Story ID: 060
FBOs Feel the Labor Pinch
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: While soaring fuel prices have led to pain at the pump, petroleum costs are not the only factor stressing the FBO market.
Word Count: 828
FBO managers are increasingly experiencing difficulties in attracting suitable candidates as they look to backfill vacancies or expand to keep up with record demand for general and business aviation flights.

One midwestern FBO reported seeing a 40 percent no-show rate for candidates in interviews. Some FBO executives attributed that rate to state unemployment laws requiring a person to simply show that they applied to a certain number of jobs in a given period. As for those who do show up, another manager suggested that more people are job-hopping, trying to find new careers, and are not really worried if something doesn’t work out.

Employee referral bonuses have become a near-standard in the industry, to be paid out if a new hire lasts for a predetermined period of time. Another traditional pipeline of FBO workers has historically been aircraft maintenance schools. “The A&P schools were always great, but it seems recently though that the airlines are snatching those students up faster,” said Scott Helms, general manager at an FBO in Seattle. “They were already hiring them before they had their A&P license, so that’s been a struggle.”

“FBOs are finding new ways to constantly compete for talent,” said Sam Scanlon, managing partner of industry recruitment firm JSFirm. “So much that we added a section to the site where job seekers can search by 'perks'—for example, sign-on bonus, flex schedule, etc. Job seekers understand it’s competitive and they know they can find the position that they want in an area that they want.”

But the recruitment problem seems more acute on the line-service side, according to Dan Rutherford, manager of marketing and business development for Canadian aviation services provider FastAir. “Particularly on the line, on the fuel trucks outside, that’s where the turnover has been in the past,” he noted. “We have an extreme climate, hot and very cold outside, so it’s tough to find that person, and they are taking more training than they used to.”

For a line-service position, that training involves an investment from the company in terms of time and expense. Scott Capehart, general manager of Aero-One Aviation at Alabama’s Dothan Regional Airport, explained, “If you are going through all the training programs, NATA Safety 1st, your own in-house training program, and anything else that might be out there, it's not that it takes a long time to learn how to fuel an airplane. It’s that it takes a long time for them to see everything they need to see. You can only gain that with experience and some places are faster than others.”

As an example, Capehart noted that FBOs at locations such as bustling Teterboro Airport will have more exposure to large-cabin business jets such as Gulfstreams and their line technicians will become comfortable handling them more quickly than at his location. By contrast, his FBO sees a higher percentage of military aircraft. On average, it takes six months of training to produce a fully-skilled line service technician.

“To release somebody out with a fuel truck and do those things, it does take time,” added Rutherford. “Just to get it right and to have confidence that somebody is going to push a $30 million airplane into the right spot and not hit a few things on the way. It’s a trust issue.”

Some locations have gone to incredible lengths to fill positions. Helms noted that he took the extraordinary step of offering a relocation package to a line-service supervisor he had worked with in the past. While such packages are commonly offered to general managers, they are unusual for line staff.

“That’s a person I want working at my FBO,” he said, “and the costs to train and retain employees are so high, it was worth the cost to get somebody moved across the country that I knew was going to be here for a number of years.”

Given the amount of training involved, Douglas Wilson, president and senior partner of industry consultancy FBO Partners, suggests that the line-service position needs to receive more recognition. “The mainstream news is talking about the pilot shortage and the mechanic shortage, but line service is not seen as that same sort of professional role,” he said.

“Until our industry starts turning the corner and looks at this as a skilled position, we’re probably going to face very similar situations of just simply competing for labor using starting wages or signing or retention bonuses.”

To improve that situation, he suggested the industry enact standardized training policies that would make a certain level of skills portable. Wilson cited as examples deicing and tow training and certification. "If I’m going from one FBO to another, [we could] recognize it in a way that perhaps is a starting point.”
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