The airport has become a symbol of the growing strain on America’s aviation system—from a shortage of air traffic controllers and lengthy TSA lines during government shutdowns to a string of crashes and near misses raising fresh concerns about safety.
But there’s another critical group keeping planes moving on time—and they’re facing a dire shortage: aviation maintenance technicians.
Some 83% of technicians are expected to retire or leave the profession globally over the next decade, according to the 2025 CAE Aviation Talent Forecast. By 2034, that translates to a need of about 416,000 new aircraft maintenance technicians worldwide.
Jason Pfaff, CEO of the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, told Fortune the occupation has largely suffered from a lack of awareness and has become largely “hidden.”
“There’s a very acute shortage in our country today of aviation mechanics,” Pfaff told Fortune. “We have on average about half the number of trained certified mechanics that we need.”
To meet the demand, many aviation technician programs, including AIM, offer 21-month training programs—all at a fraction of the cost of a four-year degree. If students then pass the FAA Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) exams, they become “one of the most in-demand people in aerospace,” Pfaff added. Depending on the campus, AIM employment placement rates average around 73%.
While the work isn’t all glamorous—technicians often endure extreme weather, noisy tarmacs, and the smell of jet fumes—the payoff can be substantial. In the U.S., the median salary for these roles is around $79,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But climbing the ranks—and taking advantage of overtime—can quickly push pay well into the six figures. And in some cases, total compensation can reach $300,000 or more, said Bianca Miller, an avionics technician at Newark Liberty International Airport.
“The opportunities are endless,” Miller previously told Fortune. “At the end of the day, there really is no wrong.”
A broader lack of attention to the trades
The demand for aviation maintenance technicians is playing out in real time. Take Pittsburgh International Airport, for example. Thanks to an expansion from American Airlines, the number of aviation maintenance positions was expected to double from about 360 at the end of 2024 to about 600 in 2025, according to Christina Cassotis, the airport’s CEO.
And while she said they haven’t had trouble finding or retaining aircraft maintenance talent, the airport hasn’t been immune from the broader shortage of skilled trade workers. When Pittsburgh began construction on its new terminal in 2021, for instance, there weren’t enough workers in the region to support the project.
“I think that in the past few years, we have over-indexed on college as the right career path for most, and careers in the trades haven’t been given the attention they deserve as a viable option,” Cassotis said.
It’s a sentiment echoed far beyond aviation.
Ford CEO Jim Farley, for example, has sounded the alarm on the shortage of talent to fill manual-labor jobs in the U.S.
“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Farley told the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast in 2025. “We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, and tradesmen. It’s a very serious thing.”
A lack of skilled trade workers also threatens the tech industry’s rapid buildout of AI data centers.
“If you’re an electrician, you’re a plumber, a carpenter—we’re going to need hundreds of thousands of them to build all of these factories,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Channel 4 News in the U.K. in 2025.
“The skilled craft segment of every economy is going to see a boom. You’re going to have to be doubling and doubling and doubling every single year.”
Gen Z, for its part, appears to be listening. Enrollment at two-year public trade-focused institutions is up nearly 20% between 2020 and 2025, according to National Student Clearinghouse. And in aviation maintenance specifically, AIM has seen Gen Z applications soar by about 40% in recent years.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on November 14, 2025.
More on the future of work
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