On the runway to Lyon

1 June 2024

Elliott Farnan is preparing to compete in the Aircraft Maintenance Skill at the WorldSkills International competition in Lyon this September. It will be the first time that the sports-mad 21-year-old from Auckland’s North Shore represents New Zealand.

When not at work, there’s a good chance you’ll find the Elliott diving into rounds of golf with mates, running with his girlfriend Lauren, playing social netball, basketball, squash, football, and rugby with friends — He’s naturally competitive, though he claims that he didn’t win many things in school, his success is building. Elliott is in his third year of training as a wide body aircraft maintenance engineer at Air New Zealand Auckland. Last year, he was Runner-up Trainee of the Year for Air New Zealand, this year was awarded Best Craftmanship of Year for the Auckland trainees.

“I love aviation. It is crazy to me how a plane can take off with all its weight — and how a plane is able to carry so many people and fly for so long. It’s such a cool feeling to be able to work in the hangar with a bunch of people interested in the same things. I am really enjoying the work that I am currently doing and hoping to become a licensed engineer.”

In Lyon, “language and scale” will be the big untested headwinds. “For the Aircraft Maintenance Skill, the common language is English, so I won’t have to worry too much about that,” he says. “But, just getting there, being over there amongst all the different ethnicities and languages will be interesting. I don’t think I really appreciate yet how big it is going to be. That is going to be the challenge to get my head around, and then get back into the competition mode.” 

Elliott has large entourage of family travelling over to support him when he competes in France. One important person who will be following Elliott’s progress closely from New Zealand will be his Nan. “Nan has been a major influence in my life. I always enjoy the time I spend with her. Nan has taught me that no matter how hard things are, just get back up and keep going.”

At Air New Zealand, Elliott is fortunate to have access to a slipstream of expert trainers and past competitors. Jeroen Hattink, Air New Zealand’s Training and Trainee Support Leader, is a WorldSkills Expert. He has decades of aircraft maintenance experience and for the last ten years, has managed mentoring and training On Job Training (OJT) for the trainees joining Engineering & Maintenance at Air New Zealand Auckland.

Jeroen has been Elliott’s immediate manager for the last two and half years. Weekly progress meetings and check ins around the WorldSkills programme provide a different bond.

“Jeroen is a really good bloke. He will be coming over to France with me and it is nice to know him on more of a personal level.”  

Elliott has just completed two weeks on site at Salus Aviation in Ardmore where he has been getting to know the intricacies of helicopter systems and protocols, and training on machines similar to those that he’ll be handling in Lyon.  While all major parts of the machines are basically the same, he’s fitted in a visit to the North Shore to have a look at the exact same model helicopter that he will be working on in the competition in September. 

Right now, he is on an avionic course preparing for another of the competition modules. Never to waste a moment, Elliott will soon start a run of nightshifts alongside Jack Wescott. Jack represented New Zealand at the WorldSkills International Competition in Kazan in 2019. 

“I met Jack in Blenheim for the first time at the 2023 regionals. Then, he supported me in Christchurch at the Nationals. He is amazing. It will be really good to spend eight weeks with him learning about the ins and outs and tips and tricks of competing at international level.” 

Then, it is “down the line working with Jarrod Wood for a couple of weeks”. Jarrod is a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer at Line Maintenance at Air New Zealand. He represented New Zealand in Aircraft Maintenance at the WorldSkills International competition in Abu Dhabi in 2017. He won the competition, bringing home Gold. 

“I am so grateful for all the support from my family, and my girlfriend, and her family. And for all the support from Jeroen, AirNZ, Salus Aviation and WorldSkills New Zealand,” says Elliott. “Everybody is supporting me.”

We would like to acknowledge Air New Zealand’s support for WorldSkills New Zealand for the Aircraft Maintenance Skill.