Introduction
The maintenance system is an important basis to ensure safety of civil aviation. In recent years with the continued steady growth of the Chinese economy and the rapid development the air freight industry of China, by the end of 2007, CAAC already has 1,144 registered transport aircrafts, each year more than 100 aircrafts are added to the number. It has been a concern of the whole industry whether the development of maintenance system can be adapted to the quick growth of the fleet to ensure its safety on a sustained efficient basis. Therefore, under the authorization and direction of the Aviation Standard Division of CAAC, the CAAC Aviation Safety Technology Center (the Center) initiated in the second half of 2007 the overall survey on the engineering capabilities of the CAAC maintenance system, survey contents covering scale of domestic fleets, distribution of maintenance resources, maintenance market, etc. With the support of the Aviation Standard Division of CAAC, the Center will keep improving the above mentioned survey to realize the following objectives: make the survey a routine work, provide analysis report for the industry on a regular basis, guide the CAAC maintenance system to develop healthily and stably, and ensure the sustained safety of the CAAC fleets. Based on the initial survey and statistics, this report analyses the status quo and the demand & supply of human resources of the CAAC maintenance system, summarizing the main HR problems of the system, proposing relevant suggestions and measures. Content of other relevant subjects will be furnished continually.
1. Maintenance System Overview
By the end of 2007, China has 32 transport airlines in CCAR-121 Division and CCAR-135 Division, 369 maintenance organizations in CCAR-145 Division (including maintenance providers of 32 transport airlines), 1,144 registered transport aircrafts (4 of them are in a sealed state all year long); in addition, China has 77 general airlines in CCAR-91 Division, 807 registered general aircrafts.
Fig 1 to Fig 3 shows the numerical changes of the transport airlines, maintenance providers and transport aircrafts in recent years. In 2003 China has 9 transport airlines, the number increased to 32 in 2007 (Fig 1), all newly added airlines are small airlines with less than 30 aircrafts. The number of domestic maintenance providers has increased from 320 in 2002 to 369 in 2007 (Fig), annual average growth 2.2%, showing a steady growth momentum. The number of registered transport aircrafts keeps growing quickly from 458 in 1997 to 1,144 in 2007 (Fig 3), annual average growth rate during the recent 10 years reaching 9.6%. Currently the domestic general aviation is still in the initial development phase, unable to match the position of China as a large civil aviation country; the scale of the general aviation fleets is small, though its maintenance work is also done by the maintenance providers of CCAR-145 division, but compared with the transport aviation fleets, their maintenance workload is less. Therefore the mechanic/aircraft ratio analysis in this report will only consider the number of transport aircrafts and neglects the number of general aircrafts; such processing should not have substantial impact on the conclusion.
2. Numerical Analysis on the Human Resources of the Maintenance System
2.1 Total number of maintenance mechanics
By the end of 2007, China has 20,610 maintenance mechanics working with 32 transport airlines, plus 37,674 mechanics working with independent maintenance providers, the total number is 55,284, accounting for 19.3% of total number of 285,987 workers of the whole civil aviation industry. 28,284 of the mechanics are first line maintenance mechanics for airline and heavy maintenance (excluding the staff of the engineering, quality, aviation material, planning, and other departments), accounting for 51% of the total number of mechanics of the maintenance system. They are the direct executer of aircraft maintenance and the important force ensuring the aircraft maintenance quality.
Fig 4 is the growing trend of domestic maintenance mechanics since 2001, from 2001 to 2007 the annual average growth rate (AAGR) of the total number of the CAAC maintenance mechanics is 8.8%, obviously lagging behind the AAGR of the fleet scale in the same period, that is 11.1% (in 2001 the scale of the fleet is 608 aircrafts, in 2007 it is 1,144 aircraft, see Fig 3), the mechanic/aircraft ratio is also lowered from 54.65 in 2001 to 48.49 in 2007, on one hand this indicates that productivity of the maintenance industry has been improved, on the other hand it highlights the fact that the human resources of the maintenance system tend to be increasingly strained.
2.2 Distribution of first line mechanics by maintenance category
By the end of 2007 the first line mechanics in China are mainly the line maintenance personnel (41%) and regular inspection personnel (33%), and the component repair mechanics (22%) and engine repair mechanics (4%) are relatively less (see Fig 5), indicating that the domestic maintenance industry is still labor-intensive, lacking in-depth maintenance capability. In the early period the civil aviation maintenance industry of China developed gradually from line maintenance and heavy maintenance, at that time more than 90% of parts to be repaired are sent abroad; in the 1990s when some private maintenance enterprises began dealing with in-depth repair of some parts, the situation changed better gradually. But with the parts producers enhancing their monopoly awareness, the domestic maintenance industry became difficult to develop in-depth maintenance capability, especially for engine repair, although in recent years the number of domestic engine repair works increased, few of them can make in-depth repair of engines. Except the repair of PW4000, JT9D, RB211, V2500 and CFM56 engines, large quantity of unit components still need to be outsourced to the foreign repair providers, and we cannot control the repair cycle, price or quality independently.
