Planes Can’t Fly Without Aircraft Mechanics - And We’re Running Out of Them with John Goglia

Speaker A: Airline like United airlines, who has 14,000 mechanics. That means between now and retirement, five years, roughly, they are going to lose 7,000 people.

Speaker B: John Golia, former NTSB board member and founder of the Aerospace Maintenance Competition. How important is mentorship in your career? Who is your mentor?

Speaker A: Uh, no, they were tough. They were tough. No mercy. You screwed up. No mercy. You're not doing it right.

Speaker B: Do it over from a general public's perspective. You look at the pilots, but you don't necessarily look at the maintenance, you people behind it. And that's where the spotlight really should be shined.

Speaker A: I'm appointed by the president. I had to be confirmed by the U.S. senate. I'm a mechanic.

Speaker B: What's the pressure like for an aircraft maintenance technician before they sign off on that plane and there's 2, 300 souls on that plane?

Speaker A: Many times it can be so.

Speaker B: John, you've seen this industry from the hangar floor all the way to the ntsb. When something goes wrong, what usually fails first? Is it the person, the training, or is it the system?

Speaker A: It could be a combination of all. Three years ago. We always blamed the person. And that was for over 20 years. So I'm taking it from the 60s when I came into the business and when, uh, coincidentally the NTSB was born in 1967. Even the NTSB or the CAB before them, it was always, always the people. As we started to get more enlightened, we started to realize that the people were only the last law. There were flaws before the people. The system essentially fail them. So you know that we just had a crash in laguardia. Um, yes, laguardia. And the press made a big deal over what the air traffic controller said under pressure, self imposed pressure. He just worked the position. He had an emergency landing and he had a fire truck out of position, caused a crash and two people died. And at the end of his transmission he said, I guess I screwed up. But now when we look at that accident and we start digging back a little bit. Peel the onion is the current phrase that everybody uses. We start to peel the onion, we're finding out, well, who decided that he was going to work two positions alone? Who was there that when he had the emergency that made it into three events, three positions alone, where was his backup? Where was his manager? So that's the kind of questions that are now being asked that weren't asked 30 years ago. We're now saying, yes, he made a mistake, but maybe he was set up to make that mistake because the system failed him. The system failed to provide the Resources for him to do the best job that he could do. That's when the biggest change that's been happening. And it's not just on the system, it's on the person too. Uh, so it's, it goes all the way back, you know, and the similar accident in D.C. where the controller works with the helicopter and the rest. And the NTSP uncovered 1500 times the air traffic controllers were crying for help because that place is just too busy and too brutal. And it went all the way to 800 independents. Is the head of the, where the FAA lives, the head of the FAA, that's their big office building. And the decisions to make, to make no changes and m. To provide no additional support for that tower in D.C. go all the way back to that 800 Independence Avenue. So it goes up through air traffic management, it goes through senior mid management of the faa, all the way up to the administrator's office. So is that the fault of the air traffic controller or, uh, is that the fault of a whole process that fails everybody in the chain?

Speaker B: Well, there's so many things that have to get right, right. Somebody has to sign off on the paperwork for the plane to leave. The pilots have to get you there right. The tower has to control everything. There's a lot of things in motion. What's the pressure like for an aircraft maintenance technician before they sign off on that plane? And there's 2, 300 souls on that plane.

Speaker A: Many times it can be quite severe. And uh, and there's two, two views of pressure at that point in time. I've done that job many, many times. And so you got time restraints because now that they've boarded the airplane and they got an airplane full of people waiting to go, the gate is needed by the next flight coming down. So you got customer service yelling at you, we'll get this airplane out. Uh, the pilot's standing over you, watching what you're doing. Uh, sometimes, uh, so there is all kinds of pressure on it. And that's one of the reasons why here on some of the tests here at the AMC competition, if you look, there'll be clocks. Yes, countdown clocks. And that is to replicate the time pressure that mechanics have to work under to let them feel that pressure. But one of the toughest things that mechanic has to learn is to ignore those outside influences. And we're all human. It's tough to do, but you have to learn to ignore it. Some people have a tough time with it. So when I was working as a lead mechanic, I called her a crew chief I tried to be the one who kept that pressure off the guys that were on my crew.

Speaker B: How'd you do that?

