MRO’s New Recruitment Strategies May Cause Future Leadership Issues

As the chasm between workforce supply and demand grows wider and MRO providers become more desperate for talent, the percentage of employees on the shop floor with only a few years of maintenance experience is increasing. In tandem, fewer new recruits are taking their FAA airframe and powerplant exams, due to a variety of factors (Inside MRO April 2024), and fewer students pursuing MRO careers are completing degree programs that could qualify them for future leadership roles.

“From a macro standpoint, we’re seeing this with all our clients—it’s an industry-wide issue,” Launch Technical Workforce Solutions CEO Mike Guagenti says. “The days of being able to say, ‘I’ll only take someone with five or 10 years of experience’ [are] just not realistic [anymore]. You can’t build a complete workforce with that expectation, and we’ve known that for several years.”

Michael Sasso, assistant dean and aviation maintenance technology (AMT) program director at Cape Cod Community College, tells Inside MRO that he has seen an increase in airlines recruiting students right out of school—before they have the chance to obtain an associate or bachelor’s degree to bolster their airframe and powerplant (A&P) certification. He stresses that this trend could cause problems for airlines or MRO providers down the road when they need to fill management and leadership roles, particularly as the industry faces more retirements.

“As students are graduating, they are finding themselves in a position faced with future employment at an airline, and they don’t necessarily want to wait,” says Sasso, noting that many students he encounters decide to put off obtaining a degree until later. Despite opportunities for tuition reimbursement or completing their degree through a program associated with their A&P school, he says students often see dollar signs and opt for bigger gains early on. “If I have a choice as a technician to go back to school or to go to work and get time and a half and double time on a weekend, I’m probably going to take the money at that point, especially early in my career.”

He adds: “The problem later on is that when MROs and airlines need management staff, they are looking for somebody with a degree. And a lot of their technicians don’t have a degree, so it’s hard to promote off the floor.”

Sasso argues that companies that partner with schools on continuing education programs will be more successful with their workforce in the long view. He says that Cape Cod Community College emphasizes to employers that they should tell students they value “lifelong learners” and should highlight the career path opportunities that could come with a degree. Sasso notes that Massachusetts has instituted MassReconnect, a program in which the state pays for people 25 years or older to finish or earn degrees.

Meanwhile, Southern Utah University is tackling the problem by requiring a degree as part of its four-year AMT program, which earns students an associate of applied science degree in addition to their A&P if they take the FAA test.

“I think it boils down to the relationship and the understanding between the school and the employer,” says Jared Britt, Southern Utah University’s director of AMT training. “Because the employer has to understand that they’re just undercutting themselves [by bringing green technicians onboard before they complete a degree program]. I don’t allow employers into my school unless we have that understanding. They can offer the student a job, but they need to understand that [the student] must finish this to do it, and in some cases, we’ve actually put that in those contracts.”

Southern Utah University also prioritizes working with students to help them decide on an MRO career pathway and the requirements they need to meet to achieve it. “If you want to be a leader, you have to have the degree,” Britt says. “We have a massive marketing campaign that we push out to let students understand why the degree is important, how it’s built into the system and what they get at the end.”

However, some companies that want to recruit A&P students as soon as possible are using in-house training to prepare new hires for future leadership roles. Private aviation flight provider Flexjet has partnered with Purdue University to develop a program aimed at this outcome.

“We have actually created our own professional development program for technicians where we will hire someone directly into our apprentice program and spend several years developing them into a well-rounded technician that will be ready to meet the challenges of our industry,” says Jay Heublein, president of global maintenance and product support at Flexjet. “I’m not worried about the lack of an associate’s degree, and we prefer to hire technicians directly from our training program.”

Heublein says the program was developed to provide a “more well-rounded education” compared with traditional approaches that silo students as A&P or avionics technicians. “In the event that someone wants to pursue a leadership or management position, we provide additional tuition reimbursement and encourage them to pursue coursework that would directly benefit them in the position they wish to obtain,” he adds. This could entail basic coursework in finance and accounting for business professionals, which Heublein says could help “bridge the gap from technician to a business manager, and this is not something they were likely to take as part of an AMT school degree anyway.”

Despite concerns from stakeholders at A&P schools, Heublein asserts those fears may be unnecessary. “No solution is perfect for everyone, but we’re not concerned with the direction the industry is heading,” he says. “The current industry demand will drive incredible opportunities for future technicians, and that’s a great place for them to be.”