Airbus forecasts $4.6 trillion market for aircraft in 20 years

Aircraft manufacturer: Airbus has forecast $4.6 trillion worldwide market for commercial aircraft services for the next 20 years.

The forecast covers new global services for aircraft expected between 2018 and 2037.

The new analysis, according to investigations is based on three-way market segmentation, respectively focusing on: the aircraft; the airline operation and the passenger experience.

Other factors include aircraft-focused life cycle services, which represents the largest segment of growth including maintenance, spares pool access; tooling; technical training and system upgrades – which are needed to keep the airlines aircraft flying.

The market, investigation reveals represents a cumulative value of $2.2 trillion over the 20-year period – from $76 billion in 2018 to more than $160 billion per annum by 2037.

According to investigations, these services are provided throughout the life cycle from design to dismantling.

A report by Airbus reveals: “In this category, aircraft manufacturers provide customers with core services which come with the aircraft, including assigned field representatives and call centres for Aircraft on Ground.

“The largest market by value is maintenance increasingly characterized by outsourcing and “paid- by-the-hour” (PBH) contracts. Moreover, as technology and new materials develop, such as composite repairs, Airbus sees a strong trend for further outsourcing.

“PBH contracts allow airlines to secure and predict their maintenance costs, allowing airlines to focus on their core business of flying. Airbus also sees airlines increase their outsourcing of inventory management – towards pooling, instead of investing in their own stocks.

“The next largest category encompasses flight operations services – such as pilot training and flight-planning solutions – and will account for a $1.5 trillion cumulative spend over 20 years. Fleets are expected to more than double to 48,000 aircraft over this period, such that Airbus estimates a need for 540,000 new pilots in the next 20 years. This trend will require ‘smarter’ ways of training using new digital technologies.”

Investigations reveal that the third component of the global services market centres on the passenger experience which will account for an estimated $0.9 trillion cumulative value over the 20 year period.

This, investigations further reveal encompasses the services needed to optimize the flight experience, including cabin upgrades, cabin crew training, in-flight-entertainment, connectivity and booking.

The Airbus report reads: “This segment is expected to more than double in the next 20 years and grow from $27bn to almost $70 billion.

“After an 18 percent annual growth in its services revenues for the past two years, Airbus’ ambition is to triple its services revenues from more than $3.2bn in 2017 to reach $10bn of services revenues in commercial in the next decade.

“To attain this goal, Airbus will continue to develop full life cycle integrated services for all Airbus’ aircraft operators. Furthermore, these integrated services – such as Flight Hour Services (FHS) – will be even more efficient through the Sky wise open data platform. Airbus will also expand its current service portfolio to non-Airbus platforms, given that 62 percent of Airbus.” - The Nation