The Capacity Conundrum – Will the Industry be Able to Keep Up With the Demand for Skilled Labor?

About 1 percent of American workers are automotive, auto body, diesel or heavy machine mechanics as classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov). Ground support equipment (GSE) mechanic is a specialized skill not specifically classified by the BLS. Most GSE mechanics could check the box for all four of those classifications.

The Conundrum: Part 1

Americans born between 1949 and 1964 are considered Baby Boomers. There are 79 million of us and we’ve begun to enter retirement age. Google “baby boomer retirement rate” and the generally accepted number is 8000-10,000 per day. In other words, 80-100 mechanics per day will retire. The pipeline for replacing retiring mechanics today does not have thousands of students in it. GSE mechanics, with a unique skill set specifically oriented to the aviation ground support industry, will retire at a rate much higher than they will be replaced. Those who remain will be asked to be much more productive to keep up with the demand.

The Conundrum: Part 2

On the tarmac at Miami International Airport (MIA), the captain has announced a ground stop for Minneapolis (MSP). Air traffic control at MSP is managing 70 landings an hour and needs to get a little more space between arrivals. I’m on an A-320 with 149 other passengers. A bit of quick napkin math, assuming the average number of passengers on those MSP-bound planes is 150, there are 10,500 travelers who will land at MSP in a single hour.

Those passengers have one thing in common. They have the same expectation about their travel experience:

• Their plane will arrive on time.
• While they are on the plane, on the ground, or in the air, they expect to experience a temperature-controlled environment and to be reasonably comfortable.
• There will be plenty of room to accommodate their carry-on bags and, if not, someone will take them and make sure they get to their final destination.
• If they dropped off a bag at the curb or at the desk inside, they expect their bag to arrive at the carousel of their final destination within a few minutes of their arrival in baggage claim, regardless of the number of stops and plane changes they’ve had during their trip.
• All of the above will happen regardless of weather conditions or air traffic.

All 10,500 people who land in MSP in that single hour expect 100% success and have no idea how complex the system delivering that experience is.

Each of those 70 planes will likely “turn” and head out to another destination. Each will land, pull up to the gate, unload, and get cleaned, restocked, reloaded and pushed back to take off.

When a plane lands and pulls up to the gate, equipment that GSE technicians maintain can impact the customers’ expectations:

1. The jet bridge or passenger stairs, including ADA compliant accessories, moves to the plane to safely allow the passengers to unload and load.
2. The lift truck carrying the cabin service crew moves to the plane and lifts up to gain access so the cleaning crew can then do its work.
3. The Air Conditioning Units on the ground start working to provide heated or cooled air for the cabin.
4. The catering truck moves to the plane and lifts up to gain access to the galleys so the crew can do its work.
5. The baggage tractors pull the baggage carts up to the plane to be loaded with baggage.
6. The belt loader pulls up to the plane to be positioned to unload the plane of its baggage and cargo.
7. The valet cart is positioned to collect carry-ons that won’t fit in the overhead compartments. Bags from the cart are put on the belt loader too.
8. The water cart/truck pulls up to the plane to allow for water service of the plane.
9. The lavatory service cart/truck pulls up to the plane to allow for lav service of the plane.
10. The fuel truck/cart approaches the plane to begin the refueling process.
11. A different set of baggage carts are loaded under the airport with the bags headed to this plane.
12. Different baggage tractors move through the airport and collect all of the baggage that needs to be on this particular plane.
13. The jet bridge or stairs is moved away from the plane.
14. Using a Ground Power Unit, the pilot restarts the engines in preparation for departure.
15. A push back tractor then pushes the plane away from the gate area and out to the taxiway.
16. If necessary, the plane is deiced to prepare for take-off.

If your battery goes dead on your car or you get a flat tire or the car has some other mechanical failure, you, your passengers, and your possessions aren’t going to get where you were going on time.  If any of the mechanical touches of a plane’s turn fail, just like your car, that plane and those passengers or their luggage aren’t going to get to their destinations on time as expected.

Our company has about 200 GSE mechanics serving 65 airports. Each knows that any mechanical failure during any one of those 16 touches of an airplane’s turn will directly impact the passenger experience. The culture required to be successful is one of quality maintenance done with a sense of urgency (a unique sense that is part of being in the aviation industry). We also must address …

The Conundrum Part 3

GSE maintenance is complicated. As an example, each one of the planes must be pushed back from the gate area. Push back tractors come in two styles, conventional and towbarless, and are manufactured by more than 40 companies. Those 70 inbound planes at MSP are CRJs, wide bodies, and narrow bodies. Sitting at the gate ready to make sure the plane is pushed on time will be a Douglas, Eagle, JBT, TLD, or Lektro brand, electric, gas, diesel or even hybrid push back. To add to the complexity, those push backs could be 5, 10, 15 or 20 years old. (They may actually have a carburetor, which is something baby boomers are familiar with but their children may have never seen, just like a cassette tape player, pager, or pay phone.) They don’t teach this stuff at tech school.

How many of the assets used for those 16 touches of a plane’s turn have similar variations? Fuel trucks, belt loaders, ground power units, air starts, catering trucks and more, all have wide variations and typically feature aging fleets. A retiring GSE mechanic possesses a virtual encyclopedia of tribal knowledge that is not readily passed along to his/her replacement.

The Capacity Conundrum

There won’t be fewer planes flying. There won’t be less cargo being moved. We can’t replace the work force with self-service or self-checkout (which is becoming a norm in other service industries). There will be more work and fewer GSE mechanics.

The average American worker produces 6.5 hours of work in an average 8 hour day. The GSE mechanics in our company are measured and perform higher than that every day. They have to or those 70 planes don’t turn and those passenger expectations won’t be met. Though over the past 12 months, we’ve added 50 new jobs (about four each month), we know that it is possible that 1% of our team (or two mechanics) will approach retirement age every day sometime in the near future. Finding replacements will be more and more challenging. The existing work force is approaching capacity.

To be successful, GSE maintenance companies must have a clear strategy to address the Capacity Conundrum. They must:

• Have a quality maintenance system that is auditable. Quality maintenance measurably impacts efficiency (yielding more productivity).
• Invest in training more deeply than ever before. Capture and share the tribal knowledge. The new technicians aren’t going to come from the GSE industry, but they’ll be more productive if training exists to help them assimilate quickly.
• Apply Lean principles to the flow of the shop. GSE mechanics will be required to be more productive than the average worker.

Despite a 20 minute ground stop and flying dead into a 150 knot wind, my flight from MIA to MSP arrived on time. We pushed back from gate H17 flawlessly. While on the tarmac and in the air we were comfortable. The plane was clean, the snacks and beverages were available, and all of our luggage was accommodated. We arrived at G13 and our baggage arrived at the carousel just a few minutes after we did. It appeared, at least for this day, the work of the GSE mechanics had been successful despite 70 flights per hour. Will we be able to keep up with the demand? That is the conundrum.