Aerospace fights for young recruits as AI drains talent pool

4 min readNew DelhiJul 26, 2026 10:13 AM IST Many companies in the sector scrapped ⁠feeder apprenticeship programmes. (Representational image)For Hassan Butt, a 17-year-old British student volunteering at the Farnborough airshow this week, there was nothing cooler than watching the planes and thinking about the physics that kept them airborne. “Everyone when they’re kids, they look up, they see the planes flying and they think, damn…” he said as he fielded questions from passersby at a stand. His dream was to pursue a career in aerospace and engineering with a focus on missiles.Looking across the hall, there was no ⁠shortage of ​stalls and displays and aerospace recruitment campaigns seeking to tap into that enthusiasm and lure him and other potential recruits from Generation Z and Alpha.