North American Insights on Recruiting, Training and Retaining Maintenance Technicians

Boeing’s Pilot and Technician Outlook 2024-2043 noted in part, the “Long-term demand for newly qualified aviation personnel remains strong…as 716,000 new maintenance technicians will be needed to maintain the global commercial fleet over the next 20 years.” Concurrently, the Airbus Global Services Forecast 2024-2043 highlighted the cumulative new workforce 2024-2043 would require 690,000 technicians.

The projected, eye-popping shortages of technicians continues to have the global aviation community’s attention.

On the cusp of WATS 2025 this article provides insights from three diverse, randomly selected resources on how the North American market has recognized and is meeting the challenges to recruit, train and retain these professionals.

Of significance, while live training remains important in the technician’s learning continuum, community training enterprises are in the early phases of adopting learning technologies for their technicians and have reported early ROIs.

Driving the Demand Signal for Technicians

As aircraft OEMs are placing many covid-era supply chain issues in their rear-view mirrors, there are instances of renewed OEM resilience in aircraft deliveries. These and other developments have encouraged the airlines, and the OEMs and their upper-tier suppliers to strengthen and expand maintenance agreements, creating the imperative for these start-ups to focus on the “left side” – recruiting and training – new workforce members.

Halldale earlier reported one representative accord when WestJet and Lufthansa Technik AG (Lufthansa Technik) signed an agreement in which Lufthansa Technik will provide engine maintenance services in Calgary for the CFM International LEAP-1B engines that power the airline’s Boeing 737 fleet. Lufthansa Technik is an authorized LEAP-1A and LEAP-1B Service Provider licensed by CFM International.

Lea Klinge, Spokesperson & Channel Manager, at the aircraft MRO and modification provider, told CATone of the reasons for establishing this new engine maintenance facility in Calgary is the excellent and highly skilled workforce in the region, along with the presence of renowned educational institutions that we plan to collaborate with in the future.

“In addition, Lufthansa Technik itself has extensive expertise in engine maintenance and an excellent in-house training provider with a comprehensive range of courses. Our internal training provider also experiments with modern technologies such as Augmented Reality to enhance training effectiveness,” the company media expert added.

While Klinge confirmed Lufthansa Technik is also planning to establish its own training center for these Calgary-based employees it has already posted its initial job openings for the venue. The executive concluded, “We are leveraging our proven channels to promote our job offerings, including social media, advertisements, job fairs, and active participation in various events within the aviation cluster.”

Here’s a snapshot from two other organizations on other trends, challenges and activities extending to the further to the “right” – into recurrent training and other activities vital to retaining qualified technicians.

Airline Perspective

Buck Gaines, the Manager of Technical Training at Alaska Airlines, is also a community influencer – helping to improve maintenance training in different capacities, including Chair, A4A Maintenance Training Network and most recently as Chairperson, WATS 2025 Maintenance Conference.

The community subject matter expert initially noted the biggest community challenge he has observed is the lack of experience needed at the airline level and the implication for training. “The traditional path for a new AMT [aircraft maintenance technician] has been via general aviation to regional carrier to a major airline. The airlines hired from this group, where 5-7 years AMT experience was common. Due to large amounts of individuals leaving the airline industry during the covid pandemic and an expansion of aircraft deliveries, it left the airlines needing pilots, flight attendants and technicians in numbers not seen since post-deregulation,” he pointed out. Airlines quickly hired all the experienced professionals in these groups soon after the pandemic and are now hiring technicians right out of AMT schools with little to no experience. The community leader continued, whereas most airline training has been based on hiring the experienced technician, “We have now had to adapt our training by adding in hands-on, both physical and virtual, as well as a complete redesign of traditional training.”

Gaines elaborated on Alaska Airlines’ two-track approach to these developments.

“First, we committed to teach a Level II B737 aircraft Genfam training to the students at our partner schools (schools we primarily recruit from). We teach 30-plus ATA [Air Transport Association] chapter-based sessions in 2-4-hour modules. We also teach a 40-hour B737 Genfam on semester breaks which are well attended by students on their own time!”

Secondly, and more significant, the airline has redesigned its training from the ground up, using more Competency-Based Training and Assessment (CBTA) strategies. These include Boeing’s MTX (Maintenance Synthetic Trainer) and other training system tools that permit the new hire to learn and troubleshoot systems virtually. “These products allow the technician to get experience in the classroom prior to on-the-job training on the floor. Our initial small sample size of feedback from the OJT instructors has been positive – saying the new hires have felt more comfortable working on the aircraft.”

As Gaines noted the emergence of learning technology in community programs, he we asked how the simulation and training industry can better respond to the maintenance training enterprise’s demands for learning technologies. The community leader initially replied there is no shortage of vendors willing to build virtual aircraft trainers for maintenance. “The problem is the cost needed to develop such trainers as opposed to using OJT to get our new techs familiar with manuals, routine tasks, policies and procedures.”

