I recently attended a conference with maintenance directors from some of the largest flight departments in the nation. While we discussed several topics related to personnel retention, as usual, compensation took center stage. While leaders believed compensation for maintenance personnel was rising in general, they were concerned about the rate of growth and the lack of consistent data for maintenance professionals. We’ll address those two topics here with a surprising look at how the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) may be affecting this problem.
Compensation Observations
Let’s look at compensation growth first. Figure 1 provides a view of the data change in maintenance compensation since 2015 and shows that despite some erratic swings in compensation growth for maintenance professionals, the trend has mainly been positive.
Using 2015 as a baseline, Figure 1 illustrates the annual change in total cash compensation levels for the five maintenance positions that the AirComp Calculator tracks. The solid lines are the actual annual percentage changes, and the dotted lines represent the overall trend. Table 1 indicates the total growth in compensation for each position over the nine-year period.
Table 1
Total Maintenance Compensation Growth, 2015 – 2024
| Position | Total Compensation Growth |
| Non-Flying Director of Aviation | 43.18% |
| Director of Maintenance | 46.32% |
| Maintenance Supervisor | 44.31% |
| Maintenance Technician | 34.22% |
| Line Service Technician | 59.92% |
While the figures above do not reflect growth in total direct compensation, which includes long-term incentive (LTI) payments, the maintenance professionals I spoke with were generally in favor of the use of LTI as part of a compensation package and believed that it worked as a retention tool.
So now that we can show it is growing but perhaps isn’t increasing at the rate of other personnel in the flight department, we need to understand why. One possible reason is the lack of consistency in job titles for maintenance personnel. But what does that look like and what impact can it have?
Number and Nomenclature of Job Titles
To provide some context for this discussion, see Table 2 below. These are the maintenance job titles used by the three major business-aviation compensation surveys.
Table 2
Survey Job Titles
| NBAA Survey Job Titles | Gallagher Survey Job Titles | IBM Survey Titles |
| Director of Maintenance | Director/Manager of Maintenance | Chief of Aircraft Maintenance |
| Chief Aircraft Inspector | Chief Aircraft Inspector | |
| Manager of Maintenance | Senior Mechanic II | A & P Maintenance Technicians’ Supervisor |
| Maintenance Foreman | ||
| Aircraft Inspector | Aircraft Inspector | |
| A & P Maintenance Technician | Senior Mechanic | A & P Maintenance Technician – Master/Lead |
| A & P Maintenance Technician – Senior | ||
| Mechanic | A & P Maintenance Technician – Journeyman | |
| Maintenance Technician Helper | Maintenance Assistant | Maintenance Technician – Entry |
| Avionics Technician | Avionics Technician | Avionics/Electronics Technician |
| Flight Technician | Flight Mechanic | Flight Technician |
| Line Service Personnel | Line Service Technician |
(NBAA, 2024), (Gallagher Surveys, 2024), (Pearl Meyer, 2024)
Table 2 lists the maintenance job titles used by each survey and attempts to align them with their counterparts in the other surveys based on the associated job descriptions. There are two issues here. First, the list of jobs is not consistent across the three surveys. Second, the survey providers can’t agree on the wording of the applicable titles. This is illustrative of the problem that exists in the industry where non-standard job titles make it more difficult to determine clear duties and responsibilities for each position and also makes it more challenging to understand where these jobs fall into a job-worth hierarchy, a key requirement in the construction of base-pay structures.
Exempt vs. Non-Exempt
One of the issues affecting job titles is generated by the efforts of some flight departments to transition their maintenance personnel from non-exempt to exempt status according to the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The reasoning is that if a non-exempt employee’s title and accompanying job description are reworded appropriately, the new job will meet the FLSA test(s) for exemption. Caution should be exercised here. The applicable exemption tests are summarized in Table 3 below.
Table 3
FLSA Exemption Tests Applicable to Maintenance Personnel
| Test | Primary Duty | Key Requirements |
| Executive Standard | Management of the enterprise, or a recognized department or subdivision | Customarily and regularly directs the work of at least two or more full-time (or full-time equivalent) employeesHave the authority to hire or fire, or recommend hiring or firing; or have recommendations on these and other actions affecting employees given particular weight |
| Admin. Standard | Performing office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customer, or non-manual work carrying out major assignments requiring advanced or specialized knowledge or skills | Exercises discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance Involves the comparison and evaluation of possible courses of conduct and acting or deciding after the various possibilities have been consideredMust have authority to commit employer in matters having significant financial impact |
(World At Work, 2019)
The Highly Compensated employee exemption could also be considered if the employee makes more than $107,432 per year, but FLSA specifies that the employee must perform a non-manual job. In short, new job titles and revised job descriptions to facilitate the transition from non-exempt to exempt status may not stand the scrutiny of a Department of Labor audit if the job itself hasn’t changed.
Whether the goal is to make the non-exempt to exempt transition, or merely to justify higher compensation in a base-pay structure, the continued use of non-standard job titles is a two-edged sword for maintenance professionals. While they may lead to higher pay rates, their use hampers the collection of survey data. In addition to the fact that a smaller number of data points per title might not be statistically significant, they might also not be compliant with the requirements of federal law.
Food for thought.
Bibliography
Gallagher Surveys. (2024). 2024 Aviation Compensation Survey. Quincy, MA: Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
NBAA. (2024). 2024 Compensation Survey. Washington: National Business Aviation Association.
Pearl Meyer. (2024). 2024 IBM Corporate Flight Operations Compensation Survey. New York: Pearl Meyer & Partners, LLC.
World At Work. (2019). Regulatory Environments for Compensation Programs. Phoenix: World At Work.