Speaker A: By just standing and say, those are my guys, I'm responsible for them. You want to talk to them, to talk to me first. And even my supervisor that was, they're my guys. And not everybody does that. Not everybody has the will to stand up, but many of us do.

Speaker B: What's that window of time? I'm going to go back to, um, in between flights. What is the window of time for mechanic to do the checks to win the plane? Because you said there's a lot of pressure and everyone's kind of looking at their watch. How much time do they have before they have to sign off on that?

Speaker A: Well, push a lot of airplanes out in 30 minutes.

Speaker B: 30 minutes.

Speaker A: You know, I worked for Allegheny years ago, which turned into usa.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, we had a number of flights that were scheduled with a 20 minute turnaround. So it was, it was, uh, sometimes tough. And we came. If you come in with a leaking brake, the airplane came in and you got a 20 minute turnaround, you're booking it to get it done. The more difficult problems with electronic on avionics, because sometimes just to run an avionics check takes you more than 20 minutes. I'm trying to figure out what the problem is. You've got all kinds of pressure again, again. Who puts the pressure on the gate agent who wants to board the airplane? Because sometimes you won't. You'll tell them not to board because you don't want to be fighting with passengers getting on, off the airplane so that you're holding up, boarding. So they're coming down. They want. So they're worried about answering for their delay and they're coming down pushing you. How long are you going to be? What's the story? And so it comes at you from all different directions, including internally. But sometimes you put the pressure on yourself because you don't want to take the delay.

Speaker B: You talked about the championships and I want to come back to that. But you talked about the pressure of the time clock. And that kind of gets people, um, you know, the feeling of time constraints when you come out of school and you go right into the airline. So it's a couple years, right, the program. But when you come in, you're green. You don't, you know, you haven't done the reps. Who teaches you that? Who teaches you to, to keep cool and, you know, you have a lot of responsibility. Who teaches you that there's actually a

Speaker A: void in that area. Right. So it's your peer, it's your peers. So where do you, where do you come into the system? Uh, I came into New York City. My personal experience. I came into New York City, uh, not the easiest place in the world.

Speaker B: You know, I'm from there.

Speaker A: So, you know, people often talk about the New York attitude. Well, let me tell you, it's alive and well and, and I think I still have some of the scars from the mistakes I made. And those guys just climb right down your throat. Right. But that's a learning curve and, and uh, I think I benefited from it. But it is peer pressure now. One, one of the things, you know, I put this, this competition together and right now we have 95 people teams that come here. We've been chalkerbox full for years now. And one of the things we tried to push here is making sure you follow procedures to manual professionalism. We have awards for professionalism. Just this morning, just this morning, uh, I am going to start an effort to increase the training professionalism. Going to raise the bar. I want to raise that bar. Uh, I want, I want the mechanics not only to receive respect from outside, but I also want them to be respectful and I want maintenance people to be elevated in perception by everybody.

Speaker B: That's a two way street.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Well, usually from a general public's perspective, you look at the pilots, but you don't necessarily look at the maintenance people behind it. And that's where the spotlight really should be shined. Those are the people that keep us flying and safe.

Speaker A: Many years ago, and I was close to the pilot unions and many years ago I took a look at that, that very issues and they did a very good job of self promoting and making sure the general public understood the safety consequences of their job, the training that they have. So if you were to go out on the street right now and grab somebody who probably flew here and ask them about the pilot's position and safety and then ask those same questions about a mechanic, they wouldn't know any of the maintenance. And that's what we have to change right here at this, this venue which is loaded with aviation people. All right, so we're back here in this corner with, with, uh, I don't know how many, a hundred thousand square feet. And out there there's several hundred thousand square feet of people who earn their living in aviation maintenance sales. And earlier when we first started putting this show together here, I had people from out there, the other side of the tracks, as I like to call it, when I'M flip. Those folks would come over and they'd look around and they oftentimes would say to me, I had no idea you guys did all this. Give me a break. You make your business, you have your life. You're living in aviation. You don't know what aviation maintenance does. But that was the. That was the feeling that came from those people. I don't hear that anymore. Because now we're so big here. There's so many people that come back and look at us. I think that most of the people on that rest of this hall understand the job that we do, the complexity that we do. You know, I was a line mechanic. I had to know multiple engine types, I had to know multiple airplane types, multiple different instrument types and different airplanes. So what was crammed into my head was all the basics of all those airplanes, plus how to go in the manual and get the additional information.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of things, a lot of things to know. I want to go, uh, sort of where somebody, uh, comes into, uh, this field, because this audience wants to know what a future looks like and how to start. Where does somebody, I guess, really the question is that first 30, 90 days you're just starting out. Where do people fall off when they say, maybe this is not for me, versus the ones that keep going in this field?

