Transport Canada selects Fanshawe to address shortage of aircraft maintenance engineers

Transport Canada has tapped Fanshawe College’s Norton Wolf School of Aviation and Aerospace Technology to help address a critical, industry-wide shortage of aircraft maintenance engineers (AMEs) by offering a pathway for foreign-trained AMEs to be licensed in Canada.  

As an Approved Training Organization of Transport Canada, Fanshawe will evaluate unrecognized basic training obtained outside of Canada and offer applicable Transport Canada Civil Aviation basic training courses to bridge identified training gaps and bring students up to Canadian standards. Upon successful completion of their upgraded courses, applicants will receive a Letter of Acceptable Training that can be used to pursue further licensing with Transport Canada. 

“The Canadian aviation industry is growing at an unprecedented pace. The demand for a trained workforce continues to rise, and this Transport Canada initiative to open pathways for foreign-trained aviation technicians to become AMEs is both visionary and innovative,” says Larry Weir, associate dean of Fanshawe’s Norton Wolf School of Aviation and Aerospace Technology. “As one of the country's largest producers of AMEs, we have an exceptional team ready to deliver the gap analysis and provide the necessary training in support of this important initiative.”  

Louis Anderson, president of the AME Association of Ontario, notes the current shortage of AMEs is likely to get worse before it gets better, according to research from Transport Canada, Boeing, and CAE Inc.  

“A program like this could help foreign-trained AMEs get licensed faster in an industry where they are so desperately needed,” says Anderson. 

Fanshawe has developed an efficient way to analyze differences between foreign and Canadian licenses in aircraft maintenance and deliver only the training necessary through modular, focused units of study. This online asynchronous training method makes achieving acceptable basic training faster and for many students, less costly overall, and easier to manage part time while working in the industry.