But if you do, they'll hire you, and pay better.

A&P is a great credential for any technical/mechanical trade these days.

I've never met an automotive shop that could give a hoot about airframe or powerplant certification. Aircraft maintenance is far removed from automotive maintenance, which is meatball and rough, but does sometimes pay better.

Automotive shops would prefer to see ASE certification.

When I learned to fly, it was impressed on us that you-break-it, you-fix-it, and it was expected that every one of us would not only be able to turn wrenches, but would have our own tools. I began turning wrenches on airplanes before I began flying, in my early teens, Jr High, and have done so ever since. There's a whole lot in auto maintenance that bares scant resemblance to aircraft maintenance.

Generally speaking, mechanics won't be making two hundred thousand. Mechanics are home every night. I have a son who turns wrenches for boing; he lives in an expensive area, does well, and Boeing offers a number of benefits, including reimbursing flight training, education money, etc. Coupled with what he gets from his service in the USMC, he's doing okay. He could like many mechanics, have more work than he knows what to do with, and there are a lot of moonlighting opportunities. There's through-the-fence maintenance at various airports that allow it, plus for those inclined, assistance with experimental building and consulting, etc.

Aviation maintenance training and certification very recently underwent some significant changes. Up until this, programs have had no shortage of applicants and students.

I have been disappointed by the qualify of some of the students that I've seen. Given the extremely broad nature of aviation maintenance (a pilot gets typed in one aircraft; the mechanic is certificated for everything), graduation from any facility is little more than a license to learn, but a very good example of the dismal results of some graduates came to my attention a few years ago. I was working on C-130's and was approached by a recent graduate from a local community college AMT program, on the airfield. He wanted to borrow my die grinder with a cutoff wheel. I asked him what for, and he said there was a screw in a floor panel in the cargo bay that he couldn't remove, so he was going to cut away the panel. I was gobsmacked. Eighteen months of training, and he dind't know how to remove a screw. I asked him if he'd used valve grinding compound, a longer screw driver, an impact bit, johnson bar, easy-out, cold chisel, old man, or any of a number of other tools, techniques, or practices, and he had never heard of them...so he was willing do do considerable damage to structural components of the airframe (and expensive ones, too). He wasn't the only one.

New hires coming from maintenance training still have a LOT to learn, and like inexperienced pilots, aren't worth a lot until they do get some experience under their belt. Once they have that experience, despite broad certification that allows them to work on anything from a small hoizontally opposed piston engine to a hot air ballon to a helicopter to turbojet equipment, they're still limited practically and by regulation to their training and experience. They are also, in most cases, expected to collect their own tools; a lifetime process that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (I know people who mortgaged a home to pay for a rollaway tool box). The return is dependent on the path taken, and just like flying, not all paths are equal.

That's not what my oldest says (owns a shop). Yes ASE is the gold standard but shops can and do hire non-ASE mechanics. An A&P will have a lot of credibility compared to other non-ASE folks. An A&P can get an auto job at higher pay than somebody who starts out pushing a broom, and then pursue ASE certification if desired. Or not, if the shop values his experience progression.

A&P is not auto mechanics, but it's about the closest thing out there, and there's a mechanic shortage too.

It’s not just the auto industry that hires A&P’s, it’s rail, marine, Ag, power generation; all of which are much more stable than aviation, with better career prospects. Most pay better, and most are home most nights, if that’s your thing (with a company truck and employer provided tools). Oh, and I forgot, a much better chance of being on first shift.

As far as A&P schools at capacity, at least in my corner of the Midwest, pre and post Covid, most schools are happy to get to 50% capacity. It’s not a school capacity issue, it’s an interest issue. Your post above essentially lays out most reasons why someone shouldn’t enter this field. Crappy pay, poor schedule, large personal investment of time and capital. Well- shocker- there aren’t are takers.

While pilots do have to be typed on every aircraft they fly, and yes they’re in the seat if something goes wrong (I fly, too, by the way), however liability follows a mechanic until the aircraft they returned to service is turned into beer cans. That’s a problem.

The next 5-10 years are going to become entertaining as the industry scrambles to find people who can actually fix things, instead of just a signature.

Whatever you say. From my perspective, 40 years of turning wrenches in shop maintenance, line maintenance, repair station maintenance on wood, fabric, metal, fiberglass, doing electrical, hydraulic, fuel, etc, small piston to large raidal, turboprops, turbojet, twice director of maintenance, line inspector, shop inspector, yada, yada; I don't see a big outflux of aircraft mechanics going to automotive, and I've yet to see an automotive shop that sought out aircraft mechanics or offered them more, because they were an aircraft mechanic.

I have presently seven roll-away double stack tool chests of tools, plus a few other top or bottom boxes, representing a lifetime of collection and investment, and for those who do that for aircraft, the tools are SAE, not metric, meaning doubling down on the investment because today, nearly everything automotive, is metric. Automotive is really nothing like aircraft maintenance.

Motorcycle maintenance schools have no problem filling their classes, Aircraft maintenance schools have no problem, either. Numerous military mechanics from my son's unit went to places like Boeing and Space-X, making good money. They're home every night. They're happy doing what they do.

Aviation maintenance is not a realm of glory. Even Charles Taylor, the Wright Brothers mechanic, is hardly known, and died nearly broke, working in a factory in California; even in the shop, others had no idea who he was or what he'd done, or that he'd hand-built the first aircraft engine and aircraft. It's worth noting that the first aircraft mechanics, pilots, and engineers in heavier than air controlled flight operations, came from being bicycle mechanics. Today, however, aviation maintenance is fairly specialized, and with regard to automotive, nothing like cars, trains, boats, or automotive, in general. Personally, I hate working on cars. Everything is cheap and very rough. An aircraft mechanic in the automotive world is a jewler in a land of duct tape and plastic. Every time I work on a car, I expend my day's allotment of expletives at the cheapness and absolute crap that is turned out for automotive. It's disgusting.

