The airport has become a hotbed of issues in the spotlight—a shortage of air traffic controllers, long TSA lines exacerbated by the government shutdown, and packed terminals highlighting the nation’s strained aviation system.
But there’s another critical group keeping planes moving on time—and they’re facing a dire shortage: aviation maintenance technicians.
Some 83% of technicians are expected to retire or leave the profession globally over the next decade, according to the CAE Aviation Talent Forecast. By 2034, that translates to a need of about 416,000 new aircraft maintenance technicians worldwide.
Jason Pfaff, CEO of the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, told Fortune the occupation has largely suffered from a lack of awareness and has become largely “hidden.”
“There’s a very acute shortage in our country today of aviation mechanics,” Pfaff told Fortune. “We have on average about half the number of trained certified mechanics that we need.”
To meet the demand, many aviation technician programs, including AIM, offer 21-month training programs—all at a fraction of the cost of a four-year degree. If students then pass the FAA Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) exams, they become “one of the most in-demand people in aerospace,” Pfaff added. Depending on the campus, AIM employment placement rates average around 73%.
While the work isn’t all glamorous—technicians often endure extreme weather, noisy tarmacs, and the smell of jet fumes—the payoff can be substantial. In the U.S., the median salary for these roles is around $79,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Climbing the ranks—and taking advantage of overtime—can quickly push pay well into the six figures. And in some cases, total compensation can reach $300,000 or more, said Bianca Miller, an avionics technician at Newark Liberty International Airport.
“The opportunities are endless,” Miller previously told Fortune. “At the end of the day, there really is no wrong.”
A broader lack of attention to the trades
The demand for aviation maintenance technicians is playing out in real time. Take Pittsburgh International Airport, for example. Thanks to an expansion from American Airlines, the number of aviation maintenance positions is expected to nearly double from about 360 at the end of last year to about 600 this year, according to Christina Cassotis, the airport’s CEO.
And while she said they haven’t had trouble finding or retaining aircraft maintenance talent, the airport hasn’t been immune from the broader shortage of skilled trade workers. When Pittsburgh began construction on its new terminal in 2021, for instance, there weren’t enough workers in the region to support the project.
“I think that in the past few years, we have over-indexed on college as the right career path for most, and careers in the trades haven’t been given the attention they deserve as a viable option,” Cassotis said.
It’s a sentiment echoed far beyond aviation.
Just last week, Ford CEO Jim Farley sounded the alarm on the shortage of talent to fill manual-labor jobs in the U.S.
“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Farley told the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast. “We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, and tradesmen. It’s a very serious thing.”
A lack of skilled trade workers also threatens the tech industry’s rapid buildout of AI data centers.
“If you’re an electrician, you’re a plumber, a carpenter—we’re going to need hundreds of thousands of them to build all of these factories,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Channel 4 News in the U.K. earlier this year.
“The skilled craft segment of every economy is going to see a boom. You’re going to have to be doubling and doubling and doubling every single year.”
Gen Z, for its part, appears to be listening. Enrollment at two-year public trade-focused institutions is up nearly 20% since spring 2020, according to National Student Clearinghouse. And in aviation maintenance specifically, AIM has seen Gen Z applications soar by about 40% over the last two years.