Speaker A: So we've already got an education behind us, and we're just coming into the business, and we're going to talk about an airline because it changes with location. So if you're coming into an airline and you end up in an environment, uh, the first thing is everybody's a little gruff. One of the things that we've done here is worked very hard to get women into the business. And then when they get on the shop floor, it's not as polite as maybe they thought it was going to be.

Speaker B: What's the percentage of women in this trade?

Speaker A: Uh, the women in aviation say it's 2.8%. I think it's lower, but it's way too small. I'm happy and proud to say it's out of this competition. And we did a lousy job of tracking it in the beginning, but we started tracking four or five years ago. And I'm really proud to say that I helped, uh, over 150 women get jobs at aviation at this competition. United, American, Southwest, Alaska, even Delta, who doesn't participate, but they sent their human resources people come around passing out applications. It's a very good recruitment opportunity for the airlines and others. And all I want to do is provide the students the opportunity. But now the next piece is to provide the education, to enhance the education and to tweak that professionalism.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, this is where you get obviously, uh, a feeling for the industry. And I was thinking about, uh, a young kid who's graduating from high school and he wants to know, he wants to be an aircraft maintenance technician, but his mom knows nothing about it and is a teacher. And she had reached out to me. She's like, I know nothing about this. I was introduced through a friend and I said, why don't you come to this competition, see it firsthand. Her son already knows he wants to be in, but he doesn't know. She doesn't know how to get him in. So what can we do better as an industry so parents can get under, get a good understanding of what this path, uh, is like?

Speaker A: Oh, you know, you just gave me an idea.

Speaker B: Let's go.

Speaker A: Right. So I have a podcast like this called Flight Safety Detectives with just. I'm just cranking up another podcast. I am m. The president of the, what we call pama. Pama Professional Aviation Maintenance Association. And you know what? I'm going to run a track on that because I too recognize that. But I didn't, I didn't focus. I didn't, uh, that needs to be fixed and I'm going to fix it.

Speaker B: How can we fix it?

Speaker A: Information right here. Podcasts. So I'll dedicate some of the podcasts to parents. That's a wonderful idea.

Speaker B: I think it should be doubled down because when most kids, when they think about trades, they think about electricians and plumbers and welders, um, they don't necessarily think about this, but it's a great platform and a great, uh, avenue and a great path and a great, you know, career opportunity that you can work your way up. I mean, I was speaking to, um, Jennifer radke at, uh, Boeing 30 plus years. And she started off in the field and worked her way up and got to do, you know, more leadership. That there is a career trajectory and a ladder of success.

Speaker A: And you know what, the skills that you will learn if you go to school in, uh, aviation, uh, school, the AV school, get your certificate. That's it. It opens up all sorts of other things. Right. So I have my granddaughter married a mechanic from the Air Force. He just got out a few months ago, three months ago, four months ago. He's working for a company maintaining drones already. All right, that's coming. Six Flags Disney World. They all hire mechanics. Burlington Northern Railroad, the VP of one of the VPs, the Burlington Northern Railroad. I was in the head end of a train going over a set of tracks that they had had an accident on. And we will. I wanted to see the way the accident unfolded. And the way you do that is you ride the train. So riding the train, there's three of us on the head end in quiet time. The guy driving the train was listening to us, needless to say, because we're on top of one another. And he turns to me and says, are you an A and P? I said, yes. He said, so aren't I? And I was taken aback by that. At which point the VP turned around and he said, I'll hire everyone I could get because I can teach anyone to drive this train in a week. I can't teach them how to understand electricity, pneumatics, um, pressure brakes, hydraulics. In a week. Then he comes in the door with all that knowledge. I'll teach him to drive a train and have him to work immediately. There's all kinds of jobs around that recognize the skills that I'm, um, that an AMP mechanic has. Is he a master of all those? No, but he understands the basics, which they. Then they don't have to teach. So that's the difference. And there's all kinds of opportunities that

Speaker B: open up and the ones that want the opportunity. What do you see? The quality differences of someone who really excels versus the one who, you know, kind of stays at a certain level. What do you see different?