In terms of recurrent and other career-long to help retain qualified maintenance personnel, he noted that bringing technicians back regularly for additional training is the ideal. “Using virtual training to build more skills and compliance-based training to ensure a high level of knowledge with current policies and procedures, are ways to ensure the legacy workforce remains sharp,” he concluded.

Training Provider Insights

FlightSafety International (FSI)’s maintenance training is focused on business aircraft. And while FSI provides some commercial maintenance training, it is not the core business.

An FSI training expert gained the author’s attention with several internal examples of how the broad aviation training enterprise is evolving from this company’s perspective.

In one case, aircraft electrical systems schematics were previously represented via diagrams that technicians would trace manually. The corporate expert emphasized that today, interactive schematics are the norm for most OEMs and FSI. “These schematics make it easy to visualize the complex systems and understand how they work and are interconnected.” And the expert brought a wry smile to author’s face when it was noted that earlier “hands-on” training meant a technician entered a cardboard replica of a cockpit and pointed to systems, controls and other content. “As the industry has advanced, so has our maintenance training technology. First came the fixed-base simulator equipped with monitors and touchscreens. Today, we have more sophisticated desktop simulators that technicians utilize as they learn to troubleshoot problems.”

ROIs from Adopting Learning Technology

On cue, the FSI maintenance expert highlighted his team’s long-standing collaboration with Pratt & Whitney Canada to develop the Virtual Engine Trainer and provided some hefty ROIs from their investments in this learning technology.

VET’s capabilities were said to permit the technician to virtually pull the engine apart so he or she can see all the components, how they connect, how they work together and what is happening in different stages. They then know how the whole system works, as well as what each component does individually and as part of a connected system. The FSI expert continued, “Technicians are also able to practice on expensive, otherwise inaccessible engine parts. Because it is a virtual tool, we can modify it as changes happen, instead of having to wait for a training part or modifying our training engines.” A real-world example of VET’s value occurred after Pratt & Whitney Canada modified an engine component. The FSI expert recalled, “We were able to get the CAD [computer-aided design] from the OEM, and demonstrate the new component and replacement procedure on our VET simultaneously as we saw the issue on the actual engine.”

And then there is another piece of the VET technology, the virtual borescope. As developers program discrepancies (damage, cracks, and corrosion and others) into the VET, a technician then uses the virtual borescope to identify the problem and determine a solution. “Advantages include being able to simulate any problem (instead of waiting for a real engine to break down), providing technicians with a concrete visual and an understanding of what an issue will look like, and enabling practice on hard-to-access components. Because it is all virtual, there is no concern about damaging the engine or borescope,” the expert added.

FSI again captured the author’s attention when the maintenance subject matter expert emphasized his company is “strategic about implementing technologies and will only do so where and when they make sense. For example, FSI is committed to instructor-led learning, because we know that technicians learn more from self-discovery. We will continue to offer live-learning for the theoretical portions of our training; this reduces travel for our clients, but they still receive the expertise of our instructors. And because we train technicians at different stages of their careers, we need to ensure our methods of delivery are easily accessible to everyone.”

While FSI has observed the median age of airframe and powerplant technicians is increasing, the maintenance training provider cited a study with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University students which compared VR tools to more tactile/hands-on tools. “We learned that although students liked the ‘wow’ factor of VR, they gained the same knowledge from both ways of learning. We want to ensure that no matter how we deliver our training, we are providing technicians with the knowledge and skills they need to ensure the safety of the aircraft they maintain. We will continue to develop different training tools to meet our clients’ evolving needs.”

And then there is AI, for which FSI sees the biggest future opportunity residing with troubleshooting and fault analysis/recognition – significantly with the linkage of data. The organization maintenance expert noted OEMs have collected a lot of data on where issues may lie, and will continue to gather more. “As the data is used to train AI, it will increase technicians’ ability to troubleshoot, for a specific aircraft as well as for an entire fleet. The data can provide the most likely place to start when troubleshooting, saving time and adding a level of efficiency.”

Training to Help Retain

The challenge of providing advanced training to support promotion and other career goals has resonated well with FSI, with the company offering its clients and customers its Master Technician Program. The corporate maintenance training expert noted FSI has found the best way to retain its clients is to deliver top-notch training and demonstrate its commitment to their success. “One way we do this is through our Master Technician Program, which is a training pipeline that will take a technician from new in program to technical expert. More than 1,300 of the companies that train with us have a Master Technician on their team.” As this article was published there are more than 6,000 Master Technicians worldwide, “each demonstrating a commitment to exceeding industry standards,” the FSI expert concluded.

Global Interest and Focus

There is a concurrent, quickening pace of activities to meet the challenges of recruiting, training and retaining maintenance professionals beyond North America. The author looks forward to obtaining insights from community stakeholders in Asia and the Indo-Pacific region before APATS 2025 and in Europe prior to EATS 2025. The author is available at marty.kauchak@halldale.com.