Joramco Ramps Up Workforce Pipeline Efforts

Jordanian MRO provider Joramco is ramping up workforce pipeline efforts as it prepares to significantly increase capacity in 2024. 

Joramco plans to add approximately 300 new employees to staff five new maintenance lines.

The additional maintenance lines will operate at a new widebody hangar Joramco is constructing at Amman's Queen Alia International Airport. The hangar will be capable of accommodating one widebody line and four narrowbody lines simultaneously. Joramco expects the facility to begin operations by the fourth quarter of 2024. 

Driving this growth are a slew of new maintenance agreements and Joramco’s recently announced partnership with Boeing to establish a passenger-to-freighter conversion line in Amman. At Aviation Week’s recent MRO Europe event in Amsterdam, Joramco signed maintenance agreements with Oman Air and DHL covering heavy maintenance checks. In recent months it also signed a new maintenance agreement with Philippine Airlines and extended its maintenance agreement with Ryanair.

Meanwhile, Joramco says its partnership with Boeing will make it the first MRO supplier in the Middle East supporting future Boeing freighter conversions of both domestic and foreign aircraft. Its conversion line in Amman will focus on conversions of 737-800s. According to Joramco CEO Fraser Currie, it is working on project readiness with the airframer and hopes to be ready by the third quarter of 2024 for an end-of-year rollout of the first aircraft.

To help meet its growing workforce demand, Joramco is boosting recruitment and training initiatives through its Joramco Academy subsidiary. Currie says the Academy is “the lifeblood” of Joramco and continues to increase enrollment year-on-year.

“Globally, there is an ongoing recruitment challenge, which is why initiatives like our Academy are so important,” says Currie. “The industry can no longer rely on the reciprocal movement of staff between the industry sectors, be that OEM, military, airline or MRO. The pool has shrunk and needs rapid expansion, which will be driven by bringing in new students and training them internally.”

In September, Joramco launched a promotional campaign in Jordan to cover 50% of tuition fees and costs for students who register for the Academy. The program began in October for applicants to its next year of four-year maintenance training program.

“The interest has been incredible and we have filled the additional quota already,” Currie says. “Our next focus is to offer an additional 24 funded scholarships.”

While the Academy serves to boost Joramco’s own workforce, Currie says it is also focused on training future workforce from other countries. “There are two streams within our Academy business model: The first being students who will go on to work at Joramco, and the second being external students who are benefiting from both our Academy training and practical experience training in Joramco’s hangars,” he says. “These students then return to their own home countries.”

Joramco is also expanding maintenance training efforts throughout the Middle East and Africa region. In April, it partnered with African services provider Aerojet Aviation to launch Aerojet Training Academy at Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana. The school is Joramco Academy’s first site outside Jordan and is part of the country’s efforts to grow MRO capabilities.

Currie notes that Joramco “welcomes inquiries from external customers who don’t have their own training facilities.”