Insights

Air Transport Aircraft Retirements Update

The air transport aircraft retirement tsunami that was expected has, so far, failed to materialize. 2021 saw the lowest official retirements since 2007, with only ~429 aircraft being recognized as being offi...

Tracking the Air Transport Utilization Recovery

April 2020 marked the low point in air transport fleet utilization.  Since then, aircraft flying hours have been steadily increasing.  However, the speed of the recovery has varied by size of aircraft (e.g.,...

Reviewing 2020 Aircraft Retirements

So, how many air transport aircraft retired in 2020? Thousands? Nope. 2020 did not yield the thousands of retirements that had been feared. Though the final tally will be subject to revision in the coming mo...

Norwegian Air Shuttle Fights for Survival

On the 14th of January, Norwegian Air Shuttle announced plans to focus on short-haul flying and abandon long-haul. Norwegian’s quest for profitability long preceded COVID-19. The restructuring plan calls ...

Calmer weather is on the horizon. Outlook for 2021

Aviation leaders tend to be optimists. Each dawn, they believe, promises a new start. The storm clouds will pass, they confidently say. We are lucky that our industry was is full of engineers, strategists, a...

Tracking Aircraft Retirements in 2020

A key topic for discussion over the past year has been aircraft retirements. Would COVID-19 cause thousands of aircraft to retire this year, causing the market to be flooded with surplus parts and engines? S...

737NG, 737 MAX, A320ceo & A320neo Family Fleet Status

The great news that the 737 MAX, grounded since March 2019, has received FAA authorization to re-enter US airline service (with other regulators to follow in due-course) provides the opportunity to look at t...

Air Transport Aircraft Fleet Status (Mid-November 2020)

Let's take a look at the air transport fleet's current active and stored/parked status. As we reach mid-November, ~61% of the fleet is in service, and 39% parked. The regional situation continues to diverge....

Aircraft Retirements up to October 2020

As of the end of October 2020, approximately 540 air transport aircraft had been officially retired and withdrawn from use. That’s ~2.6% of the active fleet. These include ~100 A320ceos, 63 747-400s, 54 MD80...

Airline Maintenance Choices

Maintenance is ~10% of airline operating costs, and airlines are in cost-conservation mode. Airlines have several options to reduce MRO spend. Whether to perform the MRO or not may depend upon MRO type an...

Aircraft Retirements up to September 2020

Aircraft retirement is typically a financial decision driven by a desire not to invest in maintenance due to newer or existing technology aircraft being available to substitute. The graphic below explores...

Used Serviceable Material / Surplus Parts Market

One of the key MRO trends over the past decade has been the growing importance of Used Serviceable Material (USM) – also known as Surplus Parts. The past decade saw aircraft acquired, retired, parted-out, an...

Air Transport Fleet Status: In-Service & Stored Analysis

After our recent post about % fleet active/stored by region, NAVEO was asked about key aircraft models and whether narrowbodies are indeed showing higher levels of activity compared to widebodies, etc., and,...

Air Transport Fleet Status & Average Age

Let's see how many aircraft in mid-August 2020 are currently in-service, parked/stored, average age, and how the % in-service/parked varies by region. Overall, ~60% of the fleet is in-service and the average...

Aerospace MRO Part Choices: New, USM, DER or PMA?

As aerospace OEMs have released their quarterly financial results, we are reminded not only of the impact on revenue from painful OE production cuts but also the importance of aftermarket revenue (including ...

Air Transport Historic Fleet Growth

Ok, so just a quick history lesson. Over the past twenty years, fleet growth and, consequently, MRO growth has been driven by emerging economies, far less than by North America or Western Europe. The composi...

Disrupting Disruption

The airline industry is particularly susceptible to disruption.  From bad weather, industrial action or drones near runways to system outages, environmental protestors or volc...

Video: COVID-19 Considerations for Aerospace and MRO

Richard Brown, NAVEO's Managing Director, provides some perspectives on the implications of COVID-19 on aerospace production and aftermarket.  What can we learn from previous recessions, and what should we b...

Interesting Times

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 2020 was meant to be the 11th year of consistent global airline profits, the year when the 737 MAX finally returned to the skies, and when aviation stepped-up and faced it...