by Elsie Clark | Oct 15, 2025 | MRO IT
A new report from IATA and Oliver Wyman, Reviving the Commercial Aircraft Supply Chain, forecasts that supply chain challenges could cost airlines more than US$11 billion in 2025.
This is largely due to the slow pace of aircraft production, which has been exacerbated by ever-increasing demand for air travel. In 2024, passenger demand rose by 10.4%, exceeding the capacity expansion of 8.7%, while the worldwide commercial backlog of aircraft reached historic high of 17,000.
Geopolitical instability, material shortages, and labour availability have compounded these supply chain challenges, forcing airlines to keep older aircraft in service for longer. This results in higher fuel costs, maintenance costs, engine leasing costs, and surplus inventory holding costs. According to IATA, these bottlenecks combined will cost airlines US$11 billion in 2025.
The report offers several suggestions for the aerospace industry to mitigate these problems. Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General, commented:
Airlines depend on a reliable supply chain to operate and grow their fleets efficiently. Now we have unprecedented waits for aircraft, engines and parts and unpredictable delivery schedules. […]
There is no simple solution to resolving this problem, but there are several actions that could provide some relief. To start, opening the aftermarket would help by giving airlines greater choice and access to parts and services. In parallel, greater transparency on the state of the supply chain would give airlines the data they need to plan around blockages while helping OEMs to ease underlying bottlenecks.
Additionally, the report recommends that the industry improve its use of data, including accelerating predictive maintenance and data sharing to reduce downtime and optimise existing inventory.
Matthew Poitras, Partner in Oliver Wyman’s Transportation and Advanced Industrials practice, added:
Today’s aircraft fleet is larger, more advanced, and more fuel efficient than ever before. However, supply chain challenges are impacting airlines and OEMs alike. We see an opportunity to catalyse an improvement in supply chain performance that will benefit everyone, but this will require collective steps to reshape the structure of the aerospace industry and work together on transparency and talent.
Join us at Aerospace Tech Week 2026, where our dedicated supply chain track will discuss how the industry can build resilience and mitigate disruption.
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by Elsie Clark | Sep 19, 2025 | Avionics, MRO IT
Avionics on IndiGo’s fleet of 430 A320 Airbus aircraft will now be maintained by Thales.
The new agreement lasts for 11 years, and includes IndiGo’s growth plans to increase its fleet to 800 craft. Thales’s Repair By The Hour (RBTH) and Avionics By The Hour (ABTH) solutions will be deployed to reduce downtime and ensure critical components are available.
The repairs will take place at IndiGo’s new avionics MRO facility near Delhi Airport in India. An additional 5-year contract has been signed with AvioBook Flight, a Thales company. AvioBook is the only Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) solution authorised by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for paperless EFB, and provides pilots with essential digital tools to manage their crews.
Parichay Datta, Senior Vice-president, Engineering, IndiGo, said:
We are pleased to partner with Thales, a leading aerospace company trusted worldwide for its expertise in avionics support, to augment IndiGo’s maintenance and repairs capabilities.
With IndiGo’s growing scale and fleet, this association aligns with our commitment to offer a hassle-free and safe flying experience to our customers, while ensuring operational excellence and reliability
India has surpassed Brazil and Indonesia to become the world’s third-largest domestic aviation market. Earlier this week, IndiGo announced plans for a route to Athens from January 2026, as it expands its European strategy.
Since its founding in 2005, the airline has become the largest airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size. The partnership with Thales represents a significant step forward in the company’s efforts to guarantee its growing number of pilots and passengers with safety and efficiency.
Join us at Aerospace Tech Week 2026 to discuss the future of avionics.
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by Elsie Clark | Sep 10, 2025 | AI & ML, Innovation
A new strategic partnership between Adacel Technologies and Smart Eye will enhance the MaxSim air traffic control (ATC) simulation platform. MaxSim currently provides the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), Air Force, and U.S. Army with controller training across a variety of scenarios.
