Page 27 - AAA NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2017 Online Magazine

FEATURE WORK FORCE

and digital troubleshooting. Modernising spending in Asia Pacific is expected to grow Engineering Company, which had had to deal
the MRO curriculum, which hasn’t changed at 4.4 percent annually during the period. with a labor shortage for years. Industry
significantly in decades, therefore assumes China’s growth will be more pronounced, observers feel that increasing wages and
critical importance. with the industry forecast to grow 10.1 making aviation technician jobs attractive
percent annually; the country is expected is the only long-term solution to solving the
Fleet Growth and Asia Pacific to increase its market size by more than shortage of AMTs in region. Countries
According to Oliver Wyman’s 2017 160 percent in the next ten years. However, in the region have woken up to the need
assessment and 10-year outlook for the the infrastructure and capacity bottlenecks to address the paucity of skilled labor and
commercial airline transport fleet and MRO that the country is facing, as well as rising ensure that the industry keeps pace with the
market, the global commercial airline fleet is labour costs, will ensure a spilling over of expected fleet growth. In August this year,
forecast to grow from nearly 25,000 aircraft maintenance activities to other countries in the Civil Aviation Training Center of Thailand
at the beginning of 2017 to over 35,000 by the region, experts say. (CATC), which is working with Airbus and
2027. According to the study, the major The challenge for MRO companies in Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile (ENAC)
growth engine will be Asia, especially China China and India will be unique. While the on aviation training, signed a MOU with
and India with their growing middle class, induction of new airplanes will bring down ENAC to create a strategic aviation training
which will become the largest region, nearly the average aircraft age in other regions, the partnership in Thailand. The two parties will
doubling in in-service fleet. burgeoning demand in the two countries will work for the development of academic joint
Industry experts believe that the paucity ensure that existing aircraft stay in service Master and Advanced Master degrees in the
of skilled labor in Asia Pacific will result in longer, thus resulting in the ageing of the field. ENAC, one of the leading aeronautics
MRO companies in the region struggling to fleet. This translates to a greater emphasis and aviation universities in Europe, has
handle the additional activity that will be on aircraft maintenance programs and also signed training agreements with the
generated because of the fleet growth. Even additional MRO activity. Indonesian Ministry of Transportation as well
now, some carriers and MRO operators in the as the Civil Aviation Authorities of Vietnam
region have been known to fly in technicians Not Enough Skilled Labour and Philippines. The intent is to ensure a
from other regions, but experts do not think According to experts, one of the main reasons healthy pipeline of not just technicians but
such practice is financially viable. for the aviation labor shortage in Asia also engineers and other industry personnel.
By 2027, the combined MRO demand Pacific is that companies do not pay enough. The Hong Kong International Aviation
in the Asia Pacific, China, and India will be Aviation technicians, for long underpaid, have Academy, which opened last this year
more than double that in North America, says in recent years, increasingly started to move with the purpose of attracting new talent
Oliver Wyman. While MRO spend in India is on to other industries that pay more and to the aeronautical industry in China and
forecast to grow 6.7 percent annually over where their skills are in demand. Among the establishing Hong Kong as a regional training
the period, it will still have only a 2 percent aviation maintenance companies that have center of excellence in civil aviation, is
- 3 percent share of the global market. MRO suffered as a result is Hong Kong Aircraft also taking steps to address the situation.

oPPosite toP: Modernising
the MRO curriculum, which
hasn’t changed significantly in
decades is of critical importance
to cater for the entry of new
airplanes and attendant
technological advances in MRO
LeFt: Increasing wages and
making aviation technician jobs
attractive is the only long-term
solution to solving the shortage
of AMTs in region
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