"The market in APAC is certainly one of the largest in the world..."

Aviation Sector in APAC region is growing on all verticals and it is projected that within a short time frame, India would lead all the way in this region. To explain the overall scenario, Joshua Ng, Director Alton Aviation Consultancy from Singapore in an exclusive interview with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World speaks out the various factors that could lead to achieve this milestone. He is joined by Bhavya Aggarwal, Engagement Manager at Alton Aviation in this conversation. Excerpts...

- - Joshua Ng, Director Alton Aviation Consultancy

What are your views on the present MRO sector and the projected growth?

JN: We do see a lot of growth in the sector as the fleet is growing and therefore the MRO is also growing. The fleet has recovered to the 2019 baseline in 2023 but then the fleet age is older because Airbus and Boeing and the aircraft OEMs are not producing as many aircraft as before, so airlines are forced to use older aircraft and that requires a lot more maintenance. We see MRO spending being quite strong right now and then coupled with the fact that there are new engine issues, that also helps contribute to the spend in the sector. But we do expect some of this to eventually normalize as the fleet age comes down, as the engine reliability goes up, we should probably see some growth in the next five or ten years.

Recently, Air India has started one of the biggest retrofit programs of all its Boeing Aircraft and has set a deadline into it. How do you see this kind of initiative by one of the biggest airlines into the Asia region?

JN: We do see cabin retrofits, reconfigurations is a very big part for many of the flight carriers because they have business class that they need to upgrade and refurbish and to compete with the other airlines that also have better products. So, for Air India's case, it could be the likes of Emirates or Qatar. I think they have a plan but unfortunately that plan has been derailed by some of the supply chain issues and there's something that they need to recover from otherwise, there's still going to be that gap.

BA: In India, the fleet is fairly new if we look at the two major carriers. Air India is looking to renew its fleet while IndiGo has a fairly new fleet and with the large orders, the fleet is expected to almost grow to about 2-2.5x over the next 10 years. The MRO demand in India is especially expected to rise exponentially.