Chicago’s MRO Workforce Pipeline Celebrates First Milestone

CHICAGO—Two years after opening the only FAA-certified Part 147 aviation maintenance training program in Chicago, the Aviation Institute of Maintenance has graduated its first class of students.

The graduation ceremony took place on Aug. 18 inside the school’s 137,000 ft.² campus in McKinley Park, a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. The facility opened in 2021 thanks in part to high maintenance workforce demand from major airlines based at Chicago’s O’Hare (ORD) and Midway airports. Now, some of the school’s first 24 graduates will be going on to start their careers at some of these airlines, including American Airlines and United Airlines, as well as major engine OEMs such as GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney.

“Because of the incredible workforce shortage, these students are being offered salaries that are just higher than anything that we’ve seen in the past,” says Joel English, executive vice president of the Aviation Institute of Maintenance (AIM). “Most of these students have received multiple offers from different companies and get to choose where they go to work.”

Reflecting this high demand, American Airlines offered each of the graduates a guaranteed interview with the airline if they take their airframe and powerplant exam within 60 days of graduation. According to Kozetta Chapman, senior manager of tech ops recruiting and development at American, the airline’s significant need for technical operations staff is driving a host of workforce pipeline efforts across the country, such as its partnership with AIM Chicago.

Following a memorandum of understanding American signed with AIM Chicago in 2022, the airline has donated a Pratt & Whitney JT8D-200 engine to the campus and sponsored the school’s first competition team for the Aerospace Maintenance Competition. Prior to the graduation ceremony, the airline also unveiled a new American-branded Career Center at the campus, which will be used to help students prepare for interviews and find jobs.

One graduate who has already found employment at American is Tyreq Brandy, a native Chicagoan who has been hired by the airline to work at its ORD maintenance operations. Brandy transferred to AIM Chicago after taking an aviation sheet metalworking course at Chicago’s Olive-Harvey College, which was launched in 2018 through a partnership between the college, MRO provider AAR and youth aviation education nonprofit AeroStar Avion Institute. Brandy landed an interview at the airline following his participation in a panel about these industry efforts earlier this year at the Aviation Technician Education Council’s Annual Conference, which took place at AIM Chicago.