2.3 Distribution of maintenance mechanics by service years
According to the application conditions specified in the basic part of Section 66.8 of China Civil Aviation Regulation CCAR-66R1 Civil Aircraft Maintenance Personnel License Management Rules, the applicants should have accumulated more than 2 years of experience in aircraft maintenance; according to the application conditions specified in the model part of Section 66.15, the signed applicants for Model I should have at least 3 years of maintenance experience, for Model II at least 5 years. If considering from angles of working efficiency, experience and the integrated capability of solving problems, the mature mechanics need around 6 years of development cycle. By the end of 2007 in the maintenance system the personnel with less than 6 service years account for 40% (Fig 6), the mechanic team is still young; the staff for line maintenance and heavy maintenance with less than 6 service years account for 50%, less than 3 years 36% (Table 1), the first line maintenance staff are too young. It is a big test for both the airlines and the maintenance providers how to ensure maintenance quality under the status quo that the percentage of young people is high.
2.4 Distribution of mechanics by education degree
As far as academic structure is concerned, by the end of 2007 in the civil aviation maintenance system of our country 58% of the personnel have education degree at least above junior college, 27% above bachelor degree (Fig 7). With the increased popularity of higher education, in recent years the enterprises introduced a large number of college graduates, in the future the personnel of junior college and bachelor degree will become the main force of mechanics.
2.5 License held by mechanics
Mechanic license management is to improve the overall level of the mechanics to be adapted to the development requirements of science and technology. Currently the licenses held by the mechanics of the civil aviation maintenance system of China have completed the transition from CCAR-65 Division to CCAR-66 Division. By the end of July 2008, 13,489 of the civil aviation mechanics of China have obtained CCAR-66 Division Civil Aircraft maintenance personnel license, 4,189 persons obtained CCAR- 66 division civil aircraft component maintenance personnel license, 1,594 persons obtained CCAR-66 Division management personnel qualification certificate. A total of 19,272 persons hold license, approximately accounting for 35% of the staff number of the maintenance system, including 7,762 line maintenance license holders, accounting for 49% of the total number of line maintenance workers; 3,114 heavy maintenance license holders, accounting for 25% of the total number of heavy maintenance workers.
2.6 Number of Continuing Airworthiness Inspectors
By Feb 2008, CAAC and 7 local administrations and the safety surveillance offices under their charge have 181 continuing airworthiness inspectors, 146 of them holding inspector certificate, the other 35 just began their job and were applying for the inspector certificate. The continuing airworthiness inspectors play an important guiding role in improving aviation safety and developing the civil aviation maintenance industry. If not calculating the quantity of general airplanes, the man/airplane ratio of continuing airworthiness inspectors has been lowered to 0.13, which poses significant challenge to the aviation transport surveillance of the continuing airworthiness inspectors.
3 Man/Airplane Analysis for Line maintenance and Heavy maintenance First Line Personnel
The man/airplane ratio for maintenance personnel is the ratio between the quantity of maintenance personnel and the number of maintained airplanes. As the maintenance system is relatively complex, the size of man/airplane involves multiple factors such as the fleet scale, airplane model, job, personnel quality, etc. Currently the theoretical research on the man/airplane ratio for maintenance personnel is still at a starting stage at home and abroad. This paper proposes the statistics and analysis on the actual man/airplane ratio for the line maintenance and heavy maintenance personnel of the domestic transport airlines.
Table 2 lists the man/airplane ratio of the maintenance personnel of 32 domestic transport airlines. By the end of 2007, the average line maintenance man/airplane ratio of the Big 3 – Air China, China Southern, and China Eastern is 10.22, the average man/airplane ratio for heavy maintenance is 5.56. Because the man/airplane ratio calculation of the Big 3 airlines has considered the maintenance work of the independent maintenance provider, the result can reflect the real man/airplane status on the maintenance work of the major CAAC airlines. The average man/airplane ratio for line maintenance for the 29 medium to small sized airlines other than the Big 3 is 7.68, the average man/airplane ratio for heavy maintenance is 3.05, both smaller than the average man/airplane ratio of the Big 3 airlines, mainly because the line maintenance and heavy maintenance work of most medium to small airlines is contracted entirely or in part to independent maintenance providers.
