‘Airlines Must Meet Challenges As Growth Explodes'

APAC airlines need to keep on investing in fleet modernisation and maintenance to keep aircraft downtime, operational costs, and maintenance costs to a minimum, says Paul Nef, Regional Director, Asia Pacific, Commercial Aviation, Honeywell Aerospace in this conversation with Cruising Heights. He also spoke out on the challenges faced by APAC airlines catering to exponential growth in air travel.

According to the International Air Transport Association, Asia Pacific (APAC) is expected to drive the biggest growth in air travel over the next two decades, making up more than half of the total number of new passengers in the next 20 years. Routes to, from, and within APAC are expected to grow at a rate of 4.8 per cent per year, adding 2.35 billion annual passengers by 2037 for a total market size of 3.9 billion passengers. Air safety and cost-efficient operation continue to be a focus for all the industry players, particularly for the airlines, both large and small, as air travel demand increases.

Airlines must maximize the use of existing fleets, or risk losing market share, since the delivery time for bigger, better, and more efficient aircraft (from purchase to aircraft availability) usually take years. This can be one of the major challenges for today’s airlines as they work towards meeting this rapidly increasing demand for air travel. Hence, “short-term” solutions that carriers can employ to increase aircraft utilization and meet demand today include shortening turnaround times, increasing flights per day, and switching to larger aircraft to increase seat capacity. However, some of these solutions are likely to wear out the aircraft quicker, resulting in a need for more frequent aircraft maintenance and upgrades to keep current fleets in prime condition and ensure that airlines are still flying at maximum efficiency and reliability.