Demand for highly skilled aviation maintenance personnel in Malta has been growing steadily with the setting-up of Air Malta in 1973, the establishment in 1978 of Medavia, a company offering a range of aviation services to oil industry companies in North Africa, and the founding of Lufthansa Technik Malta in 2002.
The growth of the aviation maintenance and repair sector is in line with the strategy to lessen the economy's over-dependence on key sectors, such as tourism and electronics, and its vulnerability to global business cycle shocks.
Three years ago, Lufthansa Technik announced its huge investment to set up new maintenance and overhaul capabilities in Malta for Airbus A330/A340 C and D checks. The latter are more comprehensive and involve engine overhaul and stripping of the entire plane interior. This is expected to generate over 500 jobs, 400 of which for technical personnel.
However, Malta does not have a tradition of providing people skilled in this specialised engineering sector, and it would be too much to contemplate engaging 400 expatriates.
Discussions between Mcast and Lufthansa Technik started early in 2005. The college was quick off the mark and committed itself to provide the trained personnel the sector required. It was not a pledge Mcast took lightly. At stake were the college's reputation, the growth and success of the aviation maintenance and repair sector, and consequently, many jobs. Only a few months later, in September 2005, Mcast offered the Btec National Diploma in Aerospace Engineering, for which 40 students enrolled.
Aviation maintenance is a strictly regulated field of engineering. Workshops and trainers need to be approved and industry-specific training can only be offered under licence. Mcast set out and invested heavily in aviation maintenance workshops designed to international standards. It started offering courses under the Lufthansa Technik licence and utilising its expertise and at the same time Mcast staff undertook training and job shadowing.
The course for aircraft maintenance mechanics is based on the First Diploma in Mechanical Engineering that Mcast has been offering for some years, with the addition of three units, namely, digital techniques, electronic instrument systems, materials and hardware, and maintenance practices.
While successful students are not eligible to apply for the category A licence, they can work as aircraft maintenance mechanics through internal qualification procedures of Part 145 organisations like Medavia, Air Malta and Lufthansa Technik.
This route provides students with flexibility to choose either to work in the aviation industry, or seek employment or further study opportunities in the mechanical engineering sector.
By 2006, Mcast started offering industry-specific courses, namely, the European Aviation Safety Authority (EASA) Part 66, category A licence, and aircraft structures. Both these courses were offered under a Lufthansa Technik licence and are block release courses during which students spent some time at the college acquiring theoretical background and a year undertaking on-the-job training in a Part 145 organisation.
During November 2007, two evening courses for sheet metal and aircraft mechanic certification were offered to people working in the aviation maintenance sector. It gave them the opportunity to upgrade their skills and prepare for the new job opportunities that were becoming available in the industry.
From the outset, the college realised it needed to reinforce its training provision by itself becoming an approved European Aviation Safety Authority (EASA) Part 147 aviation maintenance training organisation to enable it to offer courses on its own steam. The process to do so involved building the college's physical capacity and resources, enroling and training staff, and formalising all training, examination and quality assurance procedures. The Malta Department of Civil Aviation also needed to undertake several audits to ensure that all the prerequisites are in place.
This painstaking but necessary process has taken Mcast only one year to conclude, which people involved in the sector consider as an outstanding achievement.
Mcast now has the required management structure, a cohort of qualified lecturers and examiners, state-of-the-art aviation maintenance training workshops, and all the training, examination and quality assurance procedures in place to start providing internationally-recognised Part 66 category A training and certification.
Mcast students will not only be able to follow these courses locally but they will no longer need to travel to other European countries to obtain certification as they can sit for the examinations in Malta.
There are three levels of licences, namely, categories A, B and C. Mcast has been awarded the licence to train people at category A, but it has already initiated the process for extending this to category B.
Mcast has applied for, and been awarded, EU funding to help the college to extend its workshop facilities, including buying a second-hand airplane on which the students can practise, train lecturers and examiners at a higher level, and set up all the training, examination and quality assurance procedures.
These developments have enabled Mcast to launch the Aircraft Maintenance Technical Course (Category B). Once Mcast acquires the category B licence it will also be able to conduct examinations and offer certification at this level. The course will take the form of a three-years apprenticeship on block release basis, and is equivalent to level 4 of the Malta Qualification Council framework.
These activities have placed Mcast on the international map for aviation maintenance training. Having a local college providing the market with adequately trained personnel in an area which is so closely regulated is a signpost of quality that is likely to attract further foreign direct investment to the country, thus creating more and better jobs for Malta.
Prof. Grech is principal and CEO, Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (Mcast).