A combination of low (or non-) utilisation of aircraft during the pandemic, deferred maintenance during and coming out of the pandemic, and rapid pax and cargo lift demand coming out of the pandemic have all been driving factors.
A lot of carriers were deferring maintenance, often due to economic factors, and there’s only so long such maintenance requirements can be deferred. The carry-on effect is that there was a surge in demand for engine maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services, which now has many engine MRO facilities at capacity.
“The supply chain constraints as related to component repairs have been improving over the last few years but there is a lot of future improvement needed in order to get back to pre-pandemic TAT,” Kevin Lenz, Senior Vice President at AvAir, explained.
“Especially as part of our Asset Management Partnership with GE Aviation Materials and our related support to the GE MRO Network, we see this specifically in engine LRUs and Accessories repairs where there are often sub-assembly parts that have very long lead times or simply unavailable at various component original engine manufacturers (OEMs).”
Challenging environment
Rising parts/material costs have had a significant impact on component repair prices. The market values of components have been steadily rising in the last few years and the explanation is logical. Higher parts and material costs and increased labour costs are passed on from the component repair shops to their customers, which drives up airline and MRO parts costs for engine builds.
“AvAir has taken a simple approach in this area: Be very attentive to market and customer demand cues and invest heavily on proactive material repairs in advance of the demand materialising,” Lenz stated. “This is a guiding principle of AvAir in support of its global customer base of MRO outfits including major commercial airline MROs, industry leading independent MROs, and OEM MROs like GE, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and others.”
Current conditions
MRO demand is expected to remain high and often at capacity in the near term but improve in the medium term, as MROs get through the glut of current and pending shop visits.
“We’ve already seen supply scarcities for engine material arise recently, simply explained by a relative lack of engine teardowns in process compared to a few years ago,” Lenz outlined.
“There are fewer engine teardowns because engines are instead being reinvested into, namely by leasing companies, as the demand for lease engines is very strong. Fewer teardowns mean fewer parts on the market which puts upward pressure on pricing. In my opinion the material scarcity will be more impactful to engine MRO turn times rather than capacity restraints in the near future.
“I envision supply chain issues improving gradually but not normalising for another 2 to 3 years. As mentioned above, AvAir’s strategy of being in tune with its global customer base and market in general to understand demand cues will long continue to be a focus.
“This helps us best position and invest in inventories on a proactive basis to make sure we are able to support the demand as it materialises.”
