To fix this a deliberate decision has to be made to change the force structure to build more technicians and unfortunately people like that don't want to take the pay and lifestyle cut so we just can't fill out the ranks.
I'm doubtful that it's impossible to train some number of existing personnel to do basic repairs - especially the repairs involving simply replacing a part, as described in the article.
The original bureaucratic logic you're criticizing seems bad. But it seems like you're using a similar sort of reasoning to claim things are all or nothing.