MROs Look To Address Labor Pipelines, Target Efficiencies

DUBAI—As the commercial aftermarket looks to ascending fortunes in 2023, addressing supply chain-related issues such as labor shortfalls is expected to be among the key challenges in the near to mid-term.

Given the global nature of the challenge, this has affected every region of the world including the Middle East, which has seen a welcome rise in passenger traffic and MRO activity but has been hampered by a readiness to meet ramp ups. 

David Doherty, head of sales, Etihad Engineering, says that despite employing more than 2,000 people and being among the biggest aviation names in the region, the Abu Dhabi-based MRO provider hasn’t been immune to the global shortage in engineers and mechanics. 

He identifies access to skilled labor outside of the Gulf region as a primary challenge of the business currently. “We have a finite pool of labor available in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and most of that labor comes from countries outside of the GCC and therefore some of our airline colleagues and competitors are also drawing from that same pool,” Doherty told a panel at MRO Middle East on Wednesday (Mar. 1). 

This has led to Etihad reviewing its training functions beyond typical Part-147 training. “We need to make sure that as well as benefiting from the market, we’re not consuming more labor without adding to it.” 

The company specializes in heavy maintenance and component overhaul services and has a estimated 70% to 30% split between third-party and Etihad Airways-related work respectively. Doherty says the company is looking at several strategic joint ventures, with announcements expected shortly while also adding to capacity with three new hangars being built in Abu Dhabi this year. 

Recruiting for these new facilities through attractive financial offers will benefit the company in the short-term, but longer-term, solutions such as apprenticeship schemes and upskilling existing mechanical labor are cited as potential remedies to the issue. Doherty estimates over the next year alone, Etihad will need an extra 300 to 350 mechanics to aid its growth aspirations.

Derk Nieuwenhuijze VP digital, marketing and communications, Air France KLM, notes the overall challenges presented by the MRO supply chain and says this impacts the company in several ways. Nieuwenhuijze says Air France KLM, which employs around 12,000 people across the group, is exploring ways to get people into its global network of maintenance shops and has faith in using traditional methods such as apprenticeship programs as a way of doing this.

However, the nature of disrupted supply chains means it is not looking at manpower numbers alone. “When tackling these supply chain crunches, we’ve not only thought about bringing more people in but ultimately thinking about how we can make the people that we have more productive,” he says. 

Nieuwenhuijze says the airline group’s MRO business has looked to utilize more automation and invest in standardizing visual inspection methods to save time on manual inspection task carried out by technicians. “We use a lot of artificial intelligence and image recognition tools but also make sure these programs can really work with people and help them be more productive.”