training per apprentice is about £15,000. Having made that investment, CityFlyer bonds the trainees - two of which at the moment are women - to stay with it for a minimum of two years.

Airlines are not the only companies with apprentice schemes. FLS Aerospace, Europe's largest third-party maintenance organisation, takes on trainees at its major overhaul bases in Dublin, Ireland, and Stansted and Manchester, UK. It also does contract line maintenance at London Gatwick and at Copenhagen, Denmark. Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg, which has a big third-party business as well as Lufthansa's maintenance, takes on 500 apprentices a year and has its own training school. It is difficult for an outsider to judge whether this massive organisation is having to train so much because it is expanding fast, or expanding fast because it invests in training, giving it the capacity to take on new work.

But there are problems in the industry as a whole. Darwin confirms the CAA's statement that most airlines have still not woken up to the big picture of an overall engineer shortage: they can still be "very fussy" and reluctant to take on contract workers unless they have relevant experience as well as a licence, and they are certainly reluctant to pay the increasingly high prices that the market shortage is generating.

Airlines fear downturn

There seems to be a nervousness about taking on permanent staff, says Darwin, in case the recent slow-down in the US economy, only two quarters long so far, extends to a third quarter and precipitates a general market downturn or even recession. Yet those airlines who want to pay lower prices than those demanded by the agencies have to take on permanent staff, which does not make sense if fears of a recession have any substance.

Graduates like Nikolaos Bekiaris have problems because the airlines seem not to be satisfied with engineering degrees alone. They also want management experience, since graduates are, from the start, candidates for engineering management. BA points out, however, that not all managers in its engineering division are engineers - their expertise is in management. Lufthansa Technik says that it does not face a shortage of graduate applicants.

Aircraft and electronics maintenance engineering today can be a highly satisfying job, even in its raw form, according to O'Sullivan. Line engineers working on a broken aeroplane late on a cold and rainy night out on the pan can feel huge satisfaction watching an aircraft taxiing away on time and knowing that, without them, it would still be sitting there useless.

Source: Flight International