Aircraft Line Maintenance Market – Market Overview
Line maintenance MRO entails full technical handling such as transit, pre-flight checks, daily checks, and weekly checks. Through line maintenance, the firms provide assistance in fuel checks, headset maintenance and repair, and on call handling. Growing international trade between countries have increased the frequencies of cargo planes. Thus, it is essential to conduct timely checks or repairs of airplane to ensure efficient performance and safe air travel.
As of 2016, there were more than 22,000 active commercial wide body and narrow body aircraft across the globe. These existing commercial fleets are expected to be replaced by more than 40,000 new aircraft, over the next 20 years, and the global fleet is likely to reach 45,000 aircraft by 2036. Moreover, the high demand for air travel in the emerging regions, such as Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, leads to an increase in the number of aircraft in these regions. As a result, approximately 22,000 commercial aircraft are expected to be delivered to these regions in the next 20 years. On the other hand, it is expected that over 15,000 commercial aircraft would be delivered in developed regions such as North America and Europe, by 2036.
Moreover, the global military aircraft fleet, as of 2016, was over 53,000, with the US having the largest share (26%) of the military planes, followed by Russia (7%), China (6%), and India (4%). With the increase in defence budgets in a number of countries, there have been high development and procurement of military aircraft, in the recent years.
The expansion of the existing commercial and military aircraft fleets along with the launch of new airlines, would result in increased line maintenance activities in the forthcoming years. Hence, it is expected that the rapid fleet expansion would eventually drive the global market.
Concurrently, outsourcing of aircraft line maintenance MRO to third-party companies, is one of the trending opportunities for the airline companies so as to reduce their aircraft MRO expenses, with more than 10-20% of saving. For example, in 2013, 65% of aircraft MRO was outsourced by airlines, across the globe. As a result, there has been an increased adoption of MRO outsourcing, of late, due to the growing awareness of its benefits, such as low labour rates and the availability of adequate spare parts.
Most nations that have low cost of labour, for instance, countries such as Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, and Mexico, are continually improving their support for MRO services and labour-intensive heavy maintenance checks. Moreover, it is expected that the retirement of maintenance-intensive aircraft and the introduction of new generation aircraft, will lower the man-hours per maintenance visit. Under these circumstances, MRO outsourcing opportunities will prove to be the key point of interest for many players in the region.
Like many airline companies around the world, Boeing outsourced its aircraft maintenance to reduce MRO costs. For example, over 70% of the maintenance tasks of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was outsourced to reduce the production time and costs. It also adopted a three-tier outsourcing structure, in which Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers manufactured the aircraft parts, which were then assembled by Tier 1 manufacturers. Similarly, several US airlines sent one of every five aircraft to developing regions such as Latin America and Asia, for their MRO.
Aircraft MRO outsourcing is gaining acceptance as performance-based logistics contracts are gaining popularity in the aviation field. Airline companies, across the globe, are extensively outsourcing the maintenance and logistics support contracts of their respective aircraft to several MRO service providers and OEMs. This enables faster response to crisis situations and adaptation to the dynamic technological advances in the industry.
Of late, OEMs are increasingly proactive in the aftermarket services. In 2013, the aircraft OEMs generated 50% of their revenue by providing aircraft line maintenance MRO services and the rest by manufacturing engines. For example, Airbus, is a major developer of aircraft, and also provides the aircraft MRO services worldwide. Similarly, Pratt & Whitney, a key manufacturer of advanced aircraft engines, also provides engine and line maintenance on a wide range of its engines. Moreover, as OEMs are shifting their business to the emerging regions such as Mexico, Brazil, Oman, China, Indonesia, and India, the third-party companies have an opportunity to partner with these OEMs and establish MRO service centres in those areas.
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Key Players:
The leading market players in the global aircraft line maintenance market primarily include Delta TechOps, Lufthansa Technik, Monarch Aircraft Engineering, SIA Engineering Company, SR Technics, British Airways Engineering, Hong Long Aircraft Engineering, TAP Maintenance & Engineering, and Turkish Technic.