As MRO demand in Asia keeps booming, with Malaysian aftermarket alone generating about $1 billion in 2018, the industry analysis seems as important as ever. In the context of the longest profitability period ever in commercial aviation industry, MRO sector is looking pretty healthy, too.

Putting Asian aftermarket in focus, the two-day conference SouthEast Asia MRO, taking place on March 6-7, 2019, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, raised a number of questions to observe the current and future industry trends on regional and global levels.

Commercial air transport MRO market demand in Asia Pacific is accounted for $24.5 billion as of 2019, and the number is expected to grow by 5.3% in a decade. How to make sure the MRO workforce is ready to cope with growth?

Amrul Zeflin Anim from Sapura Technics suggested, that in Asian case the aftermarket has all chances to stay solidly competitive and effective, if it uses innovations to ensure stable growth. Also, making investments in workforce training are essential to close the gap between the demand and present workforce numbers.

Today, MRO market is moving towards a complete digitization, which coincides with newer and technologically advanced aircraft deliveries. To keep up with the digital era pace, MRO sector will need further enhancements of skillsets for technicians.

When talking about predictive maintenance, practice shows that many airlines would benefit from sharing their aircraft Health Monitoring Data with OEM and MRO. Revealing that information that is rarely shared now, is claimed to be a path to a more open market, with a much higher innovations and price-efficiency rate. Here, a mutual share of data would be a key factor in building a more productive business relationship between airlines and MRO.

The following AviationWeek MRO event in Americas is to take place on April 9-11, 2019, in Atlanta, GA.