Airline Employment is Up
It is official. Airline employment is up. The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reports today that the airlines employed 0.3 percent more workers in May 2007 than in May of 2006.
Although not groundbreaking news in and of itself, it is a milestone of sorts. This is the first monthly increase in employment in a long time. In fact, if you want to find the last time monthly employment increased, you would have to go all the way back to August 2001, the month before 9/11.
That’s a long time — 68 straight months of declines in employment at the airlines.
We will have to wait to see if this is just an anomaly or the start of an upward trend in employment. I would guess the latter. After all, where else do the airlines have to go but up? Surely the airlines can’t cut any more jobs, can they?
To read the full report, click here.
What do you think?
Joe Escobar
Employment may be up but its still not looking good for the average AMT. The airline I work for now has outsourced all its heavy maintenance and a lot of the work being done in house is accomplished by helpers of as they call them support mechanics. Heck these unlicensed and unsupervised folks are even doing line maintenance. They are slowing taking over all line maintenance items inside the tube. Our company claims they are supervised, but what really happens is the their lead (who is an A&P) races to the aircraft prior to departure to sign off the work. Although the company is recalling some AMT’s its priority is hiring new helpers of the street to do the work. Call it B scale or what ever you want….Just another punch for the AMT and another way to keep wages low!
Perhaps after cutbacks, right-sizing, and forced attrition the airlines are finding their ranks a little lean?
While the hiring may be up slightly, airlines still look to foreign repair stations to do the bulk of their heavy maintenance. I have held for several years that this is not only an unsafe policy, but illegal, to boot.
Note that this issue of AMT News has a major article on the acute shortage of pilots and how that affects airline safety, but not a word about the shortage of trained and licensed mechanics to maintain these thousands of replacement aircraft. That is kind of typical of airline management’s attitude toward aircraft maintenance.
Disregard of professional, in-house maintenance is going to bite some airline’s butt. It’s not a matter of “IF”, but “WHEN”.
It does appear that darned pursuit of the almighty profit has once again reared its ugly face, when will people, society, come before profit, of course the executives are immune to reduction of wages, in fact quite the opposite. Why would anyone want to get into the AMT world nowadays?
That pilot shortage article mentions guys going from trainee to flying widebodies in 45 weeks. How long does it take to get an A&P?
I have to take you to task here, Howie Fuller, I maintain aircraft from several countries,including those of U S carriers. They all get the same attention from my colleagues and myself. My personal standard being, I do not sign a release to service until I consider it fit for my mother to fly in. I have seen some pretty crap work come out of the U S, before you start that foreigners cannot maintain aircraft to a good standard. What you have to remember - ‘You get what you pay for’ - has never been more true. Another point to consider, how many airline executives are aviation people? Their backgrounds are invariably in the finance world. All they know about an aircraft is ‘how much it costs to buy/lease. how much can we make on it if we cut ……. (fill in blank as appropriate).And most important, how big a bonus can we get when we take the company in to Ch11.
Unfortunately, the industry as a whole has gone into a downward spiral since the banks found what a lucrative business it is. Nothing for the benefit of the people who generate the income. As your man said ‘If you want executive pay, become an executive.’
My personal outlook - if nobody comes into the maintenance business then us oldtimers will be able to name our price. I only hope I am still around to see the day. Take care guys and keep them flying safely.