Our industry, A&P mechanics, has been hit hard by the economic downturn we are in now. I am very lucky to be employed by SWA. We have not had a lay off, yet, and we have not had a pay cut, yet. I say "yet" because I was at another company that told me they never would lay any one off and three years later I was out on the street.
I heard that the guys at United are making $30/hr after working for 20 years! We all know what happened to the guys at Northwest, and even Alaska Airlines is hurting right now. But wait...the good news...
A large number of people are coming up on retirement age in the airlines and the availability of jobs is gowing to sky rocket when this happens!
So I ask you: How many times have you heard that one before? I have been waiting for this mass exodus of mechanics for almost 20 years now. When I was in school I heard this same rumor from the instructors. When I was at Embry-Riddle that was the hope of many newly minted Airframe and Powerplant mechanics. When I got to Delta, the same from everyone (on midnight shift). To make this falsehood even worse it has been picked up by these companies and web sites that track job data and job outlook information.
From a government web site:
"Most job openings for aircraft mechanics through the year 2016 will stem from a large group expected to retire over the next decade."
From Avjobs.com
"The long term employment outlook for maintenance personnel...is very encouraging. One study indicates...openings for aircraft avionics and maintenance personnel, increasing to 40,000 openings per year. Based on analysis of anticipated aviation industry growth rates, and projected retirements of the World War II and Korea War veterans who presently hold many of the aviation maintenance jobs in airline and general aviation".
Career zone also lists the job outlook of aircraft mechanics as "favorable". This goes on and on. Poor high school aged kids that are trying to figure out what to do with their lives would read this mess and sign up. This type of misleading info sounds like the harps of heaven to a kid who is good with his hands and likely only going to have a high school diploma.
The reality of the situation is that the A&P industry is stagnant. Salaries have not gone up as a whole in years and in some cases the salaries are back down to pre 1989 levels. Our pay has not kept up with the times and a vast majority of airline mechanics make less than $30/hr. $30/hr to keep a 30-120 million dollar aircraft in the sky! And I don't see it getting any better soon.
The only glimmer I see is this new space plane or space based tourism that is in it's infancy right now. That may supply the boost to our industry similar to the boost it got when the airlines went to jets over prop-liners. There is also hope in that it seems that (in 2006) less people started enrolling in tech schools. It seems that people are reluctant to work the hours and wish to avoid working in the weather. If that is true and the trend holds up our salaries may benefit simply due to lack of supply of qualified personnel.
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