Speaker A: Oh, I see a lot of that today. And that gets to why I wanted to stop the Mechanics Only podcast. I've also seen, over my years of leading crews, uh, that every one of those guys has the ability to be the one that wants to climb. It's the environment that they're in, it's the mentors, and it's the lack of information that had slowed them down, and then that's going to get stuck. So what I'm trying to get is the young guys that are coming in and get them the information to put them on the track that's going to lead to all that upward mobility instead of being stuck, uh, in a place, wherever you are. So it may not be for everybody, but I think m. Some of those folks that are stuck, and I'm going to use the word stuck, just missed the opportunity of identifying the opportunity. Opportunity. We're going to help them identify that opportunity.

Speaker B: How important is mentorship in your career? Who was your. Who was your mentor?

Speaker A: A, uh, couple of guys in New York City. That were tougher than, uh, you know, they talk about toughest nails. They need nails. Uh, no, they were tough. They were tough.

Speaker B: Tough in a way that pushed you, made you better.

Speaker A: Made you better, Made you better. No mercy. You screwed up. No mercy. You know, you're not doing it right. Do it over. I remember sometimes simple things. I remember screwing up a safety, uh, wire. And I was tired and was on. And they come over and look that. And he reached down and cut my safety wire. I said, now do it over. You know, now you. Of course you're mad. Yeah. But you get over it and you realize, yep, he's right. I was trying to get rid of. Trying to take a shotgun, so to speak.

Speaker B: If you fast forward to today, because I want to talk about mentorship. How do you adapt to the younger generation? Because generational differences, Baby boomers, Gen X, gen Z, very different generations. How do you adapt to the younger generations?

Speaker A: As a mentor, you just have to do it. You have to pay attention.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And I wanted to add one thing about the mentorship. So a few years ago, have you been around here? You see the ladder companies?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So one year we had, right next to us, a ladder company stand, work stands. I would go up there and sit and watch, and we used to have bleachers. And now I'm up on my perch, and I look over where the bleachers were against the wall, and here I see, and I still remember this. South Seattle Community College was over there. The students, and they had the workbook. We give us a workbook out with all the instructions for all the testing you're gonna have to do. They're back there at the workbook. Two Alaska Airlines mechanics were over there doing a tutorial with the kids. If you go back down here, right now in the back of the hall, we have a big lunchroom area. Go back there. I will guarantee you there'll be a half a dozen schools back there, and there'll be mechanics from the airlines that are here, uh, going over the manuals with them. Right. Just helping them through the process without trying, without even talking about it. I'm proud of all these. The airline guys that are here for stepping up on their own and mentor these kids. It's really heartwarming.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I do feel that mentorship is one of the biggest pieces that pushes you through, to keeps you grounded and somebody to really kind of get you through some of those tough times.

Speaker A: When I went to the ntsb. All right. I'm one of the five board members. I'm appointed by the President. I had to be confirmed by the U.S. senate. I'm a mechanic. That process, that, uh, it's a heady position. And all of a sudden I've got these people out. Everybody is catering to me. Very easy to get ahead, blow your head wide up, wide open. But at three o' clock in the morning, I used to get phone calls from the guys I work with on midnight shift. And I will not say on your podcast how they would greet me, but, uh, I had some unique greetings.

Speaker B: Okay?

Speaker A: But I'll tell you what, it kept me grounded. All of that's important. You know, we're all products of where we came from, every single one of us, right? So my friends helped me not forget where I came from.

Speaker B: John, you came to me before this started, and you told me that this competition, when you originally, uh, tried to set it up, you had a tough time and you handed me this coin. What does this coin mean to you?

Speaker A: The coin is, uh, actually a takeoff on the military challenge coin. I did it for the kids, to give them the soap to show, to prove that they have done something extraordinary, navigated through their own schools to be selected one of five people. Some of these schools are quite large. Be one of five people to represent their school, to come here and earn their stripes, so to speak. So that, that is the, uh, their challenge coin for that. It just gives them something that they can carry with them. It's visible. And now that it has grown, just holding that coin up in maintenance areas, people take notice because they're the ones that get them. Just a token. But it does have a lot of meaning.

