Aviation industry scrambles for mechanics as retirements loom

The aviation industry needs to hire thousands of more people like Thomas Maharis.
Maharis, recent high school graduate who lives with his family in the Howard Beach section of Queens, is earning $25 an hour as an entry-level aircraft technician.
In four overnight shifts a week at nearby John F.
Kennedy International Airport, Maharis, 19, repairs aircraft cabins after planes are done flying for the day for Delta Air Lines, where he started working in June.
One recent task: Cutting out a fabric eye mask that got stuck in a seat track.
His assignments vary, depending on what breaks, or how rough passengers are with the aircraft.
“There’s plenty of stuff people do to the vents,” he said.
Airlines, manufacturers of airplanes like Boeing and aircraft engine-makers such as General Electric, are racing to ensure a pipeline of technicians to fix and maintain their aircraft as a wave of current employees approach retirement.
In July, Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, forecast that the aviation industry will need 754,000 new aircraft technicians over the next two decades, more than 80 percent of them for the growing commercial aviation sector.
That crunch comes amid a wave of retirements that’s sweeping other corners of the industry like pilots.
About 30 percent of aircraft mechanics are at or near retirement age and they’re retiring faster than they’re being replaced, the Aviation Technician Education Council, said in December.
The average age of a mechanic is 51.
More than a quarter are older than 64 years.
After a couple of years of experience, Maharis can earn $35 an hour fixing the body of the airplane, which works out to about $72,000 a year.
The median annual U.S.
household income in 2016 was $59,039, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau.
Maharis grew up flying remote-controlled airplanes and said he knew from childhood that he wanted to work in aviation.
He said he’s considering going to college online but is so far holding off.
Maharis is a graduate of Aviation High School in the Long Island City section of Queens.
The school has been training students to become aircraft mechanics since the 1930s, and puts students on track to receive licenses required by the Federal Aviation Administration to fix engines and airframes.
Some students stay on for a fifth year.
At their graduation ceremony students don’t wear traditional mortarboards and tassels.
Instead they wear dark blue pants and light blue button-down shirts, similar to a mechanics uniform.
Since they don’t wear mortar boards, they threw paper airplanes in the air as the principal presented the class of 2018.
Students have a grueling schedule because of the additional training.
Some students even travel out to JFK to practice on a donated Boeing 727 aircraft, once operated by FedEx.
“We are probably the only students in New York City who get upset on snow days,” salutatorian Genesis Santana told the crowd at the graduation ceremony, held at sunset at the high school’s hangar.
“Hashtag: Shop is life.”