Through integration with Smart Eye’s artificial intelligence (AI) programme, MaxSim will monitor trainee controllers’ eye movements and attention patterns during simulation exercises. This will allow instructors to analyse objective, quantifiable data on the trainees’ development, ultimately improving learning and preparedness.
Adacel vice president Michael Saunders commented:
Partnering with Smart Eye now brings advanced eye-tracking analytics into MaxSim, giving instructors unprecedented insight into attention, decision-making, and situational awareness—further enhancing safety and training effectiveness.
As well as ATC training, the sophisticated human performance analytics system has the potential to roll out across other aviation training in due course.
Improved training critical to planned ATC upgrades
The Adacel/Smart Eye partnership comes as the US begins a major overhaul of its ATC system. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the plans in May 2025, and recently stated that the upgrade could cost US$31.5 billion.
Training new air traffic controllers is essential to these development plans. The FAA ended 2024 with around 3,900 controllers short of targets, but the ensuing recruitment drive has left instructors overworked. Adacel and Smart Eye’s new partnership will provide data that not only enhances ATC training programmes, but reduces the burden on instructors to evaluate performance.
Join us at Aerospace Tech Week 2026 to discuss the future of air traffic control, technology, and connectivity.
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by Elsie Clark | Sep 9, 2025 | Flight Ops IT
Air Peace and Embraer are collaborating on a new maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) centre in Lagos, Nigeria.
The project was initially proposed two years ago, but is now ready for take off. Air Peace and the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer will start construction on the new facility later this month, with operations expected to commence next year.
An Embraer spokesperson said:
[We] will use [our] experience in the commercial MRO industry to provide advice on aspects related to hangar and capacity planning, tooling/GSE needs, technical training avenues, leadership matrix and KPIs, to list a few.
The OEMs expertise will help maintain Air Peace’s Embraer aircraft, as well as other fleet types in their arsenal.
The new centre will not only support Air Peace, but other airlines across Africa. Egyptair, Ethiopian Airlines, and Royal Air Maroc are among the few African airlines who operate MRO centres within the continent. According to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the country spends US$2.5 billion on offshore aircraft maintenance each year.
This lack of infrastructure is not only expensive, but protracts downtime for African aircraft. It also diverts resources away from a native aviation industry that is experiencing significant growth: according to IATA, Africa’s aviation market is expected to double by 2044. The Air Peace/Embraer MRO centre therefore represents a significant milestone in the development of West African aviation.
Join us at Aerospace Tech Week 2026, where we’ll be discussing the future of MRO, from predictive analytics to digital twins.
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by Elsie Clark | Sep 8, 2025 | AI & ML, Innovation, Video
From predictive analytics to enhanced scheduling, the aerospace industry now collect more data then ever. But how can Chief Information Officers (CIOs) across the industry leverage that data effectively?
At Aerospace Tech Week 2025, we tapped the expertise of Lauren Edwards, Head of Aerospace and Airlines Practise, from consulting firm Point B. She highlights several priorities for CIOs, including ensuring compatibility between legacy systems and new artificial intelligence (AI) software.
A lot of conversations we’re having are how do we continue to move towards the future while managing and maintaining the information that we have today.
Getting different data systems to ‘talk’ to each other, all while ensuring data cleanliness, presents a challenge for the industry. But when done effectively, the outcomes can be game-changing for customer experience. At the same time, as the workforce ages and workflows incorporate more technology, employees can see significant value too.
We really focus on understanding, and we see the most ROI when your customer experience and your employee experience come together.
🎥 Watch the full interview below to hear more from Lauren on the data landscape for aerospace in the years ahead.
Questions asked include:
- What are the priorities for CIOs in data and privacy in 2025?
- How are data improvements boosting the bottom line for companies?
- What are the major challenges in the landscape?
- What are the untapped benefits of effectively leveraging data and analytics?
Join us at Aerospace Tech Week 2026 to discuss further how data is changing aviation, engineering, and MRO.
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