The huge losses sustained by airlines everywhere throughout the first year and much of the second year of the Covid-19 crisis directly affected the component repair market globally, as carriers focused intensely on cutting costs and scaling down their operations in line with the reduced traffic demand they experienced in 2020 and 2021. MRO Management’s Chris Kjelgaard spoke to three of the sector’s major participants for their insight into what the future may hold.

 

With insight from Aviation Technical Services (ATS) and AAR, read the full article on Aviation Business News and extracts of our contribution below.

 

A turbulent recovery

 

“As we emerge from two years of turmoil, the aviation industry is bracing itself for a decade of growth that will test the industry’s resilience, not only from the pandemic and associated complications of travel restrictions and supply chain challenges, but also a reduced labour force too small to support the expected growth trajectory,” said Louis Philippe Mallette, SVP Operations for Montréal based component repair company AJW Technique. “Add in the industry’s challenge of meeting COP26 climate change ambitions with no immediate alternative to fossil fuels that substantially cut emissions, and it will be a turbulent decade of growth for the industry.”

 

The turbulence is likely to begin in the near term, according to Mallette. “Domestic air travel and the associated narrowbody aircraft fleets are expected to reach pre-pandemic levels this year, with more aircraft coming out of storage or being delivered by the manufacturers,” he notes.

 

“Covid will continue to impact the international and business travel sectors, which will take longer to recover as corporate and government policies restrict corporate travel and the wide adoption of video conferencing reduces the immediate need for face-to-face business meetings,” says Mallette. “The slow business and international travel recovery will have an impact on growth and profitability of airlines and the demand for widebody aircraft. Cargo aircraft will continue to grow, both dedicated cargo aircraft and the conversion of passenger [aircraft] to freight.” Taking these factors into account, “The changes in fleet, the predicted growth and the elevated number of aircraft retired that were due to enter a period of intensive MRO expense directly impact the component maintenance market,” says Mallette. “It is now forecast that by 2024 MRO demand should reach pre-pandemic levels, but at varying rates round the world. “For instance, in China, MRO demand has already surpassed pre-pandemic figures, but Western Europe is not expected to see full recovery until 2025.”

 

 

Technological solutions

 

The uncertainty and turbulence the MRO market is likely to experience in the next few years has implications for component maintenance companies, according to Mallette. “It is clear the need to be reactive, adaptable and flexible to meet our customers’ changing needs will remain for the foreseeable future,” he says. So too will “offering cost-effective solutions to help operators keep their costs under control as they manage their pandemic induced debts”. For that reason, AJW Technique is “committed to ensure our digital advances continue to grow alongside the recovery to maximise technicians’ component touch-time with productivity trackers, turnaround time gaming systems, performance management dashboards, piece parts provisioning models and dynamic pricing algorithms”, says Mallette. “We have also tested asset location tracking using RFID and Bluetooth technology as a proof of concept. This allows technicians to have a full view of high-value assets at their fingertips, facilitating traceability and workflow management. Beyond RFID technology, we have also invested in hands-free systems and collaborated on predictive maintenance discoveries.” AJW Technique thinks “there will continue to be huge advancements in digital products that will streamline legacy processes known to the aviation industry for decades”, says Mallette. These will include “more mainstream solutions for predictive maintenance, remote auditing from aviation authorities, and streamlined requests for proposal processes which are in most cases subcontracted to consulting partners to manage due to their high analytical and administrative nature.” Additionally, says Mallette, “we predict that more aviation businesses, MROs, OEMs, airlines and brokers alike will come together to develop more digital products that fix core industry issues, as opposed to creating siloed solutions that solve bits of their four walls. Most parts sales businesses have gone fully digital as well. Last year we launched a series of online platforms such as ‘AJW eventory’, our online inventory store, which automates parts trading but also flows work into AJW Technique by securing repairs of as-removed parts.”

 

So, like every other area of the aerospace industry and activity in the emerging post-Covid world, the component MRO market will need to stay flexible in terms of competitive posture, be quick to adopt new technologies and processes, and be ready to take advantage of any business opportunities that potential consolidation moves within the sector might create in the next few years. These are certainly very interesting times for the component maintenance business.

 

Read the full article here