Aircraft maintenance apprentice Review

Currently I am on placement at one of the terminals at Heathrow Airport. This includes carrying out daily inspections of aircraft, inspections between flights and carrying out minor maintenance of faults that are found. On top of this I am carrying out work for a level 3 NVQ and a CAA engineering licence.

As part of the training I gained skills in sheet metal work as this forms part of the qualification. This including skills such as cutting and filing metal to shape, riveting, bending metal and working within tight tolerances. I've also gained hand skills with using various tools that are used during aircraft maintenance

Day to day it is a very enjoyable programme. As someone with a keen interest in aviation working on the aircraft is excellent. There is a wide variety of maintenance tasks that could come up which prevents the work becoming too repetitive and monotonous. The fact that the work also presents a challenge also adds to this enjoyment

Overall the programme is pretty well structured. There is an academic phase studying for licence modules broken up with a workshop phase and a hangar phase to help develop the knowledge from the licence modules. This then stands you in good stead for rotating through the different placements at BAs various engineering facilities

Generally there is a lot of support and management are available should you have an issue. Due to Covid with much of the management team working from home and on part time furlough it can seem like the support is not quite as readily available as it was pre covid. When on placement my experience has been that the support has been very good by the sections I have been placed with however they also have their own team of engineers to look after and are not part of the apprentice management team.

The amount of support from the training provider varies whilst carrying out the qualifications. The instructors and assessor's are very supportive and try their best to be available despite the ongoing pandemic. The support from the management at the training provider has much room to improve with communication often being poor or non existent and often a lack of flexibility taking a 'my way or the high way approach'

The qualification helps as it provides you with a good knowledge foundation that can then be built upon when actually going into placements to work on aircraft. One of our NVQs is also combined with the modules required for an engineering licence which then gives a good route for career progression.

Whilst at the training provider we were away from Heathrow there were no opportunities for extra curricular activities, any socialising or sports were organised in our own time outside of the training provider. Pre covid there were clubs and sports teams at British Airways, these were open to all employees and are not very well advertised. There is an apprentice forum each year for networking and due to covid was held virtually, although successful it didn't allow for much networking or socialising when carried out over zoom. This is an area that could easily be improved upon by providing activities such as the Duke of Edinburgh award, sports activities between different apprenticeship schemes within the company or by help organising social events such as trips to a theme park, meals out etc.

Yes

Overall I would recommend this. The qualifications gained stand in good stead for working for any airline or aircraft maintenance provider. There is also a good working culture at the airline and on placement you are well supported and work with very knowledgeable engineers who in my experience are very happy to pass on their knowledge and experience and help you develop.

When going through the application process do not try and answer any interview questions with what you think they want to hear, there is an interest in you as a person. Be aware that the first year is academically strenuous and although you are away from home and will want to socialise with other apprentices the exams do require a lot of revision in your spare time in order to pass them.