U.S. Air Force still doesn't have enough maintainers, the Government Accountability Office revealed in a report.
The ongoing shortfall could jeopardize the flying branch's efforts to the readiness of its fighter fleet to 80 percent in order to prepare for high-intensity warfare. A dearth of spare parts and a shortage of pilots exacerbate the maintainer shortfall.
The overall maintenance gap in 2019 is bad, the GAO explained. But it actually was worse in previous years.
The Air Force reduced the overall gap between actual maintainer staffing levels and authorized levels from 4,016 maintainers (out of 66,439 authorized active component positions) in fiscal year 2015, to 745 in fiscal year 2017 (out of 66,559 positions)."
The overall numbers belie the seriousness of the shortage. Highly-experienced maintenance personnel are in shorter supply than are less-experienced maintainers. And that can have a knock-on effect on readiness, according to the GAO.
In seven of the last eight fiscal years, the Air Force had staffing gaps of experienced maintainers—those who are most qualified to meet mission needs and are needed to train new maintainers."
Maintainers complete technical school as three-levels and initially lack the experience and proficiency needed to meet mission needs, the accounting agency continued.
Following years of on-the-job training, among other things, maintainers upgrade to the five- and seven-levels. In fiscal year 2017, the Air Force had gaps of more than 2,000 five-level and 400 seven-level maintainers and a surplus of over 1,700 three-levels. Air Force officials anticipate that staffing gaps will continue off and on through fiscal year 2023.
That's because experienced maintainers have been leaving the Air Force at a rate higher than the service can replace them.
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