The Impact of Deregulation on the Employment and Wages of Airline Mechanics

This paper describes the effects of deregulation on negotiated wage rates and employment levels of aircraft mechanics in the scheduled airline industry. Firm-specific data for the incumbent trunk airlines show relatively small changes in real wage rates since deregulation,and only recent increases in interfirm wage differentials. Employment growth rates, on the other hand, have varied widely among the incumbents, and between the incumbent trunks and the local service and new-entrant airlines. The data suggest that deregulation resulted in a transfer of 5000-7000 maintenance jobs from the incumbent trunks to the smaller airlines. This shift in employment reduced mechanics' earnings in the industry by as much as 5 percent.