Podcast: How To Overcome America's MRO Technician Shortage

Aviation Week editors Lindsay Bjerregaard and Sean Broderick are joined by Crystal Maguire, executive director of the Aviation Technician Education Council, to discuss progress on U.S. industry efforts to improve the training pipeline—and which hurdles are still standing in the way.

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Lindsay Bjerregaard: Welcome to the latest MRO Podcast. I'm Lindsay Bjerregaard, Aviation Week's managing editor for MRO. And if you've been following our MRO industry workforce coverage, you have surely heard of ATEC or the Aviation Technician Education Council, which is devoted to supporting MRO training and workforce development. ATEC had its annual fly-in in Washington, D.C., in mid-September where stakeholders from Part 147 schools, the FAA and other companies involved in aviation education met to discuss some of the biggest challenges and priorities this sector faces. ATEC also met with legislators on Capitol Hill to advocate for MRO education and workforce development. So to discuss some of the takeaways from the event, I'm joined today by Crystal Maguire, the executive director at ATEC, and Sean Broderick, Aviation Week senior air transport and safety editor who was at the fly-in. So thank you both for joining.

Crystal Maguire: Thanks for having me, Lindsay.

Sean Broderick: Good to be here.

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Wonderful. So to start off with, ATEC and Oliver Wyman released their latest pipeline report during the event. Crystal, could you maybe tell us a little bit about what the major takeaways were or major changes in the report since you've seen the last one?

Crystal Maguire: Yep. So the pipeline report we put out every year, like you said, we partner with Oliver Wyman. We specifically look at supply and demand of aviation mechanics, so certificated personnel. We have a good grasp obviously on supply because A&P schools are core members of ATEC. So I think around 80% of all A&P schools are members of the trade association. So we have good access to the demand, the supply side of the pipeline. Good news in this year's report is that enrollments are up, number of schools being certificated are up. The number of graduates that are getting certified, which is something we really focused on in the past, is up. So all that is good. A lot of the development-type initiatives that we're doing to just push more folks in at the front end of the pipeline through high school programming and that sort of stuff seem to be working, still looking at a shortage.

So estimating 10% shortage this year, and that's largely because while we're doing some good work on the development side, demand is still increasing. And a couple of the things that I guess are new this year, we always want to continue working on enrollment. We always want to continue filling capacity of our current A&P schools because we're still not quite there. What can we do on the awareness side and the instructor shortage side to ensure that we've got the capacity to enroll the number of students that we need to get the outputs that we need? Attrition was something that we looked at this year. So it was interesting that we had schools that weren't at full capacity and yet had wait lists. And so we kind of dug into that a little bit and discovered perhaps commonsensically that students are coming in, but they're dropping out generally in the first couple of semesters.

So the general coursework. And so what can we do? And the schools can't necessarily fill those spots because they're just filling on the front end, right? In general coursework and they're dropping out through airframe and power plant, so they have open seats on the back end. So how do we better manage attrition? One of the things that we recommend: best practices, better filtering of the students that are incoming. Let's get our high school programming up because those students that have coursework in high school are more likely to maybe stick through A&P coursework because they know what they're getting themselves into, that sort of thing. So that was interesting. But again, just like last year, really looking at awareness, program awareness to increase enrollment, and then instructor, how do we get more instructors to the classroom, which is definitely a bottleneck. And then on the back end, continuing to increase certification rates if we've got students in the community in the A&P schools, which is developing I think around 80% of all of our mechanics. So the vast majority of new mechanics are coming through A&P schools, they're in the pipeline already. How do we keep them in there? How do we make sure they get certificated, which is still around I think 60% of students that are getting certificated. So how do we increase that number is still a challenge opportunity, if you will, on the development side.

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Wonderful. Well, you covered a lot of ground there Crystal. Sean, what were some of your big takeaways from the event?

Sean Broderick: So as Crystal said, a lot of progress being made in helping to fill the pipeline as Crystal certainly can explain more articulately and with more accuracy than I can. For years, the biggest challenge that the 147 schools had was sort of the outdated nature of the rule that governs them. And so ATEC and other members spent, I don't know what Crystal — more than 10 years, maybe more than that. I guess it was in 2009 that the ARAC got together. I think the rulemaking advisory committee got together and said, here's what you ought to do to change the rule. So the rule was finally updated in — Help me, 2021, is that right?

Crystal Maguire: Yep. It'll we started in 2022. Effective.

Sean Broderick: Right. So that shifted the emphasis, and the stuff that we got to do just to get the job done, the pain points shifted to, okay, now we've got a rule we can work with. Still being rolled out. The standards are still not in place. There's still a lot of work to do, but now it's about, okay, we need to get the word out that this is a good career. We need to connect with high school students. We need to find ways to make it easier for a well-trained military-trained mechanic to get into the workforce. So the focus has shifted to now we can grab some of the low-hanging fruit on sort of filling the pipeline. And

Crystal Maguire: Progress should be,

Sean Broderick: Go ahead.

