Editor’s Notebook: Pay It Forward

When you first entered the aviation maintenance employment arena, you probably weren’t thinking about the money. You were probably just enamored with the idea of getting your hands on an aircraft whether it was a Cessna 172, a military jet or simply a piece of sheet metal.

Back by popular demand the AM Salary Survey. Visit www.aviationmx.com and in five minutes you could be $100 richer.

But, as you progress in the ranks from entry-level mechanic to lead to supervisor to DOM or VP of maintenance, the pay structure of your company becomes more and more important. This is true of any industry and career path.

Maybe there are a few good friends that you started out with that you can compare notes on salary to gage how you are doing in comparison to others at a similar level. But even among friends, talking about your pay is a tricky thing. That is one reason I always looked forward to our annual salary survey. Everyone shared their information anonymously, and then everyone got to see the results.

We took a brief hiatus from the salary survey while we looked at better ways to accomplish our goal of giving our readership information on where salaries stand in the aviation maintenance business. Many readers missed the survey last year and questioned when it would return.

I have great news for you — back by popular demand — the Aviation Maintenance Salary Survey. We have revamped our survey slightly and are conducting the survey online at www.aviationmx.com right now.

The survey form will not appear printed in the magazine as it did in years past. What this means for you, our reader, is that you will need to log onto our Web site to complete the survey. It is quick and easy to do. Once you are on our Web site, you will see a shaded box at the top of the page labeled Aviation Maintenance 2007 Salary Survey. Click the link in that box and you will be ready to fill out the survey. We are offering an incentive for you to take the time to fill it out — a $100 prize to one responder, drawn at random. No personal information is taken, with the exception of your e-mail address, which is how we will contact you if you are the lucky winner.

In the past, the salary survey was one of our most anticipated stories all year. But we need your help. For the survey to be as accurate as possible and as valid as possible, we need all levels of maintenance personnel to respond to the survey. We need people from all areas of the country to respond, even mechanics in Alaska, who have been shy in the past. We need small general aviation shop mechanics and large MRO mechanics to respond. We need business jet mechanics from independent shops and OEM shop mechanics to respond. We need directors of maintenance and mechanics just out of A&P school working their first jobs to respond.

Please do what you can to spread the word to everyone you can think of so that we get not only a large number of responses, but the widest variety of employment situations covered. A wide range of responses will make the survey more relevant, so please respond and take the time to encourage your colleagues to do so as well.

Also, I want to encourage you to add your personal comments to the survey. To me, these are the most compelling part of the survey. You are there in the trenches and no one else can look in and see what you are seeing every day. Your comments, positive and negative, are integral to the survey so please take a few minutes to give us your perspective on what it is really like where you work.

We are counting on you to spread the word about the survey. If you are working with a school, tell the graduates to get online. If you are at an airline, tell your colleagues at other hubs and print the link and tack it up in your break room. If you are on the industry list serve or similar online community, please post a note encouraging your colleagues to participate. If you are at Midcoast, Duncan, Bizjet, Jet Aviation, etc., pass the word in the ranks. If you are at Timco, or Evergreen, or ST Aerospace, or the like, let your co-workers know. You get the idea.