Engineering & Technology
How to become a Aircraft Maintenance Engineer
Also known as AME, Licensed Aircraft Engineer. Everything below comes from the same database our assessment scores against.
The route in
1. Licensed programme
3 years- Qualifications:
- AME Licence programme approved by the DGCA
- Entrance exams:
- Institutional entrance
- Typical cost:
- ₹4 lakh to ₹12 lakh
Subjects you must have taken
Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics. Without these the direct route is closed, though a bridging or open-school route often reopens it.
What does a Aircraft Maintenance Engineer earn in India?
Entry level
₹3 lakh – ₹7 lakh
per year
Mid career
₹12 lakh – ₹30 lakh
per year
Indicative. These bands are an editorial estimate assembled from public reporting, and have not yet been reconciled against a named dataset. Treat them as a shape, not a promise — the same title pays very differently across a service company, a product company and a start-up.
Outlook
Hiring demand
Growing — hiring faster than average.
Exposure to automation
Low. The core of this work is hard to automate — it depends on judgement, physical presence or accountability that does not transfer to software.
What does a Aircraft Maintenance Engineer do?
What this actually looks like
A day as a Aircraft Maintenance Engineer
Written about this role. The references behind it cover engineering & technology as a field rather than aircraft maintenance engineer specifically.
What you would actually be doing
- Working through a scheduled inspection with a checklist that permits no shortcuts
- Finding the fault behind a warning that appeared on the last sector
- Replacing a component and recording the serial numbers that prove it was done
- Certifying an aircraft as fit to fly, with your licence number against it
- Handing over mid-task to the next shift without losing a detail
Who you work with
- Pilots reporting a fault they can describe but not locate
- Other licensed engineers and technicians on the same aircraft
- Stores and planning staff, over a part that has not arrived
- DGCA inspectors and airline quality auditors
What you work with
- Maintenance manuals and service bulletins, followed exactly
- Torque wrenches, borescopes and calibrated test equipment
- Aircraft maintenance records, which are legal documents
- Built-in test equipment carried on the aircraft itself
Where and when: Hangars and open aprons, at whatever temperature the weather supplies. Shifts run around the clock because aircraft are serviced overnight, and the physical demand is real — you spend the day on your feet, often at height or in confined spaces.
Working conditions
- Typical hours
- Round-the-clock shifts
- Remote possible
- No — this is on-site work
- Travel
- low travel
- Physical demand
- high physical demand
Reality check
Before you choose aircraft maintenance engineer
A report that only lists what is appealing about a career is an advertisement. This is the other half. Written about this role. The references behind it cover engineering & technology as a field rather than aircraft maintenance engineer specifically.
What people like about it
- The licence is the qualification, and it is recognised wherever aircraft fly
- You release the aircraft yourself, which is real authority held young
- Faults are concrete and there is a definite moment when one is fixed
- Indian aviation is expanding and licensed engineers are genuinely scarce
What is genuinely hard
- Night shifts are the norm, because that is when aircraft are on the ground
- The responsibility is absolute and personal — your signature carries it
- Licensing takes years after the course, through examinations and logged experience
- The work is physical, outdoors in summer heat, and hard on the body over time
- Who tends to enjoy this work
- Follow a procedure exactly even when they are certain they know it, stay steady under time pressure, and would rather be judged on whether it works than on how it was presented.
- What the education journey is really like
- A three-year AME licence programme at a DGCA-approved institute after Class 12 with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. The course is only the start: the licence comes from passing DGCA module examinations and logging supervised experience on type, which commonly takes several more years. Choose the institute carefully — approval status and where its graduates actually get placed matter more here than in almost any other qualification.
Other legitimate ways in
The first route does not always work, and it is not always the best one. These are real alternatives, not consolation prizes.
Technician, then licence
- ITI or diploma in a mechanical or electrical trade
- Work as an unlicensed technician under supervision
- DGCA module examinations and logged experience toward the licence
Longer and cheaper than the full-time programme, and you earn throughout. The examinations are the same ones either way.
