“Supporting aircraft is a growth business. Boeing and Airbus both agree this support sector is worth around $2.9 trillion (Airbus slightly more at $3 trillion) over the next few year – in parts, maintenance, engineering and flight support operations support,” said Stan Deal, senior vice president Commercial Aviation Services, Boeing, during his opening address at MRO Europe (18-20 October) in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
To put it in context, he said, “the world airlines will spend the same on wide-bodied aircraft over next 20 years and the same again on single aisle airplanes.” He said it raised two questions – why was the MRO business annual growth rate still in single digit numbers; and secondly what can be collectively done to return more value to customers.
There were three solutions he said: drive down cost; improve efficiency; and maximise value of assets. He said that while there were a small number of aircraft and engine OEMs, there were ‘thousands’ of MRO businesses.
Deal pointed to the multitude of collaborative relationships with and between competitors but stated that “there is more than enough work for everyone”if his three points were adhered to.
He highlighted the multitude of power-by-the-hour (PBH) programs with different names but all doing essentially the same thing, but believed that customers were “outsourcing more in engineering and maintenance capabilities.”
Deal said that the growth in freight transport would see over 1,000 single aisle airplanes being converted to carry cargo over the next 20 years. On February 24, Boeing launched its Next-Generation 737- 800 Converted Freighter with orders and commitments for up to 55 conversions from seven different customers. He noted that growth was greater than had been expected and that Boeing was engaged with two or more MROs to meet the conversion demands.
The application of advanced data analytics was also a key factor to the growth of the MRO industry, stated Deal. “Each new airplane provides more data than the last. More data means more capability maximise the availability, reliability and performance of the airplane. The data increase from airplanes is increasing at a current rate of around 144 times annually from 6.9 terabytes (a million million) in 2002 to one petabyte (one thousand million million) by 2030.