Engineering Shortage

Long gone are the days of classes of hundreds of bushy-eyed apprentices lining up to start their careers in the aviation industry, says Steve Purvinas, when reminiscing about his training as an aircraft engineer over 30 years ago. Now the federal secretary of the Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association, Steve was a licenced mechanic for Qantas for 21 years. There were 258 first-year apprentices in Steve’s class, but “today, Qantas think they’re doing everyone a favour if they put on 15,” he said. “They are not putting on 10 per cent of what we needed in 1986, when air travel was less than half of what it is today,” he went on.

The smaller operators in the rugged and remote parts of Australia are being hit hardest by this labour shortage. Competition with the lucrative mining sector is one part of the problem, says Steven Campbell, the CEO of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia. “The mining industries will throw money at engineers that regional companies can’t compete with,” he said.

Rising cost pressures and the inability to retain enough engineers are already causing havoc among many smaller operators said Michael McConachy, CEO of Aviair, a regional airline operating charter flights and scenic tours out of Kununurra, a town of about 5,000 people in the Kimberely, Western Australia.

While the issue is affecting regional businesses most severely, the largest airlines in Australia are not immune from the problem. Qantas is struggling to fill engineering positions across Australia, with flights recently cancelled to Broome due to a lack of engineers. The company offered voluntary redundancies to many of its engineers during the pandemic and is now struggling to fill the positions with demand increasing once again. Now Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar are dealing with ongoing industrial action from their remaining engineers due to wage freezes that have left employees with a pay rise since 2018.

The situation is grim not just in Australia. U.S aircraft engineers are, on average, 11 years older than the rest of the workforce, while enrolment is down 20 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels at the Canadian aerospace training centre hub École nationale d’aérotechnique. Frank Bayer, head of human resources at German aerospace giant Lufthansa, says that recruiting engineers and mechanics has become “noticeably more difficult” compared to before Covid. The New Zealand aviation industry is at breaking point in terms of mechanic shortages according to Greg Edmonds, CEO of MRO company Salus Aviation Group.

However tempting it is to lay the blame for the problem at the feet of the pandemic, the reality is that there have been signs of the issue looming for years. A 2015 report by the UNSW business school predicted a 30 per cent global workforce shortage of aviation engineers and maintenance employees by 2025. Michael McConachy too believes the problem has been growing for far longer, saying that “these problems have been coming our way for the last 10 years.”

That’s not to say that the pandemic didn’t massively accelerate the severity of the issue. Air traffic to and from Australia virtually stopped throughout the pandemic, dropping 52.4 per cent from September 2019 to September 2020. The dip in demand saw Qantas cut 8,500 employees, including many engineers. Steve Purvinas said it was short-sighted of Qantas management to not hold on to its engineers and was not surprised that many chose early retirement. In an industry where the average age of a licensed mechanic is 55 years of age, anyone “58 years of age or older, was better off financially by taking a redundancy package,” said Purvinas.

The pandemic also saw a massive reduction in the number of skilled migrants entering Australia, with numbers dropping to a 20-year low. Nearly 60 per cent of the total engineering workforce in Australia is made up of skilled migrants, according to Jane MacMaster, head engineer at Engineers Australia. “The impact of border closures has been real,” she said. Even now as borders reopen, wait times for visas have skyrocketed. The 476 visa, used primarily by recent engineering graduates wanting to work or study in Australia has a wait time of up to 41 months.

Even prior to the pandemic, actions taken by industry leaders in Australia were beginning to fuel the problem of a future engineer shortage. Purvinas points to a particular decision by Qantas to close its heavy maintenance facilities in Melbourne and Avalon in 2006 and 2013. Many of these jobs were outsourced to offshore MRO providers and have never returned. “By outsourcing work outside of our borders, they have lost control of their own destiny. They should have been kept in Australia from day one,” said Purvinas.

Another issue affecting the number of available aviation engineers in Australia is the complex regulatory framework administered by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) for licencing and training engineers. Michael McConachy says there is too much red tape that adds very little value and only serves to make it harder for businesses to employ apprentices wishing to pursue the profession. McConachy also criticised CASA’s licence transfer scheme, saying it makes “no sense” for an engineer to be able to work on an Australian aircraft in Singapore but be barred from working on the same plane in Australia.

One solution that has been proposed to address the solution is by placing aviation engineers on the priority migration list, something that Steven Campbell and the RAAA have been very vocal about. Steve Purvinas, however, is sceptical of how effective such a scheme would be. “The cupboard is completely bare. And the cupboard is bare worldwide,” he said. Additionally, while a prioritised migration mandate may cut down on visa wait times, there are currently no shortcuts for overseas engineers who want to get a recognised licence from CASA.

Some of the longer-term solutions are clearer to industry figures. “The only solution that is needed right now is to urgently put on hundreds of apprentices,” says Purvinas. Particular focus needs to be paid to regional areas, where long distances and fewer education opportunities hamper the prospects of those wanting to train as engineers and mechanics. Steven Campbell said the industry needs to focus on putting skill centres in these regional areas to reduce the burden on operators and apprentices alike.

The entire education scheme could do with an overhaul according to Campbell, who pointed out that there are currently two different education systems that do not overlap. “The pathway for young people who want to become engineers is just not that clear,” he said. Instead, he wants the industry to move to a more dynamic and modern mode of education, including block-type training programs that can provide certifications as they are completed. There is a desperate need for a comprehensive and coordinated approach to the education standards across state and federal levels according to Michael McConachy.

It’s clear that in order to weather the storm of this crisis, the industry needs to come together to work cooperatively to solve the problem. The industry has demonstrated its resilience over the last two years, but McConachy contends that the “bigger airlines need to do some heavy lifting.” Purvinas laid the blame for the current situation at the feet of the upper echelons of management among these airlines and others within the Australian aviation industry. “It’s because of the short-sightedness of management everywhere through our industry. Just thinking that we can pinch some engineers from somewhere else,” he said.