Ground Support Blog

So we know our editor, Karen, is determined when she gets me – an A&P mechanic for more than 40 years – to sit down and start a blog for mechanics, ground handlers, fuelers and all the other ramp rats that are the unsung heroes of aviation. Unsung is for sure. How many people know who Charles Taylor was? I rest my case on that.

I wasn’t too keen on this at first – mechanics and writing don’t go well together – just look at some of our maintenance entries and it’s clear why we became mechanics and not journalists. But I digress. As I thought about it, and as Karen would call once in a while to ask whether I’d do it, the idea started to grow on me. Why not start a dialogue with ground personnel men and women? I’d tell you what I thought – and those of you who know me know I speak truth to power and have never walked away when the going got tough – and you’d talk back to me and to each other.

So let me start by telling you about me and what’s on my mind. I grew up under the flight path to Logan Airport. In those days, even a major city airport like Boston’s had no fences. As a kid, me and my friends would go over and watch planes take off and land. A tad mischievous some might have called us – outright rascals others – we found our way through cargo warehouses and hangars and the occasional unattended tractor became our playgrounds. We learned about aircraft parts making repairs to our bicycles; those parts lasted longer – they didn’t come loose - and were a lot cheaper found on the hangar floor.

Suffice it to say, I’ve lived and breathed airports – and airport fumes – since I was a kid. Loved it then and love it still. From those early years playing at Logan, I learned to fly from a dirt strip, got my A&P, worked at a number of air carriers, owned my own FBO, became a union shop steward, worked accident investigations, and ultimately landed at the NTSB as the first Board member with an A&P. Enough about me. Let’s talk about an issue that’s on my mind and maybe on yours as well.

While the press and aviation industry focus on the lack of future pilots, where’s the clamor for the future of maintenance and ground handling? As usual, our unsung heroes remain unsung. But that’s because the public doesn’t know what goes on behind the scenes; that an untrained ground handler can cause millions of dollars in damage by dinging an aircraft with a baggage cart or worse, improperly fueling an aircraft could cause disaster. Some airports are seeing annual turn over of 50% in their ground personnel. Staggering. Is anyone upset? If those were pilots bailing out at that rate, there would be a huge public outcry.

So why is there such tremendous turnover? Could it be that pay and benefits are inadequate? Grossly inadequate? I think this is an emergency for our industry and I want to light a fire under a few seats that could start making changes. But I need to know what you think. Are pay and benefits a problem? Are you thinking of changing careers because of it? Do you know excellent candidates that refused a job because the pay/benefits were too low?