The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently announced two recommendations for how the Air Force can retain aircraft maintenance personnel.
The Air Force’s largest enlisted career field is aircraft maintenance, and there are more than 100,000 active and reserve maintenance personnel. Despite this, the Air Force struggles to retain aircraft maintenance personnel, especially those who are highly skilled and experienced.
Maintenance personnel complete technical school as 3-levels and work their way up to the 5- and 7-levels after years of on-the-job training.
“Over the past eight fiscal years, the Air Force has increasingly lost experienced aircraft maintainers, and it does not have goals and a strategy to help retain maintainers,” the GAO said. “While overall maintainer loss rates have remained generally stable, loss rates of 5-levels increased from 9 percent in fiscal year 2010 to 12 percent in fiscal years 2016 and 2017. Air Force officials expect 7-level loss rates to also increase.”
In its report, the GAO recommended that the Air Force secretary ensures the Air Force can meet and retain required staffing levels by developing annual retention goals for aircraft maintenance personnel by skill level and developing an aircraft maintainer retention strategy. This strategy should include the challenges maintenance personnel face and initiatives tailored to specific needs.