Continuously looking to further improve the customer experience, CAE is rolling out new options to offer more flexibility and opportunities in its aircraft maintenance technician training program. A new online booking platform is slowly being rolled out at NBAA and will be on demonstration at CAE’s booth (3704) to give customers the flexibility to book via the web, although they can continue booking in person or by phone. Other recent additions to CAE’s maintenance technician training program include remote hybrid training, modular training and three newly defined tiers of professional development courses.
The 2025 CAE Aviation Talent Forecast predicts a need for 416,000 new maintenance technicians industrywide by 2034, 69,000 of those in business aviation.
“Historically, there were nine experienced technicians on the shop floor for every new entrant. It made coaching while ensuring each aircraft got the maintenance it needed easy. Now, the industry is faced with seven new technicians for every three experienced ones, meaning there is no time to give adequate or quality training on the hangar floor,” says David Bienvenu, Global Leader Maintenance Training, CAE. “More than ever, training with companies like CAE for a technician’s entire professional journey has become not only necessary but a solid business decision to ensure well-trained technicians and mission-ready aircraft.”
CAE offers comprehensive maintenance technician training on a full suite of OEM programs, including Bombardier, Dassault, Embraer, Gulfstream and more. The company, a recognized global training expert, teaches entry level aircraft maintenance technician courses, as well as in-depth training courses on specific aircraft.
As a result of the critical need for maintenance technicians, CAE is developing new ways to make it easier to book and follow maintenance technician courses, as well as to make programs more efficient and innovative.
“Part of increasing the customer experience and flexibility has been to offer training courses globally, anywhere – whether at one of CAE’s training centres, at the customer’s location, or via live remote training using our hybrid training rooms,” explains Bienvenu. “We’re also continuously exploring new ways to package our training to improve efficiencies for our customers. A great example is our modular training, which we’re looking to expand over the next years worldwide.”
Modular training has been a collaboration with Bombardier over the past year and is now expanding to all Bombardier Service Centres locations in North America. The solution developed for Bombardier reduces training time by consolidating courses for an entire aircraft family since they share many components and features. Instead of training a technician on one aircraft, the modular courses train a technician on the entire family, giving them – and their employers – much more flexibility and knowledge on the hangar floor. The modular courses are also given over a week, technicians break to get hands-on experience, and courses start again.
“This hands-on experience to put theory into practice has shown to really solidify learnings and speed-up knowledge retention,” says Bienvenu.
CAE has also revised its professional development courses, which now comprise three tiers: ones for technicians to develop soft skills such as customer service, basic finances and human factors, ones to train technicians moving into people management roles, and ones to help people managers take on executive roles.
“With the maintenance technician shortage, so many older, experienced technicians are being put into leadership roles that they never trained for. These courses help with that important transition, as MROs and OEMs need qualified leaders to get faultless maintenance done on all aircraft on time,” explains Bienvenu.
Before the interview ends, Bienvenu insists on highlighting another advantage to training with CAE for maintenance technicians: the great people. “Our global reach means we recruit exceptional instructors,” he says. “In our customer feedback surveys, our instructors are consistently among students’ favorite part of the experience.”
CAE prides itself on listening to customers and providing solutions to solve their problems. The latest improvements to its aircraft maintenance technician training programs are no different.
