Training & recruitment: German lessons

China has embraced Germany's approach to technical and practical training to meet demand for maintenance personnel to support its fast-growing airline sector

One of the few organisations in China able to offer qualified maintenance training, Ameco Aviation College (AAC), is looking to build on the unique links with its joint-venture partner to address the capacity challenges ahead.

AAC is the maintenance training division of Ameco Beijing, the Sino-German maintenance, repair and overhaul venture established in 1989 by Air China and Lufthansa Technik. Today, AAC is applying the principles of Germany's dual-education system in a bid to increase dramatically the number of skilled maintenance personnel it can train in time for a massive expansion of China's fleet.

The history of the dual-education approach in China dates back to the take-over of AAC's forerunner, the Aeronautical Apprentice Training Centre, by Ameco Beijing in 1997. Taking courses in mechanics and electrics/electronics, 800 university students have passed through its training syllabus and been qualified to work at Ameco Beijing.

The dual-education system combines theoretical and practical training in a long-term collaboration with academic institutions. For AAC today, that means striking further partnerships with organisations such as Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Civil Aviation University of China, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Xiamen University, which will offer two years of theoretical training followed by one year of practical instruction at AAC.

The college trains about 350 students a year, including 240 basic training students and 110 on type and specialised training courses, at its Beijing Capital international airport home.

"Even Ameco Aviation College as a qualified training facility has to expand in order to meet the increasing demand for qualified technicians generated by Ameco Beijing," says Gao Hongjie, head of AAC. "We have enhanced our co-operation with aviation-related universities in China so the universities provide theoretical skills while the practical training will be provided by Ameco. In this way, the AAC will have many more graduates every year.

"Also, we have started to contract several technical secondary and vocational schools, both in Beijing and other places, and signed contracts with them so outstanding students will be sent to Ameco Beijing after graduation," he says, adding that AAC has also designed the curriculum of the third-year students.

Hongjie says that to cope with this pressure, China's Ameco Beijing started some years ago to investigate ways it could replenish and enhance its talent pool. One of its first solutions was to expand AAC.

New building

A new 7,000m² (75,350ft²), 60 million yuan ($7.6 million) school building, due to open next to the existing one in 2008, will house four small, 15 medium and three large classrooms, six computer-based training classrooms, a library, one main workshop, five electrical/avionics shops and other workshops for hydraulics, pneumatics and composites. This will increase the number of AAC graduates to about 500 a year, and the number undergoing aircraft type training to 1,200.

AAC is arguably at the vanguard of aircraft maintenance training in the region. It was the first civil training organisation in Asia to achieve ISO9001 quality standards and the first outside Europe to gain a JAR147 certificate. It was also the region's first training centre to meet European Aviation Safety Agency requirements to advance from JAR147 to EASA Part 147 and has become China's first Part 147 certificated training organisation.

"In the past, AAC mainly supported its internal needs, having limited surplus capacity for third parties," says Hongjie. "Having obtained the CCAR147 training organisation certificate issued by China's civil aviation authority in July, we now feel responsible for supporting a wider customer base."

China, with 2005 orders from domestic carriers topping 650 airliners, will have to work hard to provide the necessary workforce infrastructure to maintain these aircraft when they start entering revenue service over the next five years. Current estimates indicate more than 240,000 trained maintenance staff will be needed over the next 20 years to handle China's ambitious fleet expansion plans and AAC needs to expand its training, faculty and infrastructure capability just as swiftly.

The college has set itself the goal of enhancing training standards to meet not only Ameco's needs, but those of other maintenance organisations within the Air China group as well as outside customers. Last month, Ameco Beijing and Hainan Airlines Group signed a seven-year, $10 million agreement to conduct landing gear overhaul and exchange for the carrier's 40 Boeing 737s. This is the biggest such deal that Ameco - and indeed the Chinese industry - has clinched so far.

A330 avionics

This year, AAC further extended its maintenance offer when it provided the first type training on Airbus A330 avionics - the first such type rating in preparation for the aircraft joining the Air China fleet. This will be followed by type-rating training in mechanics and electrics in readiness for EASA A330 type training approval, which is scheduled for early 2007.

AAC says the high demand for training has caused big rises in related costs over recent years. "The total number of Ameco employees will undergo a big increase in 2008," says Hongjie. "There might be difficulties in hiring and training qualified technicians and mechanics throughout the industry. However, Ameco Beijing will have the proper solutions in place."

Source: Flight International