Dear aviation colleagues,
I would like ask you about work in area aircraft maintenance. I graduate Technical University/Faculty of aeronautics study program aircraft operation. I graduate 2 level with academy title Diploma Engineer. I am from Slovakia and We have very bad situation of aviation here :-) This is reason why I am writing for some advice via euroga forum. I am trying looking for job in europe somewhere. So far unsuccessful. You know recommend me some best aviation job agency or companies who is working in area aircraft maintenance or operation. Thank you.
I must recommend a bit of care and reserve.
A pilot friend of mine had studied as a car mechanic, and worked in a big shop dealing in car accessories and spare parts. He was quite unhappy there, and had always dreamed of working in aviation. One day he managed to land a job with a certified workshop at a mid-size airport, and left his old job as soon as ever he could – only to find the new job was a thousand times worse than the old. After less than a year he was back where he had been, and I have never seen him so happy.
That is of course only one story, I have no idea if it is typical. But do be careful about drastic career changes, things aren’t always as nice as they seem to look from a distance.
More particularly, from reading these pages I have gained a feeling that very few European workshops are ok both technically and commercially. Either they are great crafts(wo)men but poor at making money from their abilities, or they are good at talking their customers into spending lots of money, while delivering the strict minimum in return. Myself could not work to satisfaction in either type of environment.
But of course that may be different for you. And I must repeat that I have no experience of such workshops, doing all maintenance on my (non-certified) bird myself. So my impressions may be quite wrong, or only true in the rarest of cases.
An additional problem is that there is, in Western Europe, a vast surplus of young pilots who took the ATPL training, but cannot find a pilot job because there’s simply too many of them. A fair part of these will take jobs with repair/maintenance shops, especially on the administrative side.
Wishing you the best of luck!
I’d be really curious to see what the weekly wage is for a technician in a GA setting in Eastern Europe. We have a guy here from Ukraine who is ex military and he can fx anything! Avionics, airframe, fabric, engine work he is really good and quick. He’s getting his 66 licence now but I’d love to get an insight into what guys get paid over there in the GA maintenance setting.
Edit – I know in CZ a Cessna freelance expert A&P/IA is roughly €22ph but that’s him as a self employed contractor.
William
Hi William,
thank you for your informations. Curentlly I am work in Czech republic but as Test Engineer at Bosch company.I mean automotive. Yes, it is true the people of eastern europe are little bit universal manually skill. Pls, Can you discuss with your colleaue from ukraine and CZ freelance expert? If it i possible it… I like disscuss about aviation matters with them. Thank you
I just forgot write that I know little bit speak russian :D
Hi Jan_Olieslagers!
thank you for your informations and statement.
My friend has a vacancy for an unlicensed engineer to work under supervision on GA Aircraft at his firm in the UK near York. Pm me if interested.
WilliamF wrote:
for an unlicensed engineer to work under supervision on GA Aircraft at his firm in the UK
That’s what I find very scary about most shops: they hire young, totally un-experienced guys with no training to throw wrenchs on your plane with little to no supervision.
Michael wrote:
That’s what I find very scary about most shops: they hire young, totally un-experienced guys with no training to throw wrenchs on your plane with little to no supervision.
Agree on that one. One has to start somewhere, but it seems there are shops around using apprenticeship as cheap workforce.
Jesse wrote:
One has to start somewhere, but it seems there are shops around using apprenticeship as cheap workforce.
Exactly.
