Licencing and training reform in the Australian aircraft maintenance industry

Abstract

The training and licencing of aircraft maintenance engineers fulfils a crucial protective function since it is they who perform and supervise aircraft maintenance and certify that planes are safe afterwards. In Australia, prior to training reform, a trades-based system of aircraft maintenance engineer training existed in an orderly relation with the system of licencing, regulated by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). Training reform through the 1990s gave rise to concerns that the training system could not be relied upon to deliver adequate numbers of trainees with valid qualifications. From 2007, CASA introduced new regulations, designed to align Australia’s qualifications and licencing with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). This process saw the aviation regulator effectively cede much quality control of training to an increasingly dysfunctional training system, giving rise to doubts about whether Australia’s international obligations for quality aircraft maintenance training can be fulfilled.

Keywords:

• Aircraft Maintenance
• Australia
• VET and development
• competence
• management of VET
• comparative VET
• policy issues

Acknowledgements

We thank the ARC, and our Partner Organisations who have been generous with their time and support for this project.

Notes

1. See http://vetreform.industry.gov.au.

2. e mail, vettaskforce, 11 May 2015.

3. Things are different for ‘type’ training. The new licence categories, being essentially broad indicators of theoretical knowledge and practical experience, are supplemented by ‘type’ training for particular complex aircraft systems. This training can be delivered and assessed by training organisations that are approved by CASA, but not necessarily registered in the Australian VET sector as RTOs (CASA 2011c). Ironically, regulation in this sector (for example, of specified training hours, and assessment protocols) seems more stringent than for category training.

4. Interviews; Robert Alway, Ola Blomqvist, Air Engineers International (AEI) President and Vice President, respectively, interviewed at AEI Conference in 2011.

5. NCVER (2015); most recently accessed February 2016. Note that although generally considered authoritative, these data are not fully reliable, as they are based on self-reporting by RTOs, and at present NCVER lacks the staff resources to audit them comprehensively (oral advice from NCVER Secretariat [2015]).

6. Schofield (2015) quotes Qantas sources to the effect that its Engineering Division accounted for $120 million in savings in the 2014–2015 reporting year alone, largely through the abolition of 900 full-time jobs in the 18 months to June 2015; since 2012, employment in the division had been reduced by 2100, or almost 40%. These figures are equivalent, respectively, to around 8.5 and 20% of the number of AMEs in civilian employment in the whole of Australia at the time of the 2011 Census.