Shannon Airport based Atlantic Aviation Group held a graduation of their 2012 – 2016 Aircraft Maintenance apprentice class at their Hangar in Shannon recently.
The MRO (Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul) company’s 4-year apprenticeship runs in conjunction with Solos, the Irish National Further Education and Training Agency.
News of the graduation comes as aircraft manufacturers have been predicting worldwide shortages in aircraft maintenance personnel over the next 15 years.
Atlantic Aviation Group CEO Connor Flanagan said “For many years now aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus have been predicting that there will be a global shortage of aviation maintenance personnel in the region of 600,000 by 2031. Our apprentice programme has been running for over 30 years and with another new class starting in the last few weeks we will continue to train Aircraft Maintenance personnel of the highest quality into the future.”
He continued “Our apprentices are trained to the highest standards with many of them progressing very quickly into senior roles. Some of our graduates over the years have gone on to become Technical Directors, Production Managers, Quality Managers and indeed even Pilots.”
A measure of the quality of the Atlantic Aviation Group apprentice programme is that two of this years apprentices (Chris Kissane and Florian Byrnes) achieved national recognition winning the aircraft maintenance Ireland skills competition over the past two years. Both are now in contention to represent Ireland at the world skills competition in Dubai in 2017. Previous Atlantic Aviation Group apprentice Ros Wynne is the current world skills champion having collected the award in Rio De Janeiro in 2015.
Training Manager Paul McInerney explained how the programme consistently produces world class Aircraft maintenance personal, “The 4 year programme involves off-the-job and on-the-job phases. Apprentices complete 18 months of theory and workshop with the remaining time spent working on live aircraft in our Base Maintenance facility in Shannon. During this time the apprentices get exposure to all aspects of Aircraft maintenance under the guidance of our highly skilled workforce.”
He continued “This group of apprentices are the first to complete the new Aircraft Apprenticeship Training Programme, which entitles the apprentice to apply to the Irish Aviation Authority for an EASA Part 66 B1 or B2 Basic licence on completion of the apprenticeship. This change to allow qualified apprentices apply for their licence on competition of the apprenticeship is widely welcomed across the industry.”
The Atlantic Aviation Group apprenticeship application process opens in the Spring of 2017.
Anyone interested in pursuing a career in the industry can keep up to date on all of the latest by going to the company website www.atlanticaviation.ie and following Atlantic Aviation Group on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.