NBAA member companies such as DuPont, Johnson & Johnson, Boeing, ExxonMobil and Toyota have been hiring or cross-training A&P mechanics as cabin crew for transcontinental and intercontinental trips. The position is called flight technician (FT), flight maintenance engineer (FME) or flight maintenance technician (FMT), depending on the company and its location.
FTs have been flying on large intercontinental corporate aircraft for years, but it is only in the last decade that there has been an expansion of their duties to inflight responsibilities that go beyond fixing something that is broken. Sometimes a flight department is lucky enough to hire pilots or cabin attendants who can double as maintenance providers. More often than not, however, companies are finding it economical to pluck line maintenance personnel right off the hangar floor and cross-train them as flight technicians, who also serve as cabin safety crew. It isn’t always a happy mechanic chosen to fly with the bosses, but most of them warm to the position once they understand their roles as cabin safety personnel and, more often than not, IT experts. The travel perks aren’t bad, either.
Why the trend?
“My CEO told me this: if you can’t fix the airplane or fly it, I’ve got no reason for you to be on it,” said Chris Jackson, flight technician for DuPont Aviation, speaking during the Flight Technician Roundtable at the 2016 NBAA FA/FT conference in Delray Beach, Fla. Since the last recession (and in some companies even before that) the bulk of corporate flight departments, even those deemed essential to company operations, have been asked to do more with less. Part of the solution is cross-training.
These employees offer real advantages (much more than just knowing how the coffeemaker works so they can fix it inflight). FlightSafety International’s Paul Kuchta, director of maintenance and cabin safety operations, is particularly concerned with the complexity of cabin connectivity these days, and feels that flight techs can be a part of the solution for passengers and pilots, alike, in flight.
But without proper job descriptions and training, things can get complicated, compromising safety. Take duty times, for example. Ben Janaitis, a flight technician for a large corporation, told the NBAA Flight Attendants and Flight Technicians committee about times when he was working on airplanes in the hangar the day before heading out on a flight, while the flight department operations manual (FOM) gave flight crew members the day off to prepare and rest up.
Yet Janaitis works hard onboard the aircraft during the flight. “I have to take care of the cabin; I don’t sleep unless the passengers are sleeping,” he said. “The problem is that when I land there are no regulations as I transition back into the ground mechanic role. At that moment when I am mentally at my worst, I have to self-assess and decide if I am ready to be a mechanic and fix any problem that came up on the flight.”
Anthony Joseph, chairman of the NBAA Flight Technicians subcommittee, agreed. “We do try to lean forward to get the job done and appease the executive in the back of the plane. Sure we get back safe, but you get out to your car and you can barely drive home. I’ve known people, personally, who got into a serious accident.” He challenged the group of FTs to go back to their flight departments and self-assess, asking, “Is this safe? Am I fatigued beyond usefulness?”
Mark Wyatt, a master technician and cabin service supervisor with Johnson & Johnson, said that his flight department has found a solution to the problem during its IS-BAO certification. “Our FOM says that our FMTs are to be treated the same as pilots,” he told attendees of the 2016 FA/FT conference during a panel discussion. “Fatigue is supposed to be part of the preflight and postflight briefing. With augmented flight crews there is only room for one FMT. When we go to China, we swap an FMT in Anchorage. I think that it is starting to catch on in the industry.”
Joseph tasked the subcommittee to help push the topic of flight technician duty-time restrictions by rewriting the flight technician’s job title, duty description, training requirements and more in the NBAA Management Guide, which is published annually. He hopes that accuracy there will lead member flight departments to better understand the job position they are filling. “It should also serve as a template for companies undergoing safety management system [implementation] and IS-BAO certification,” said Joseph.
