Lafayette, ind. – President Donald Trump said he wanted to strengthen the jobs for manufacturing and other technical employment in the United States. In the aviation industry, however, it was a struggle to find qualified workers for aircraft and engines and to maintain these jobs for the coming years.
The average age of a certified aircraft mechanic in the USA is 54, and 40% are over 60 years old, according to a joint report by the Aviation Technician Education Council and the consulting company Oliver Wyman. According to the report, the United States will have 25,000 aircraft technicians by 2028 to 2028.
“Many of them were hired in the 80s and early 90s. They just begin to make some math and say at some point they will retire,” she said in retirement, “she said,” she said, “said she”, she “, she said”, she said, “she said,” she said, “she,” she said, ” Retire. American airlines Chief Operating Officer David Seymour, who monitors the more than 6,000 daily flights of the airline.
In order to increase their ranks, airlines and large manufacturers of aircraft and their thousands of components try to interest more younger people in the field.
“Lost a lot of talent”
Technicians work on an engine in the GE Aerospace engine in Lafayette, Indiana.
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The industry was already in front of a wave of retirement when Covid met, and companies cut or offered experienced workers, from which the planes build planes to those who fly them further.
“Forget that the aerospace industry was in a rather serious ramp at the time before the covise. And then we openly said, of course, from ramps over time over time. And so we lost a lot of talent,” said Christian Meisner. AerospaceChief Human Resources Officer.
GE is the best -selling engines for this power together with his French joint venture partner Safran Boeing And Airbus-Top-sold Jetliner and has increased the setting, although it also depends on a network of smaller suppliers who have risen to speed again since the pandemic.
Meisner said that the company has a strong retention rate and that some employees receive their FAA licenses for working on aircraft engines or aircraft cells in the job. In the engine plant of the GE in Lafayette, Indiana, about an hour outside of Indianapolis, the basic wage is based on average between 80,000 and 90,000 US dollars a year, according to the company.
A worker in the Lafayette, ind.
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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the middle salary for aircraft technicians or mechanics in 2024 in the USA was $ 79,140 per year in the United States in 2024, compared to an average income of $ 49,500. The agency projects 13,400 job offers on site every year in the next ten years.
According to American's Seymour, technicians with new salary increases could earn 130,000 US dollars a year in nine years at the airline on the top of their wage scale.
While many experts do not expect jobs such as the production of clothing to be shipped abroad, high -quality sectors pay much more and are more likely to stay. The attitude in a sector that is considered politically important and symbolic for the country's economic power can still be difficult.
The impending shortage of workers not only applies to those who repair planes and engines. A lack of air traffic controls has also suppressed the growth of the airlines and has expressed concerns about security in recent years. The Trump government has declared that it will increase wages and increase the setting to reverse the years of deficits.
The production exists about 9% of US employment, but “we all have a little fetish with production because we are more concentrating on it and than other sectors,” said Gordon Hanson, professor of urban politics at Harvard University.
Student of the Aviation High School in Queens, NY
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The unemployment rate of the United States in May was 4.2%stable.
A problem with the manufacture of jobs, said Hanson, is that employees are not very geographically mobile and when factories reopen or increases, it could make it more difficult to attract employees from other places.
“You ask the local labor market to provide employees,” added Hanson.
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Wages for technicians who repair aircraft at airlines and like large manufacturers like Boeinghave increased in recent years, with specialists still in short supply and travel and aircraft demand are robust. But some workers said that wasn't enough.
“We have to increase wages,” said Sarah Macleod, managing director of the Aeronautical Repair Station Association. Most companies that the association work with are small companies.
She warned that the “whole world will feel this lack of work. You cannot already have your houses built. You can't already do XYZ. I think and pray that the aerospace can actually lead to restoration.”
View into the future
The students work on an aircraft engine on the Aviation High School in Queens.
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Getting FAA licenses can take years, but the reward can be high. Some students are considering foregoing traditional four -year university degrees directly from the high school to get to the industry.
“I am thinking about going to college, but it is what always comes first. If you give me the opportunity to go to the airlines, I would like to do that,” said Sam Mercciardi, senior at Aviation High School in Queens, New York.
The public school offers its around 2,000 students the opportunity to stay for a fifth year to get their FAA licenses with training at the school.
“I stay after school every day to work on the aircraft and probably a little too much … but I still really enjoy it,” said Muciardi. “I put my whole heart in it.”
The school, which has been teaching the students since the 1930s, has been maintaining airplanes in recent years.
“After a program like ours, they usually go to the regional airlines, such as the efforts, the envoys,” said Steven Jackson, director of Aviation High School. “Lately, due to the great technician, more students have gone directly in American, Delta, United, but they have the entire reach.” He said the school received around 5,000 applications from students this year.
A student on the hangar of the High School aviation in Queens, ny
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Schools of the school learn on campus in the Sunnyside section of Queens, but also in other facilities of the International Airport John F. Kennedy.
Seymour said Americans have already teamed up with high school, but is now getting younger and is working with some Junior Highs to raise awareness of the career path.
“It goes to the high school and shows that a career in aerospace as an engineer or frankly at a production facility is not the production of your grandparents. It is high -tech,” said Meisner from Ge. “You talk about laser -controlled machines, precision processing processes, exotic coatings and metals.”
Krystal Godinez, who has lived in the Lafayette region in the Lafayette region for about 14 years, has completed the first apprentice program in the facility after about two years last summer. She said she had previously worked in the automotive industry.
“I have the feeling that what I do here is definitely important. It is as if you are taking all these additional steps, make sure that everything is correct,” she said. “We are there to protect people out there and make them safe.”
American's Seymour was optimistic that younger people change their melody.
“There was a period of time in which people said: 'I want a computer, I want technology',” he said. “There are people who want to get their hands dirty.”
– Erin Black from CNBC contributed to this article.
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