For the mechanic that chooses to go that route, it's true that the pay is sometimes higher; a dealership will pay more, often a lot more, and the work that's one has no federal standard of completion, doesn't require a signoff, and auto mechanics can and often do get away with deplorable work that would put someone in jail in the aviation world. To be fair, I've seen aircraft mechanics who have an automotive background try to pull all kind of idiotic and illegal stunts on aircraft, tight up to the master shadetree mechanic's go-to fix for a stripped screw: teflon tape on the screw and put it back in. One simply can't kick their ass far enough to truly due them justice, and yet they're out there.

An aircraft mechanic's signature covers the work he did, only, and that liability lasts until the next work or inspection covering that work, is performed. The mechanic doesn't buy the future, but the past. That signature covers the work done up until the time that the ink dries. The next time that aircraft is inspected or that work done again, the next mechanic buys the airplane up unitil his signature is dry. That's how it works.

I did not cover a litany of reasons why a someone should not be a mechanic in aviation. I encourage those who have an interest, including pilots, to seek mechanic certification and employment, if they choose. Aviation maintenance is rewarding, honorable, and while little respect or glory comes with the job, it's still in demand, and there are still those who seek it out.

Regional airlines have discovered that their decades of paying wages that were literally below the poverty line, no longer work. Employers of aircraft mechanics are going to need to learn the same thing. Mechanics aren't hard to find, but good ones aren't as plentiful. I've had several occasions over the years when I was hired as a pilot or interviewed as a pilot, but the job quickly became about maintenance. My maintenance was more valued than my pilot certificate because the operator could get pilots all day long; a reliable mechanic who would stay and who could be trusted was more valuable to the employer than the pilots. I got a call once from an ag operator in Southern Arizona, looking for pilots. We chatted, and when the subject of maintenance came up, the job offer became one for his director of maintenance. He had fifteen airplanes, and he wanted someone to come maintain them in Yuma; the airplanes flew at night spraying crops and the lucky job holder would maintain them in the summer Yuma sun. No thanks. The owner asked how much I'd require to come do that job, and I told him. He said, "That much?" He was thinking of a much lower number. I was thinking of a much higher number; I threw something out to start the conversation. I also told him I wanted to fly. He said he'd toss me a little flying. I told him to pound sand. Not every job is a diamond, nor is every pilot, or mechanic. There are jobs that have substandard pay, aircraft working conditions, or ethic. One is not forced to take them.

I honestly don't know how some airline maintenance bases are staffed. Particularly places like United at SFO, where real estate costs have long been in the stratosphere.

I recall seeing a lot of living fossils walking around there. I assume people who bought their home way back in the day, and are just finishing out their time before they retire.

For those that are younger than 60, I don't know how they do it. Do mechanics have to bid for bases? Does that result in places like SFO perpetually being new hires who spend a short amount of time there, and then bid elsewhere?

Yes, they bid for bases and schedule. And ,yes, the higher the cost of living, the harder the base is to staff. United was offering sign-on bonuses just to get people to staff those bases.

I had a ex-student and friend that lived out of his car for the first six months at United, while at SFO because of cost of living. He eventually used his avionics background to transfer to being a Sim tech and then got out of Mx altogether and is working on his ratings.

My youngest went to auto tech school. I mentioned A&P to him as he was making his decisions. Took him about 30 seconds of thinking about it. ("is there a lotta paperwork when an A&P"?...yes...."no thanks")
Not to mention all the shutdown airlines he had seen in my career while growing up.
So yeah, not a lot of incentive.
As to what RickAir said...automech pay is good. Our son is now 33, house paid for, 2 garages paid for...one with hydraulic lift and paint booth. I've lost count of the number of cars. He buys them, restores them, sells some and keeps some.
Also, as you and others point out, mechanical skills are transferrable, even if not directly. Whether an A&P, ASE or something else, someone with an understanding of how things operate will always find paying work.

My neighbor (Well like 8 houses down) is an A&P mechanic, he works for the local Ford Dealership. He got his A&P in the Army and when he got to civilian life Southwest hired him. He found out he was looking at working 20+ years of night shift, weekends, and most holidays for 38 an hour to start. The local Toyota store started him at 18 an hour +Commission but he works 8-6 Monday to Friday. Apparently with the commission he made 85k his first year there and was over 100 the second.

Smart kid! Glad to hear he found his niche.

In my “off” time, I buy older tractors with problems, and fix them up for my row crop farm- way better than paying the Deere dealer $140 an hour.

It’s not only a pay/schedule issue. Sometimes I’ll help the farm neighbors on a problem with their machinery, and sadly get more respect from them than aircraft owners when I (used to) work on their aircraft. When I worked on GA aircraft I was called a grease monkey, dumb, and other disparaging terms.

I will say it is nice having an A&P when you own a couple aircraft, and it’s helped me hit 1500 hours.

Luckily, I have one of the best jobs in aviation Mx- medical helicopter Mx- I usually work 15 hours a week, but paid for 40 (on call- like short call reserve). Last year we did get a 20% pay increase, which now is at the low end of major pay, but people are still leaving. I will say the med crews show us more appreciation than any other part of aviation, since they know there are a lot of A&P’s out there with little talent, and they have a vested interest in the quality of Mx performed on their helicopter.