Recruitment and retention critical for future MRO growth

This was the pressing message of a number of recruitment professionals talking in a seminar at the inaugural MRO Middle East Exhibition and Conference taking place at Dubai Airport Expo Centre.

Rick Helliwell, VP Recruitment and HR at Emirates Airline told audiences at MRO ME, which is organised by F&E Aerospace and Aviation Week, that a 5% increase in retention, equated to an estimated 10% decrease in costs, with productivity typically increasing from between 25% and 65%.

"In the Middle East region alone, we are expecting some 58% of all wide-bodied aircraft deliveries over the next 16 years and Emirates Airline alone will be expanding its fleet to around 400 by then. Emirates is fully committed to the orders for new aircraft that it has made, which means that in the next four years alone, we will need to grow the number of our Licensed Aircraft Engineers by 30% and our mechanics by around 50% simply to service our expanding fleet. With intense competition from the likes of DWC Aviation City and an increasing number of MROs, we see this as a significant threat to our engineering manpower as we triple in size as an airline," he said

Helliwell however was keen to point out a solution. With over 40% of the GCC population below the age of 15, he believed that now was an ideal time to start creating entry level pipelines of talent, so that when demand picked up, there would be enough engineers being trained to fill the number of vacancies expected.

"We don't know how deep any slump is going to be but at the end of the day, having a clear growth strategy is crucial to business success. The business must survive and having a long-term plan for the supply of engineering personnel is crucial to our growth. Placing students into a training programme at this stage is relatively low cost compared with the alternative option of waiting until the market picks up, so we must plan for two or three years ahead from now, since it takes that amount of time to train someone up to a level at which they can useful,"

said Helliwell.

Emirates Airline has two schemes already running, offering two-year mechanic apprenticeship programmes suitable for expatriates and five-year engineering apprenticeship programmes for UAE nationals.

Klaus Schmidt-Klyk, Director of Sales and Marketing at Lufthansa Technical Training, another panellist, said that with world demand for civil aircraft likely to increase from its present 20,000 to 28,000 units in the next ten years, there would be a need for 40,000 new people worldwide joining the industry every year until then. In the Middle East region this would equate to 1,500 a year for Line and Base Maintenance engineers, rising to 3,000 if other engineering functions such as engine and component MRO, were factored in.

And Schmidt-Klyk was quick to point out that to meet this demand, training and recruitment needed to continue unabated.

"If we look back to the downturn of 2001, we should try to learn the lessons of that era. MROs by and large all but stopped their recruitment of engineers; the result was a massive shortage by 2006 when conditions picked up again," said Schmidt-Klyk.

He went on to explain that Lufthansa had around 280 apprentices going through its training system, which means that it has ready access to enough staff to ride out any fluctuations in demand. "In the Middle East, poaching engineers from other organisations is a costly affair because on the one hand they expect higher salaries as their skill set is obviously in demand, whilst at the same time it breeds people who get used to changing jobs often."

Schmidt-Klyk and Helliwell were headlining the session 'Competition for Talent - They Who Dare, Win' at MRO ME's conference programme.

During the two day show, which ran 21-22nd January 2009, industry leaders discussed a host of pressing topics including the next steps for the region, where air transport is a catalyst for growth, economic development, and job creation. HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President, Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, and Chairman of Dubai Airports & Emirates Group, Andrew Cowen, CEO, Sama; and Steffen Harpoth, CEO, Silver Air, were among the keynote speakers.