Considering the line maintenance man/airplane ratio of the entire industry for the personnel of the independent maintenance providers is 13.72, although this value is higher than the average line maintenance man/airplane ratio of the Big 3 airlines, considering the facts that China has multiple medium and small sized airlines, multiple medium and small sized airports, decentralized personnel, and diverse personnel quality, if using the average man/airplane ratio of the Big 3 airlines as a reference, the existing line maintenance personnel under the precondition of reasonable configuration should be able to maintain the existing line maintenance work of the domestic fleets; but considering the current growth rate of domestic fleets and the mature cycle of the crew, the shortage in line maintenance personnel will exist objectively in long term.
Considering the heavy maintenance man/airplane ratio for the personnel of independent maintenance providers for the entire industry is 11.09, one time higher than the heavy maintenance man/airplane ratio of the Big 3 airlines, mainly because heavy maintenance belongs to labor-intensive work, the labor cost in China is rather low, absorbing heavy maintenance business from a large number of foreign fleets.
4 Main Problems Existing in Human Resources of Maintenance System
The civil aviation maintenance industry of China has developed for many years. The maintenance system has grown from scratch, from small to large, made significant progress, cultivated a group of experienced maintenance personnel, and made important contribution to the safe operation of civil aircrafts of China. Currently the maintenance system is at the gradual improvement stage, and the existing problems are unavoidable, mainly covering the following aspects:
4.1 The skill level of the maintenance personnel is still not high
The maintenance personnel in the early period were the veteran soldiers from the army; most of them don’t have high education degree, lacking basic knowledge. They have accumulated rich maintenance experience, but are slow to improve and update their technology, lacking creativity. Beginning from the 1980s, some college students are replenished to the maintenance team, but they quickly become the executive leaders, so the technological force of the first line personnel is still not replenished sufficiently. When it comes to the 21st century, with the higher education becomes popular in China, the China civil aviation maintenance system began to introduce college graduates in large quantity, things changed better, but compared with other industries, the maintenance industry lacks sufficient attractiveness. How to ensure the steady growth of the team and improve the technological level of the first line maintenance personnel is a problem to be solved.
4.2 No sufficient emphasis on training maintenance personnel
Airplane maintenance technologies are updated quickly, and the in-service training requirements for maintenance personnel is very high, however, because the domestic airlines are prone to value aviation while neglecting maintenance, the maintenance system lacks training investment and resources, the training time of the first line staff cannot be guaranteed because of busy work, the training is not systematic enough, in addition to other common problems. Some enterprises even tend to deal with training as a short-term welfare by arranging inappropriate staff to participate in unsuitable training, leading to the compromise of training results. With the quick growth of fleet scale and the introduction of new models (A380 and B787), new training needs are also growing. Attention should be paid to how to meet these requirements on an already undermined basis.
4.3 Drain of maintenance personnel especially backbone talents becomes increasingly serious
Compared with other jobs in the civil aviation industry, the maintenance personnel work harder with heavy duty, but their salary and status are rather low, leading to serious drain of personnel, especially the senior backbone maintenance talents with technology, which affected the development of the entire civil aviation maintenance industry. With the opening of the civil aviation maintenance market of China, the huge potential of the domestic market are recognized by many foreign enterprises; they set up plants in succession through investing to establish their own businesses or joint ventures to repair airplane body, parts and accessories. These plants use local human resources, and provide higher salary and development opportunity to have attracted a large number of excellent technical and managerial talents from domestic maintenance enterprises, further undermining the competitiveness of the domestic maintenance enterprises.
4.4 Maintenance human resources are relatively insufficient
According to the analysis before, the man/airplane of the maintenance system tends to decrease year by year, the maintenance personnel growth rate always lags behind the growth rate of fleet, and in the current maintenance system the percentage of mature maintenance personnel is not high, leading to the relative human resources shortage in the maintenance system, especially the first line maintenance personnel is increasingly in short supply. In the future, the domestic fleet will increase by 100-150 airplanes each year, if calculating according to the total man/airplane ratio 48.3, line maintenance personnel man/airplane ratio 13.72, heavy maintenance man/airplane ratio 11.09 in the maintenance system in 2007, it is anticipated that in the future the maintenance system needs to increase 4,800-7,200 persons each year, among which the first line maintenance personnel for line maintenance and heavy maintenance needs 2,400-3,700 persons, considering personnel drain, the actual demand may be even greater. The civil aviation maintenance personnel of China mainly come from China Civil Aviation Flying College, Civil Aviation University of China, Civil Aviation College Guangzhou, Shanghai Vocational School of CAAC, and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. According to the data of the “11th 5-year” human resource planning for civil aviation, the 5 schools can provide around 1,700 maintenance graduates years each year, compared with the demand, there is a large gap.
