Trump wants to bring manufacturing jobs back. The aviation industry can't hire fast enough

CNBC

5 hours ago

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — President Donald Trump has said he wants to bolster manufacturing jobs and other technical employment in the United States. But in the aviation industry, finding skilled workers to make airplanes and engines — and maintaining those jobs for years to come — has been a struggle.
The average age of a certified aircraft mechanic in the U.S. is 54, and 40% of them are over the age of 60, according to a joint 2024 report from the Aviation Technician Education Council and consulting firm Oliver Wyman, which cites Federal Aviation Administration data. The U.S. will be short 25,000 aircraft technicians by 2028, according to the report.
"A lot of them were hired on in the '80s and early '90s. You just start doing some math and you start saying at some point they're going to retire," said American Airlines Chief Operating Officer David Seymour, who oversees the carrier's more than 6,000 daily flights.
To boost their ranks, airlines and big manufacturers of airplanes and their thousands of components are trying to get more younger people interested in the field.
The industry was already facing a retirement wave when Covid hit, and companies cut or offered buyouts to experienced workers — from those who build aircraft to those who maintain them to keep flying.
"People forget that the aerospace industry was in a pretty serious ramp at the time pre-Covid. And then frankly, of course overnight we went from ramping to zero demand over time. And so we lost a lot of talent," said Christian Meisner, GE Aerospace's chief human resources officer.
GE, along with its French joint venture partner Safran, makes the bestselling engines that power Boeing and Airbus top-selling jetliners, and has been ramping up hiring, though it is also dependent on a web of smaller suppliers that have also been getting back up to speed since the pandemic.
Meisner said that the company has a strong retention rate and that some employees earn their FAA licenses to work on airplane engines or airframes on the job. At GE's engine plant in Lafayette, Indiana, about an hour outside of Indianapolis, base pay averages between $80,000 and $90,000 a year, based on qualifications and experience, the company said.
Median pay for aircraft technicians or mechanics was $79,140 a year in the U.S. in 2024, compared with a nationwide median income of $49,500, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agency projects 13,400 job openings in the field each year over the next decade.
American's Seymour said that with new pay raises, technicians could make $130,000 a year at the top of their pay scale in nine years at the carrier.
While many experts don't expect jobs that have been shipped abroad like clothing manufacturing to come back to the U.S., high-value sectors tend to pay much more and are more likely to stick around. But hiring can still be difficult in a sector that is seen as politically important and symbolic to the country's economic power.
The impending worker shortages aren't just for those who repair aircraft and engines. A shortfall of air traffic controllers has also stifled airline growth and raised concerns about safety in recent years. The Trump administration has said it will raise wages and ramp up hiring to try to reverse yearslong shortfalls.
Manufacturing is about 9% of U.S. employment but "we all have a bit of a fetish with manufacturing because we focus on it more and than other sectors," said Gordon Hanson, a professor of urban policy at Harvard University.
The U.S. unemployment rate in May held steady at 4.2%.
One problem with manufacturing jobs, Hanson said, is that workers aren't very geographically mobile, and if factories reopen or hiring ramps up, that could make it harder to attract employees from other places.
"You're asking the local labor market to supply workers," Hanson added.
Wages for technicians that repair aircraft at airlines, as well as big manufacturers like Boeing, have gone up in recent years, with skilled workers still in short supply and travel and airplane demand robust. But some workers said that's not enough.
"We need to increase wages," said Sarah MacLeod, executive director of the Aeronautical Repair Station Association. Most of the companies the association works with are small businesses.
She warned that the "entire world is going to feel this workforce shortage. You already can't get your houses built. You already can't do XYZ. I think and pray that aerospace can actually lead the recovery of that."
Getting FAA licenses can take years, but the reward can be high. Some students are considering forgoing traditional four-year college degrees straight out of high school to get into the industry.
"I'm thinking about going to college, but it's whichever really comes first. If they give me an opportunity to go to the airlines, I'd like to do that," said Sam Mucciardi, a senior at Aviation High School in Queens, New York.
The public school offers its roughly 2,000 students the option to stay on for a fifth year to earn their FAA licenses with training at the school.
"I stay late after school every day to work on the planes and, probably a little bit too much ... but I still really enjoy it," Mucciardi said. "That's what I put my all my heart into."
The school, which has been teaching students how to maintain aircraft since the 1930s, is fielding more demand from airlines in recent years.
"After a program like ours, typically you'd go to the regional airlines first, like the Endeavors, the Envoys," said Aviation High School Principal Steven Jackson. "Lately, because of the huge technician need, there's been more students going directly into American, Delta, United, but you have the whole range." He said the school received about 5,000 applications this year from students.
Students at the school learn at the campus in the Sunnyside section of Queens but also at other facilities at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Seymour said American has teamed up with high schools before, but is now going even younger and working with some junior highs to raise awareness about the career path.
"It is getting into the high schools and showing that a career in aerospace as an engineer or frankly, on a production floor, is not your grandparents' manufacturing. It is high tech," GE's Meisner said. "You're talking about laser-guided machine, precision machining operations, exotic coatings and metals."
Krystal Godinez, who has lived in the Lafayette area for about 14 years, graduated last summer from GE's first apprentice program class at the facility after about two years. She said she previously worked in the automotive industry.
"I feel like what I do here … definitely does matter. It's like taking all those extra steps, make sure everything is correct," she said. "We're there to kind of keep people safe out there and make them feel safe."
American's Seymour was optimistic that younger people are changing their tune.
"There was a period of time when people said 'I want a computer, I want tech,'" he said. "There are people who want to get their hands dirty."
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