WASHINGTON – According a new report, the global aviation maintenance industry will continue to expand its worldwide economic footprint over the next decade. The projections, released on March 14 during an industry event hosted by the Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA), show that expanding global markets and technical enhancements to civil aircraft fleets will drive growth across the maintenance and parts manufacturing sectors.
According to the 2018 Global Fleet & MRO Market Assessment, prepared for ARSA by consulting firm Oliver Wyman, the global air transport maintenance industry employs more than 380,000 people across nearly 5,000 firms that will produce $77.4 billion in market activity in 2018. In the United States, more than 4,000 civil aviation maintenance businesses employ nearly 185,000 people and generate $44 billion in economic activity.
The report was released at a Capitol Hill briefing conducted as a part of ARSA’s annual Legislative Day, an event that has become a highlight of the transportation policy community’s spring calendar. Steve Douglas, former director of the FAA’s aircraft maintenance division and vice president for Oliver Wyman’s CAVOK division, presented this year’s report.
By 2028, the global maintenance market is forecast to surpass $114 billion dollars in annual activity, based on the firm’s projections. As seen in previous reports, maintenance-related revenues are projected to fare well even when a series of alternative scenarios are considered against the baseline forecast. Should air carriers be forced to weather economic turbulence in the next decade, their likely delayed introduction of new aircraft and further dependence on legacy fleets would stabilize spending on maintenance, repair and overhaul services.
However, a looming problem – one that has been recognized by ARSA and the industry for years – is made clear by the report: the desperate need to find and retain a new generation of maintenance technicians. According to Oliver Wyman’s projections, the demand for aircraft mechanics will outstrip the available supply by 2022. By the end of the reports decade-long projection, there will be 10 percent fewer mechanics in the workforce than needed by the industry.
“We can now point to 2022 as the year of reckoning,” said Brett Levanto, ARSA vice president of communications. “Seeing clear analysis showing that a shortfall of aviation maintenance talent in the very near future needs to move us to action now. Many in the industry, including ARSA, have been piecing together a plan for this issue for years. Our first big hurdle was to clearly and directly tell the story, now that we’ve done that it’s time to take action.”
Levanto noted the association’s stepped-up efforts on workforce development issues, which were particularly evident in early March when Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) introduced an ARSA-supported bill to establish a new pilot program to train maintenance professionals, help veterans transition to civilian careers and recruit new technicians. “There are many who have been talking about the [aviation maintenance] workforce crisis for a long time. It’s nice to be part of a group that’s doing something about it – and to have [the Oliver Wyman data] to underscore our urgency,” Levanto said.
The report’s executive summary, as well as a fact sheet illustrating U.S. state-by-state employment figures, can be found in ARSA’s economic data center at arsa.org/news-media/economic-data.
To see everything that happened during ARSA’s Legislative Day, which is a component of the association’s Annual Symposium Week, visit arsa.org/symposium.
ARSA is the only association devoted to the unique needs of the global civil aviation maintenance industry. It is dedicated to helping member companies operate more efficiently and effectively, while continuing to ensure the safety of aircraft worldwide. To learn more about the association’s work on behalf of both industry stakeholders and the flying public, please visit ARSA.org.