5 Measures to implement the maintenance system human resources development planning
To solve the human resource problems existing in the maintenance system, both the government and the enterprises should adopt effective measures. The government should enhance industry planning and policy guidance, and the enterprises should enhance their own human resources development.
5.1 Countermeasures on the governmental level
The government should enact effective macro-control policy to create a good market environment for the enterprises, promote the development of the maintenance market, improve the human resource management of the maintenance system; we suggest adopting the following measures:
(1) Establish airline human resources access threshold. In recent years the medium to small size airlines are increasing in number, and their maintenance system human resources are not at the same level, which is a challenge for the improvement of the maintenance system of the industry. To ensure the improvement of the overall level of the maintenance system, it is necessary to establish a set of reasonable airline human resources access threshold, enacting a set of standard applicable to the whole industry and related legal system, managing the industry on the integrated threshold basis. Only by this way can we meet the requirements for industry development and enable the healthy development of the industry.
(2) Improve the personnel qualification evaluation system, including completing the shifting of maintenance personnel license from CCAR-65 division to CCAR-66 division, improving the maintenance personnel license examination outline, teaching material and question bank development and management, promoting the implementation of online examination, enabling the airlines and maintenance providers to improve their position qualification system, maintenance training and re-training system, establishing CCAR-147 division maintenance personnel training facilities.
(3) Guide the development and cultivation of maintenance back-up personnel. According to the analysis before, the future human resources have a big. We suggest setting up aviation maintenance major in other engineering colleges to meet the development needs of the civil aviation maintenance industry. Meanwhile, guide and encourage through policies the maintenance enterprises to enhance the cultivation, development and use of maintenance professionals, improve the technical level of first line maintenance personnel and the managerial level of the maintenance managers, form a sound system valuing technology and maintenance capability from the government to the enterprises.
(4) Enhance the maintenance system human resources research. The government should carry out regular industry-wide human resources statistics analysis and research, develop effective maintenance system human resources planning policy based on the research, and guide the maintenance enterprises to develop human resources.
5.2 Measures at enterprise level
The enterprises can adopt the following measures in managing and developing human resources:
(1) Enhance maintenance personnel demand planning, and store maintenance human resources in a reasonable way. The airlines should make objective projections on the development of their fleets, under the precondition of considering the cultivation cycle for introducing personnel, introduce new employees with plan, organize talent team building, and ensure the reasonable storage of maintenance system human resources.
(2) Ameliorate positions, roles and responsibilities, and realize the optimal configuration of human resources. To improve the performance and satisfaction of maintenance personnel, we must achieve the rational optimal configuration of human resources and job. Therefore it is necessary for the maintenance enterprises to develop effective position configuration management policy, and specify the roles and responsibilities and qualification requirements of various positions.
(3) Improve the training system and enhance the training of maintenance personnel. The technical requirements for maintenance personnel are high, the new staff needs long-term systematic training before grasping necessary maintenance skills, and the experienced staff also needs sufficient training to grasp the new technologies that keep updating, which proposes very high requirements for the training of maintenance personnel. The training departments of the maintenance enterprises should develop talent training plan as early as possible, carefully handle the conflict between working and training for the employees, and ensure that each employee can receive necessary planned training.
(4) Establish sound employment mechanism. Currently the maintenance personnel in China are too mobile, resulting in the instability of production order, affecting the improvement of maintenance quality and the commitment of the business managers to invest into staff training. To change this tendency, the enterprises should create a sound working environment for the staff, establish a reasonable, equal, and effective compensation system, build a sound incentive mechanism, use the influence of corporate culture, improve the recognition of the maintenance personnel for their occupation, and keep the relative stability of the maintenance team.
Summary
The engineering capability research project of the civil aviation maintenance system of China is a long-term systematic project. It will provide strong data support to the development and planning of the domestic maintenance industry. The human resources research for the maintenance system is a part of the entire research program. It proposes the status quo of the human resources in the domestic maintenance system and the main problems in the development process, and suggests relevant measures that are worthy of consideration and reference to the government in planning for industry development and to the enterprises in planning for building up their own business.
Acknowledges
We are thankful for the help from the experts of the Flying Standard Division, CAAC in the process of program planning and design, and the support from the local administration airworthiness maintenance division, the airlines and the maintenance providers in data collection and statistics.
