Trump promotes manufacturing work, but aviation workers are difficult to hire

Lafayette, Ind. – President Donald Trump said he wants to strengthen manufacturing jobs and other technical employment in the United States. But in the aviation industry, finding qualified workers to make airplanes and engines, and maintain those work in the coming years, it has been a fight.

The average age of a certified airplane mechanic in the US is 54 years old, and 40% of them are over 60 years old, according to a joint 2024 report of the Aviation Technician Education Council and the Oliver Wyman Consulting Signature, which cites data from the Federal Aviation Administration. The United States will be short of 25,000 aircraft technicians by 2028, according to the report.

“Many of them were hired in the 80s and early 90 American Airlines Operations Director David Seymour, who supervises the more than 6,000 daily flights of the carrier.

To increase their ranks, airlines and large aircraft manufacturers and their thousands of components are trying to interest younger people in the field.

The industry already faced a retirement wave when Covid hit, and companies reduced or offered purchases to experienced workers, from those who build airplanes to those who keep them to continue flying.

“People forget that the aerospace industry was on a quite serious ramp at that time before co-covid. And then, frankly, at night, we passed from the ramp to zero demand over time. And so we lost a lot of talent,” said Christian Meisner, Ge aerospaceThe human resources director.

GE, together with its French joint business partner, Safran, manufactures the best -selling engines than power Boeing and Jetliners best selling from Airbus, and has been increasing hiring, although it also depends on a network of smaller suppliers that have also accelerated again from the pandemic.

Meisner said the company has a solid retention rate and that some employees obtain their FAA licenses to work on aircraft or aircraft engines. In Ge's Engine Plant in Lafayette, Indiana, approximately one hour out of Indianapolis, the base payment averages between $ 80,000 and $ 90,000 a year, according to qualifications and experience, the company said.

The average payment for technicians or aircraft mechanics was $ 79,140 a year in the US in 2024, compared to a national average income of $ 49,500, according to the Office of Labor Statistics. The agency projects 13,400 work openings in the field every year during the next decade.

American Seymour said that with the new salary increases, technicians could earn $ 130,000 a year at the top of their salary scale in nine years in the carrier.

While many experts do not expect the work that has been sent abroad as the manufacture of clothing to return to the US., The high value sectors tend to pay much more and it is more likely to stay. But hiring can be difficult in a sector that is considered politically important and symbolic for the economic power of the country.

The imminent scarcity of workers is not only for those who repair airplanes and engines. A deficit of air traffic controllers has also stifled the growth of airlines and has generated concerns about safety in recent years. The Trump administration has said that wages will increase and increase hiring to try to reverse the deficits of years.

The manufacture is approximately 9% of us employment, but “we all have a bit of fetish with manufacturing because we focus more on it and than in other sectors,” said Gordon Hanson, a professor of urban politics at Harvard University.

The unemployment rate of the United States in May remained stable at 4.2%.

A problem with manufacturing work, said Hanson, is that workers are not very mobile geographically, and if factories reopen or hiring increases, that could make it difficult to attract employees from other places.

“You are asking the local labor market for supply workers,” Hanson added.

Salaries for technicians who repair airplanes in airlines, as well as large manufacturers such as BoeingThey have increased in recent years, with workers even in shortage and trips and airplanes demand robust. But some workers said that is not enough.

“We need to increase wages,” said Sarah Macleod, executive director of the Association of the Aeronautical Repair Station. Most of the companies with which the association works are small businesses.

She warned that “everyone will feel this shortage of the workforce. You can no longer build your houses. You can no longer do Xyz. I believe and pray so that Aerospace can really lead the recovery of that.”

Obtaining FAA licenses can take years, but the reward can be high. Some students are considering giving up the four -year traditional university degrees directly from high school to enter the industry.

“I am thinking of going to university, but it is what really comes first. If they give me the opportunity to go to the airlines, I would like to do that,” said Sam Mucciardi, a last year student at Aviation High School in Queens, New York.

The public school offers its approximately 2,000 students the option to remain for a fifth year to obtain their FAA licenses with school training.

“I stay late after school every day to work on the planes and, probably a little too much … but I still enjoy it,” said Mucciardi. “That is what I put all my heart.”

The school, which has been teaching students how to maintain airplanes since the 1930s, more demand from airlines in recent years is present.

“After a program like ours, you would generally go to regional airlines, such as efforts, sents,” said Aviation High School director Steven Jackson. “Lately, due to the great need for the technician, there have been more students who go directly to American, Delta, United, but you have all the reach.” He said the school received around 5,000 applications this year from the students.

The students of the school learn on the campus in the Sunnyside section of Queens but also in other facilities at the John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Seymour said that American has been associated with secondary schools before, but now he is becoming even younger and works with some secondary to raise awareness about the professional career.

“It is entering the secondary schools and demonstrating that a race in the aerospace as an engineer or, frankly, in a production floor, is not the manufacture of their grandparents. It is high -tech,” said Meisner of GE. “You are talking about a laser -guided machine, precision machining operations, exotic and metal coatings.”

Krystal Godinez, who has lived in the Lafayette area for about 14 years, graduated last summer of the first class of GE apprentice program at the facilities after approximately two years. She said she previously worked in the automotive industry.

“I feel that what I do here … it definitely matters. It's like taking all those additional steps, make sure everything is correct,” he said. “We are there to keep people safe and make them feel safe.”

American Seymour was optimistic that younger people are changing their melody.

“There was a period of time in which people said 'I want a computer, I want technology,” he said. “There are people who want to get their hands dirty.”

– Erin Black of CNBC contributed to this article.