Cheap summer holidays under threat due to lack of engineers

Boeing estimates that an additional 610,000 maintenance technicians will be needed to keep up with annual passenger numbers. Credit: Lindsey Wasson/Reuters

Cheap summer vacations face a new threat as the aviation industry grapples with a critical shortage of engineers.

Companies are increasingly concerned that passenger planes are at risk of being out of service for months due to Boeing and Airbus estimate that more than 600,000 engineers will need to be hired over the next 20 years to keep up with demand.

If this leads to aircraft and passenger capacity restrictions, it could drive ticket prices up .

More than a quarter of engineers are expected to retire within the next decade, according to consulting firm AeroProfessional. .

Sam Sprules, Managing Director of Headhunter, said: «A shortage of aeronautical engineers is already impacting productivity and will only get worse for the foreseeable future.»

Lower wages than other comparable industries, experts say, is part of the problem, although it can also take up to seven years to complete the required training.

In the UK, Brexit means that aeronautical engineering licenses issued by the UK authorities are no longer valid and are not recognized on the continent.

< p>It also means that British aviation companies have very limited access to engineers from the European Union.

An aging global fleet means more aircraft maintenance is required. AeroProfessional estimates that the number of high maintenance aircraft in the global fleet will not decrease significantly until 2040.

Airbus estimates that by 2041, the number of passengers worldwide will double to 9 billion people a year. This will require 2 million new employees, of which 34%, equivalent to 680,000 people, will be engineers. Boeing estimates that an additional 610,000 maintenance technicians will be needed.

In its 2022 forecast, the US aircraft manufacturer said: “Technicians are critical to operational safety and play a key role in industry recovery. But in some cases they are scattered.

“They are leaving the workforce due to retirement and attrition, and retirement will accelerate over the next five to ten years. At the same time, parks are expected to continue to grow. In mature aviation markets, the average age of technicians continues to rise and the number of new entrants to the profession is declining.”

Fixing the gender imbalance in the aerospace sector will help overcome labor shortages. According to AeroProfessional, in the next 20 years, women will make up only 2.6 percent of aeronautical engineers, according to a report by the American organization Women in Aviation International.

AeroProfessional reports: “A 2017 study from Microsoft found that one of the main reasons that girls are giving up on careers in STEM is that they lack a female role model.

“Clearly, there are major gender equality issues that need to be addressed and that the industry must continue to look for ways to raise awareness and encourage women talents in the industry.”