Speaker B: You have a lot of passion behind this, this industry. And I could see it, the emotion behind it. You know, I've seen, you know, obviously the course of a couple days and making the speeches that you do, um, and just changing the lives that you do, and especially this industry, um, and just being down here for the first time at this competition. And I, I visit a lot of different trades. I mean, I just, I feel it's like a big family here. Like, it's family oriented and you're orchestrating it. So I appreciate the work that you're doing in the industry and making it better. And it's really shining a spotlight, um, on maintenance techs that are desperately needed, or they say, I think Boeing said they need about 700,000 over the next 15, 20 years. Um, and this is, this is the way to get it out there and get people to know about it.

Speaker A: Well, we had a drought when 9, 11 hit. And the airlines all took a big tumble. And a lot of people were encouraged to retire. We went through a number of years with very low hiring rates. So it fell off everybody's radar. Nobody entered the field. Uh, high school guidance counselors weren't talking about it. So the number of people that went through the process was really, really low. But right now, the average age for a mechanic in an airline environment is approaching 60 years old. That means in five years, we're in flunk. So an airline like United airlines, who has 14,000 mechanics, that means between now and retirement, five years, roughly, they are going to lose 7,000 people. That's a lot of people.

Speaker B: What happens if we can't fulfill and bring people in? What happens?

Speaker A: The work goes out of the country. A lot of work. There's, uh, a lot of work now being done outside of the US and that means the airlines will try to scurry around to find other places outside of the US they used to send a lot of airplanes to Canada, but Canada's aviation system is also grown, so they don't have excess commercial capacity up there. Uh, we try to send them to, and we do send airplanes to South America in a couple, three different locations. But the number of quality technicians down there is being pulled every different direction as well. They have qualified people there, but they also have a need for them in a lot of other industries besides the American aviation industry. So they struggle to get adequate people down there. Uh, it's the same all over the world. It's just the technicians that are available, the people that can use their head and their hands at the same time is limited. You've got to build on that. We're trying to build on it here. Yes. We're going to be faced with a shortage. It's a great time. I tell the students, I talk to students all over the country, and that's where I devote almost all my time, actually. And what, um, I'm telling them is it's a great time to come in. I wish I was your age.

Speaker B: That's what I wanted to say. If I. If we're talking. I'm 18 years old. Why. Why aviation?

Speaker A: Well, what do you want to do? Are you mechanically inclined? Uh, do you want to have a job that is satisfying, that no two days are alike? You know, you can go to work in a factory and make widgets day after day after day making the same widget. I would, uh, come when I came to work at night. We used to have a line that we use what have the Airplane gods dealt us today. Uh, we got all these airplanes that came in all kinds of very different problems. Never the same. No two days are the same. So every day is like a new excitement, a new adventure. It really does make a difference in your work environment. I mean, I went through periods I never missed a day for a long time because oftentimes it didn't even seem like work it was enjoying. Uh, then you come across the real technical issues that, uh, nobody's been able to fix, because sometimes you get an airplane that you just can't figure out what's going on. And, oh, yeah, let me get my hands on that sucker. Let me, let me take a shot at it. Right? So it's just, it, it's an unbelievably active career like that.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's a fulfilling career. And, uh, especially if you have this appreciation for working with your hands and you see those airplanes up there flying, uh, some people just have that appreciation, want to, want to step into that, that, that, that path. So, um, John, if people want to find out more about the competition, uh, more about your podcast, where, where do they go?

Speaker A: Right, so amc, uh, Arrow. You can also just Google Aerospace Maintenance Competition. You go in there. Pama, Professional Aviation Maintenance Association. Aero is another, and we're just starting to reinforce that site, so it'll be a little weak for a while. And, um, hey, listen, you want to talk to me? 703-597-4502. My phone rings 24. 7. Just do it.

Speaker B: You'll be there?

Speaker A: I'll be there. You'll be there. The only time my phone is off is when I'm on an airplane.

Speaker B: John, it's been a blast having you on the show. Thank you so much for what you do, and thank you so much for coming by. Thank you.