Crystal Maguire: Well, I was just going to say, I mean, two of the things we did see in the pipeline report this year, I think are direct result of the rule that went into effect in 2022. One was progress, what we call progressive testing. So before the schools had a really hard time switching up their curriculum or testing earlier in the process because they had to get approvals from their local office. Now, because we know students are not getting, not all students are getting certificated and they should, how do we increase that number? Progressive testing where the student is able to take the general written test right after the general and the airframe test right after airframe. And so that testing isn't seen as elective. It's part and built into the program. Schools that do that have a much higher certification rate. So more to be done, like Sean said, for example, trying to pull out the general, I'm going to call it a general rating so that the general part of the oral and practical can also be done right after the general portion of the curriculum.

That was one thing that has really increased our certification rates, and I think that's because of the rule change. The other thing is the ability to add additional training locations to your certificate. So much like a pilot's school where you would add satellites. We weren't able to do that. And in fact, it was really hard to get content approved to be able to teach away from the primary location. We're seeing that being heavily utilized probably just in the last year. So I think we'll see that impact enrollment probably in next year's report. Yes, schools can open a welding shop across the street now, but they can also open an entirely separate campus with enrollments independent of the primary location. And it's a little bit easier to do that now. They don't have to go through full-blown certification. It's just a matter of adding an additional training location to their certificate. And I bet we've got a dozen programs, additional campuses now that we're able to open up and increase in enrollment because of that provision. So those two things I think we'll see next year probably have a direct result on certification rates and enrollment.

Sean Broderick: That's right. And four years ago, not the case. That's one of the huge things that have changed. We've already seen it rolled out. Now you talked about separating the general. One of the things that was covered, and that is in progress, it stalled, and we'll get to that in a minute, but allowing high school students that complete a qualified curriculum, a maintenance curriculum to take the general. So where that is, and again, Crystal, she will of course correct me on the way the FAA in the 2024 reauthorization law that was enacted went into law in May 2024, was told by Congress to come up with a rule issue, a rule that would set framework for how students in high school students could take the general exam, right, is a rule. We're waiting on a rule. Right. Crystal,

Crystal Maguire: So that one was a working group. So let's put together a working group to talk about early testing. It is related to a rule mandate having to do with military transition. So we're working those two

Sean Broderick: With that, okay, so one was a rule and one was working group, but the

Crystal Maguire: Yeah, we're going to put them together.

Sean Broderick: Yeah. Common, the common link between those things is that separate from all of this, the Department of Transportation or the administration is reworking the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee. I think that's a polite way to put it. Those working groups are built off of the ARAC and the vast majority of them are now sitting empty because the ARAC is being refreshed, I guess to put it euphemistically. The working group was supposed to be in place in May 2025, a year after the law. So that's not done. And then a report back was due. Well, the point is that none of this work, well, the working group isn't together. Now that doesn't mean work's not getting done, but until the working groups get back together and are able to officially recommend some of this stuff, that has to happen before it can advance. But Crystal, what is happening with the working groups? Well, with the representatives and industry that feed into the working groups, what is going on behind the scenes right now?

Crystal Maguire: So the FAA reauthorization provisions, having to do with workforce development — they get a little wonky, but the purpose of them was to create earlier pathways to certification. Whether that be for somebody that was taking curriculum in a high school outside of a certificated 147 or somebody that had had aviation experience in the military, how do we get them easier pathways to certification? And so those initiatives were delegated, if you will, to the working group, which is made up of industry and FAA representatives. They report to ARAC, as you mentioned, Sean. So ARAC is taking applications right now. I think the solicitation applications are due Oct. 20 if you want to be part of ARAC. Once the ARAC is set back up, which I would expect hopefully year-end-ish, then the working groups would be — we have to solicit new members for the working groups as well.

So like you said, yes, we're waiting on all that to happen, but work hasn't stopped. ATEC has a very good idea of what needs to happen with a rule change to make transition from military experience to civilian certification a little bit easier, and also get high school students taking aviation curriculum earlier access to certification. So right now, for example, an individual cannot take the general written test for mechanic certification until they either have 18 months of experience or they have a certificate of completion from a Part 147 school. We know that high schools with aviation curriculum, because ATEC has curriculum through its partner with Telos Aerospace where we've got it running in 40-some schools across the country just teaching the general curriculum. And we do that because one of them is attrition. We know if these students are taking general curriculum in high school and they matriculate into an A&P school, they're more likely to finish.

And the other is just broadening the foundation of the flow. If we get more people interested at an earlier age, then we have a larger flow of folks coming in. The general written knowledge test would be a game changer for that pathway. We see it on the pilot side because we've got folks that do ground school that can take the private pilot written. People can argue until they're blue in the face about how that's a different certification, totally fine. All we're saying is if they have access to that certification test earlier, that's a stepping stone to the next level. And everybody agrees on this. So it would take a rule change to make that happen. And so that's what we'll recommend ultimately through the working group at ARAC and our friends and stakeholders are working on those recommendations. Now, again, easier pathways to certification — 147 schools understand why that's important as well. So we're excited. I think the initiative, just the legislation forces the initiative to happen. It would have happened probably anyway, but it's nice obviously to have Congress directing it and maybe prioritizing it.

