Airbus sees global mart at US$4.6tril in 20 years
KUALA LUMPUR: Airbus SE, Europe-based international aerospace company, predicts a US$4.6 trillion (RM18.66 trillion) worldwide market for commercial aircraft services from this year to 2037.
Airbus’ new Global Services Forecast analysis finds the demand is based on a three-way market segmentation, focusing on aircraft, airline operation and passenger experience.
Aircraft-focused lifecycle services represent the largest segment of growth, which include maintenance, spares pool access, tooling, technical training and system upgrades needed to keep its planes flying.
“The market represents a cumulative value of US$2.2 trillion over the 20-year period, from US$76 billion this year to US$160 billion a year by 2037.”
The services, according to Airbus, are provided throughout the lifecycle, from design to dismantling, citing that manufacturers provide customers with core services that come with aircraft, including assigned field representatives and call centres for aircraft-on-grounds.
“The largest market by value is maintenance, increasingly characterised by outsourcing and ‘paid-by-the-hour’ contracts,” it added.
As technology and new materials develop, Airbus sees a strong trend for outsourcing.
The next largest category encompasses flight operations services, such as pilot training and flight-planning solutions, and will account for a US$1.5 trillion cumulative spend over 20 years.
“Fleets are expected to more than double to 48,000 aircraft over this period. We estimate a need for 540,000 new pilots in the next 20 years. This trend will require ‘smarter’ ways of training using new digital technologies,” said Airbus.
The third component of the global services market centres on passenger experience, which will account for US$0.9 trillion cumulative value over 20 years.
This encompasses the services needed to optimise flight experience, including cabin upgrades, crew training, in-flight entertainment, connectivity and booking. Airbus said this segment is expected to more than double in the next 20 years and grow from US$27 billion to US$70 billion.
The planemaker aims to triple its commercial services revenue to US$10 billion in the next decade from US$3.2 billion last year.
It will increasingly cultivate “digitalisation”, with many solutions being interconnected and integrated.
These solutions will create additional value for airlines, lessors and maintenance, repair and overhaul companies, by allowing real-time decision-making, or by optimising flight and maintenance operations through analytics.