Degree first, licence after
- B.Tech in mechanical, aeronautical or electronics engineering
- AME licence examinations, with some exemptions
- Licensed engineer, or a move into airworthiness and planning
Costs more time but keeps management and design roles open. Airlines increasingly look for the combination when filling engineering management posts.
Defence-trained
- Technical trade entry into the Air Force or Navy
- Years of aircraft maintenance experience in service
- Civil licence conversion after discharge
A well-worn path, and defence-trained engineers arrive with maintenance discipline that civil employers value highly.
Who may not enjoy being a Aircraft Maintenance Engineer?
Nothing here is a judgement about you — it is what the job is like, listed so you can decide whether it is what you want.
- The hours look like this: round-the-clock shifts.
- It cannot be done remotely. The work needs you physically there.
- It is physically demanding. This is not desk work, and the body notices over years.
- Entry pay starts low — from about ₹3 lakh a year — and rises with what you can show rather than on the day you qualify.
The four hardest things about the work itself are listed above, under what is genuinely hard. If those and the points here describe things you would rather not sign up for, that is a real answer and worth having before a stream or a degree is chosen around it.
What skills does a Aircraft Maintenance Engineer need?
What the job actually asks for, split four ways. The assessment tells you which of these your own scores already speak to.
Technical skills
- Systematic fault-finding, from the reported effect back to the cause
- Reading a maintenance manual and following it exactly
- Maintaining records that will survive an audit years later
- Understanding how hydraulic, electrical and engine systems interact
People skills
- Saying an aircraft is not ready when somebody needs it to be
- Handing over a part-finished task without losing anything
- Working a night shift and staying as careful at the end as at the start
- Keeping calm when a departure is waiting on you
Digital and AI skills
- Aircraft maintenance and engineering software
- On-board built-in test and monitoring systems
- Electronic technical logs and parts traceability
Industry knowledge
- DGCA regulations, and how the licence is structured
- Type ratings, and which aircraft your licence covers
- How an airline's maintenance schedule and turnaround actually work
If Aircraft Maintenance Engineer appeals, also look at
Chosen by how far the interest pattern and the weighted activities of each one overlap with this. The reason is printed so you can disagree with it.
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People move between these two often. Experience in one counts toward the other. Both use build & repair.
Diploma Electronics Technician
Skilled Trades & Vocational
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Skilled Trades & Vocational
Uses the same build & repair and accuracy & verification skills. You get in through skilled trades & vocational instead.
Airport Ground Operations Executive
Hospitality, Tourism & Sport
Built on the same accuracy & verification interest. You get in through Diploma in Airport Management.
Hospitality, Tourism & Sport
People move between these two often. Experience in one counts toward the other. Both use build & repair.
Streams this is reachable from
Exams worth knowing about
Where an exam has its own page, it lists every other career it opens — useful if this one turns out not to fit.
- Institutional entrance
Who tends to be happy here
People who rate these highly tend to stay in this work. If none of them sound like you, that is worth taking seriously.
- Working conditions
- Achievement
Are you sure Aircraft Maintenance Engineer is the career you want?
Everything above describes the job. None of it tells you whether it fits you. So it is worth asking plainly, before a stream or a degree gets chosen around it.
- Not sure? Then this is exactly the question the assessment exists to answer. It compares you against Aircraft Maintenance Engineer and 196 other careers, and shows the arithmetic behind every score, so you can see why rather than being handed a verdict.
- Quite sure? Then double-check anyway. Being certain is not the same as having checked, and the cost of finding out late is counted in years rather than in the 45 minutes this takes. If it confirms what you already think, you carry on with a reason instead of a hope — plus the education route, the entrance exams and a ninety-day plan.
And if it does not line up, nothing closes. Aircraft Maintenance Engineer stays on your list with the gap named and a route attached, next to the careers your profile already reaches — so the answer is something to act on either way.
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Last verified 2026-08-01. This is a career-guidance instrument. It is not a clinical or diagnostic tool. It does not measure intelligence, IQ, or a person’s worth. Its results are one input among several, and are intended to be interpreted with a trained counsellor.