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Sean gets more into detail in an upcoming Inside MRO article he wrote for Inside MRO for the October issue. But in the interest of time, you guys mentioned earlier that some of the big hurdles to improving the pipeline of mechanics is the instructor shortage. I don't know if we talked about it yet, but the designated mechanic examiner or DME shortage, testing center shortages, and we covered this in Inside MRO earlier this year, but I do know that we had FAA representatives and representatives from PSI, the company that handles all of the testing centers at the fly-in. So Crystal, maybe we start with you and then we can get to Sean. What kind of progress are we seeing when it comes to those things?

Crystal Maguire: So why we're focused on it is we always ask the A&P schools, Hey, what is the barrier to certification for you and your students? And high on the list is almost always access to designated mechanic examiners, which are not managed by PSI, right? Those designees are designated by the FAA directly. So that's one issue. The number of DMEs actually went down in the last year and the number of tests went up. We had more people getting certificated. So our DMEs are taking on more and more at a time when a lot of them tell you they're already overloaded. So DME — being able to expand the number of DMEs, but also expanding the ODA program, organization designation authorization program to include airman certification so that organizations can help manage the testing process and expand. We think that will be absolutely huge for access to O&P testing, which is what the DMEs do separately.

Certainly access to testing centers. We see that. I was just looking at sort of the responses to this year's survey as it looks like access to testing centers is less of an issue than DMEs. And like you mentioned, we did have PSI come join us at this and talk directly to the schools, which was awesome. I think it's very geographical. We have some schools that have a harder time with testing center access than others. And we were very pleased with the outreach and involvement PSI had at the fly-in to look specifically at some of these schools. And so that was just a couple weeks ago. I know that they said they were dedicated to looking at those individual case-by-case schools and see what we could do to expand testing. But yeah, I mean it all goes back to that 60% certification rate. That should be 90%, 100%. What are the barriers to that? Instructors, maybe when it comes to certification, progressive testing helps with that, but ultimately DME access to DMEs is what we see as the biggest barrier right now. We've got some proposed solutions, so hopefully in the next year we're hearing that expansion of ODA to include airman certification is imminent. I don't know exactly what that means. Maybe yesterday was different than today if we're in the middle of a government shutdown. But hopefully, right, that comes around for us because that would be a huge help for sure to testing capacity.

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Wonderful. Well, Sean, let's sort of leave it to you to wrap this up. Any final takeaways from what happened during the fly-in and what do you think are the biggest issues our readers should be keeping their eyes on?

Sean Broderick: I think overall, it's interesting how many different levers there are in the pipeline process to increase the number of mechanics coming out with certificates at the end. I mean, changing of the rule and making it easier for the schools to do their work is well underway. But as Crystal mentioned, there are a lot of folks in the pipeline that aren't completing the process for reasons that have nothing to do with their desire necessarily. But it's just about how difficult the process continues to be. Maybe it's accessing a testing center for certain places or when you can take the tests. So ATEC and industry, I think, is doing a good job of identifying these things and sort of focusing resources on getting them solved. But it takes effort. It takes a lot of outreach. The work being done with Telos Aerospace, if you look at their numbers, they continue to rise more. High schools are recognizing that this is a wonderful opportunity and it's encouraging to see, and I know that we have workforce grants. We didn't really talk about them. They sort of got stalled by a broader initiative to ensure that these grants are not being, that they're

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Sean is looking for a diplomatic way. Yeah, Sean is looking for a diplomatic way to say the administration's anti-DEI sentiments.

Sean Broderick: Yeah, look, right. So they pulled, so again, all the grant notices went out. The schools applied for, on the maintenance side, $20 million in grants, right? Crystal,

And then now radio silence. So waiting for that to get back going. So look, no matter what side you're on, not moving forward isn't helping anybody. And so on the grant side, they're not moving forward right now. Government shutdown means everything that was coming out is now imminent. And hopefully that'll be done — hopefully by the time you hear this podcast, the U.S. government will be back functioning again. But ATEC and industry doing a great job at identifying these things, but it's going to be an ongoing effort. I mean, Crystal could probably run ATEC until she's 150 years old and still not quite be there because there's a lot to do. And demand is going to see that there will be a lot to do for years to come. So good luck, Crystal.

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Wonderful. Well, on that, I don't know if we can call that a positive note, but that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to stay tuned to our coverage. I know Sean and myself will be writing a lot about these issues going forward. So thank you, Crystal. Thank you, Sean, for your insights. And thank you to Cory Hitt for producing this episode. Don't miss the next MRO podcast by subscribing to it wherever you listen to them. And one last request. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please leave us a star rating or review. Thank you.