Airbus predicts industry aftermarket services spend of $3 trillion

Airbus has published its first Global Services Forecast, predicting that over the next 20 years, the total industry aftermarket services spend will reach $3 trillion USD. 

Annually, the company expects that the MRO spend will grow from $53 billion to more than $132 billion, meaning an average year-on-year growth of 4.6 pecent.

Aftermarket services activity is firmly linked to the growth of the passenger fleet in general, which will more than double from 19,500 commercial aircraft at the end of 2015 to almost 40,000 by the year 2035. Consequently, the need for pilots and technicians will increase; today there are an estimated 200,000 active pilots who fly passenger aircraft. Airbus’ GSF predicts that this is set grow to some 450,000 pilots by 2035. 

Furthermore, this absolute total number of active pilots needed by the year 2035, plus the need to replace flight-crew who retire during the next 20 years will result in the need to train as many as 560,000 new pilots over this period. In terms of technical staff needed, the Airbus GSF predicts a requirement to train approximately 540,000 new technicians who will fulfil various duties across airframe, engines, and components domains.