Op-Ed: Aviation MRO skills gap is more than a headcount problem

Please enjoy this Op-Ed contribution from Jim Becker, president and CEO of Perfect Point EDM, a leading manufacturer and supplier serving the aerospace industry with unique and advanced tools for aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul operations.

The most fragile part of an aviation maintenance process is often the part that lives only in one technician’s experience. Ask how a shop handles its most difficult fastener removals, and the answer may sound less like a procedure and more like a person’s name.

Maybe his name is Mike. Maybe it is someone else. But every shop has someone like him: the technician everyone trusts with the difficult work because he has spent decades building the judgment, feel, and muscle memory to get the job done without creating damage or rework.

But there is a problem: Mike is retiring.

When an experienced technician leaves, the shop does not just lose one person from the schedule. It loses confidence in certain tasks. It loses institutional knowledge. It loses the person younger technicians quietly watch when the job gets difficult.

That matters because the workforce carrying much of that experience is older than many people realize. According to the 2025 Pipeline Report from ATEC and Oliver Wyman (pdf), the average FAA mechanic is 54, which is 12 years older than the average U.S. worker. The same report found that 41% of U.S. certificated mechanics are over the age of 60, and more than 45,000 mechanics will reach retirement age over the next decade.

That is why the aviation maintenance workforce challenge is bigger than headcount. Yes, the industry needs more mechanics. But the deeper question is how quickly we can turn new technicians into capable, confident, consistent ones. The same report projects a 10% shortage in certificated mechanics needed to meet commercial aviation demand this year, but the real issue is not just filling seats. It is transferring skill, judgment, and repeatable expertise before too much of it leaves the workforce.

Those statistics matter, but anyone who has worked in aviation maintenance knows the issue is not evenly spread across every task. Some jobs can be taught relatively quickly. Others take years to perform well, especially when the cost of a mistake is high.

Fastener removal is one of those tasks, and it is one I know well from experience. It may sound straightforward, but in practice it can be slow, physically demanding, and unforgiving. A drill bit can walk off-center, a hole can become elongated, or a countersink can be damaged. A hard-metal fastener can chew through bits and turn a simple removal into a rework problem.

That is where experience matters. The seasoned technician is not valuable only because he works faster. He is valuable because he knows how to avoid turning a routine task into a repair. He knows when to slow down, when something feels wrong, and how to catch a problem before it becomes visible.

You cannot replace that overnight.

I have seen this problem as a Marine Corps aviation maintainer, in Boeing MRO operations, and now from the leadership side of an aerospace maintenance technology company. The conclusion I keep coming back to is that we cannot recruit our way out of this problem alone.

The goal is not to replace the skill of experienced technicians. It is to make sure their knowledge does not leave the building when they do. As more senior mechanics retire, the industry has to build more precision, repeatability, and consistency into the work itself, so the next generation can reach proficiency faster.

When difficult tasks become more repeatable, the whole team benefits. Newer technicians build confidence faster. Shops become less dependent on one expert being available. And the knowledge built over decades becomes part of the process, not just something passed down one person at a time.

The fastener removal example shows how that shift can happen in practice. Traditional drilling depends heavily on operator control: alignment, force, depth, and feel. Those are skills built over years of hands-on experience, and they are difficult to transfer through training alone. Better tooling can shift more of that burden into guided alignment, controlled cutting, and repeatable setup. That changes the training equation.

Public depot-level examples show what this can look like. At Fleet Readiness Center Southeast, NAVAIR reported that E-Drill, an EDM-based fastener removal process, helped reduce one F-5 maintenance task from about 16 hours to about three hours, while also pointing to expected reductions in FOD, noise exposure, ergonomic strain, consumable costs, and labor.

The same article noted that artisans needed only about eight hours of introductory E-Drill training before moving into on-the-job training, showing how a difficult, experience-heavy task can be made more approachable through controlled tooling and a structured process.

The point is not just that one tool made one job faster. The point is that the process became more controlled and easier to train. When a task takes less time, creates less rework, and requires less force and “feel,” difficult work becomes easier to repeat and less dependent on the one senior technician who has spent decades perfecting the old method.

This is where aviation needs to broaden the workforce conversation. We should keep investing in trade schools, apprenticeships, military-to-civilian pathways, and A&P programs. Those are essential. But we should also invest in the tools and processes that help new technicians become productive faster without lowering standards.

Aviation has always been built on skill. That will not change. A mechanic’s judgment, discipline, and pride in workmanship are irreplaceable. But the next generation will not have decades to learn every hard lesson before the industry needs them to perform.

We need to shorten the path from newly trained to truly capable.

That means training people well. It means retaining experienced technicians as mentors. It means making aviation maintenance a more visible and attractive career path. And it means bringing modern, precision tools into the conversation earlier, not only after someone has already mastered the old way.

If the only way a shop can safely complete a critical task is to wait for “Mike,” the process is too fragile.

The maintenance skills gap is real, and it is growing. But it is not just a shortage of people. It is a shortage of repeatable expertise at the exact moment aviation needs more capacity, more consistency, and faster training.

We need more technicians. Just as importantly, we need to help every technician do more, learn faster, and perform critical tasks with confidence. That is how we protect the workforce, protect the aircraft, and keep aviation moving.

About the Author

With prior stints at Boeing and the United States Marine Corps, Jim Becker was appointed President & Chief Executive Officer of Perfect Point EDM in December 2021 and reports directly to the Company’s Board of Directors.

Jim is responsible for all aspects of the company, including business strategy, market expansion, financial performance, cashflow management, operations, sales, engineering, and investor relations. He has driven significant growth and market acceptance through strategic planning, aggressive sales expansion, and intellectual property development and management.

He holds a B.S. in Technical Management with a focus on Project Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (2017). He is a licensed FAA Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) Mechanic and has completed certifications in Earned Value Management (Silver Medallion, 2016), Management Development Series (2013), Lean Manufacturing (2011), and various military, technical, and leadership training programs.

Related Articles:

Featured image credited to istock.com/Dushlik