So, with consumer prices nearly double that 2021 high, A&Ps could struggle to make ends meet-unless the industry focuses its attention on addressing this issue. Still, at the same time, the price of consumer goods climbed 4.5 percent, creating a wage deficit. The report couldn’t predict or account for the lost wages that aviation mechanics already in the industry would encounter because of disruption caused by the pandemic and a variety of contributing factors that now linger and threaten recruitment or retention efforts.įor context, aircraft technicians took home an average of an extra 3.5 percent of their hourly wages from May 2019 to May 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report said the industry’s ability to find these skilled professionals would mainly depend on shoring up a talent pipeline to replace retirements, layoffs and furloughs, and attrition. This number accounted only for commercial aviation, business aviation, and civil helicopters. …unless wages grow faster for mechanics or economic conditions begin to improve, even qualified mechanics might start considering their different options…īefore the pandemic, Boeing ( NYSE: BA) predicted a need for 769,000 new maintenance technicians by 2039 to maintain the world’s fleet.

The problem? Aviation technicians have faced lost or slowed wage growth since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, amid the rebound in travel, unless the industry finds a way to address one particular problem, an insufficient talent pool of qualified airframe and powerplant (A&P) technicians could halt the complete rebound. represented 88 percent of people who traveled at the same time in 2019, when travel was at an all-time high. Recent TSA passenger data corroborates that, showing that as of April 19 this year, the 1.9 million passengers that passed through checkpoints across the U.S.

A report from the Aviation Technician Education Council (ATEC), a group that tracks the talent pipeline for aviation technicians, estimates that commercial air transport passenger traffic will rebound between 20.

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