What's It Gonna Take?

I may be opening up a can of worms here but my wife and I were talking about this today and I was wondering what all you guys thought of this. We had a conversation about what it is going to take to fix the airline industry. We all know that the airlines are not really a great places to work and some of us remember when the airlines were a great place to work. I started my airline career with a carrier that had an 80 year track record of never laying people off and still got the axe. I think that I started my airline career right at the time when the pluses of working for airlines started to decline. I love my job and really can't see doing anything else but working for one of these once great companies is not what it used to be.

I know that the price of oil has decemated the slim profit margins that the airlines rely on. I also know that next to oil, personel is the next highest cost. The first thing that an airline in trouble seeks out now a days is concessions from the work groups. The problem is that over the years the airline employees have given back so much that, come contract time, the company can tout a smalll pay increase even though in reallity you are just getting back what you gave up and most times just a percent of what you gave up.

The cost of living has out paced all airline jobs. Making 60-70k a year sounds great but just is not what it used to be 10-15 years ago. When I see people like Geologists with 1-2 years experience and a BS degree making 107,000 bucks a year and I have to struggle to make ends meet while working to keep a 110 million dollar plane up in the sky, it seems un fair to me. My wife is a furloughed pilot and the pilot group is fairing no better. I know they make more money than we do but not the kind of money they made 15 years ago while of course working more hours.

The only thing that I can think of to fix the situation is to increase fairs. The fair structure at the airlines has been the same for the last 20 years. It pretty much costs the same to fly from Oakland to Denver today as it did in 1990, it may even be cheaper! I think that if the cost of a Big-Mac can go up in 20 years than the price of an airline ticket should go up also. That's not to say we should double or triple our fairs but a modest increase of $5-10 is not too much to ask for.

The big rumor in the pilot world is that airlines are looking into hiring pilots from overseas to fly domestic routes because they can get them cheaper. I do not think it's too much of a leap to see airline shutting down and outsourcing their maintenance departments as a whole. Remember what Alaska Airline did to the hangar in Oakland or how Northwest Airlines treated their mechanics a few years ago? If something does not change we are in a slow death spiral of and industry and there is no way out.

Good News about our chosen career!

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.