Downunder future not so good either
The Oz fleet is about 1,300. Half these are piston machines. Growth is about 7% pa (8% in NZ).
Depending how you start your calculations, it is thought the average age of a work force in near 43, when the work force is static in size.
Some data suggests the average age of Oz engineers is about early fifties - ten years older than the ideal model. (Pilots are late forties).
Two problems: Ageing workforce and a lot retiring in a short space of time; and a growth rate of 8% means you will doubled your fleet in maybe six-seven years - where will the engineers come from?
The end result is obvious. (I failed maths at school).
That is, we have to replace those going off chasing grandkids; and also provide new blood to both replace these and sustain the growth of the fleet now becoming rather high tech and engineer hungry.
Just try and get your autopilot fixed these days.
Why is this so? Our education system pushes the uni programmes (money) and not technical colleges (not popular with Mum’s).
Solution: Engineers have to hard sell their industry!! They generally get good money (more than pilots in many cases), have job security so far as medicals go, they need to try and get world standardisation of their qualification and not be bullied by the JAA system which seems to exclude people and makes travel harder.
Any thoughts??