The aircraft maintenance professional's source for technological advancements, maintenance alerts, news, articles, events, and careers
Issue link: http://amt.epubxp.com/i/306831
C O V E R S T O R Y www.AviationPros.com | www.AMTSociety.org 17 T here's but one segment of the commercial airplane market due to take a dive between now and 2032 accord ing to Boeing's Current Market Outlook: regional jets. W here there were some 2,660 of them f lying around in 2012, by 2032 the Outlook forecasts the f lock at 2,180. And by the year 2032, a full 2,020 of them will be new airplanes. That said, why are so many guys who specialize in regional aircraft MRO still smiling, still adding work — even amidst the exodus to the deep desert of legions of 50-seat ERJ-145s and smaller CRJs? They're mak ing it because these innovative integrators have found their niche. Case-in-point: Bangor-based C&L; Aerospace, whose man-hours are growing by about a third each year according to CEO Chris K ilgour. Propjets and new airplanes "We do a lot of turboprops here," he says — Saab 340Bs and Dash-8s for the most part. The latter are particularly popular just now. Five to seven years ago, lots of them were parked. You could pick one up for a paltry million bucks. "Now," says K ilgour, "you're lucky to get one for $5 million." He believes the same thing is about to happen to the Saab market. The reason, of course, is the cost of fuel. Propjets are inherently more fuel-efficient. "The turboprop market is look ing really [good]," agrees J.C. Tew f ik, v ice president sales and marketing for Montrea l-based Discover y A ir Technical Services. Discovery is heav- ily into Dash-8s, but made a strategic decision to expand into the ATR-42 and -72 lines because the airframer "is still offering fresh product." They've also just begun to perform heav y mainte- nance on the Bombardier Q400. It's a matter of positioning Discovery for future profits. The MRO isn't doing a lot of work just yet on the Qs, "But … it gets our guys familiar with the aircraft," says Tewfik. "We're taking little bites, taking our time with the aircraft. We want to make sure the learning curve is as [gradual] as possible." W hile Tew f ik doesn't believe the 50-seat RJ market is altogether coma- tose, he concedes "nobody is picking up the … segment. There's a void there." Embraer agrees. "There's still going to be some good business out there for third parties [on the] Embraer 145," contends Johann Bordais, Embraer's v ice president for ser v ices and sup- port, commercial aviation. He says that while North American operators may be shedding their 50-seaters, areas such as A frica, Russia, and even Australia are f lying the aircraft. "The market is still there," he says. "It's just shifting." That may be the case, but people like K ilgour and company continue to focus ferociously on propjets, skipping over the dwindling 50-seaters and setting their sights on working the emerging Embraer 170 and 190 market. That's the strategy. The larger, passenger-popular Embraers "are going to be around for a long time," he says. "The economics make sense." This sort of strateg y makes sense to Oliver Wyman senior partner Tim To take advantage of the opportunities you've got to integrate, innovate, and perform as much work in-house as possible By Jerome Greer Chandler Hoyland. "We're in a dynamic period for the regionals," says the consultant. That dynamic sees a substantial inf lu x of larger new regional jets — Mitsubishi's MRJ, Embraer's E2, and Bombardier's CSeries — by 2020. Those new air- planes carry with them 'maintenance holidays' attendant to most brand-new f lying machines. For the operators, the overall move marks a shift from the care and feeding of an aging 50-seat f leet laced with what Hoyland calls "lots of maintenance, lots of required assets, and lots of inventory." Innovation, integration, and self-suffciency That's the big picture, the market as it's foretold to unfold. But to take advan- tage of the opportunities of that mar- ket you've increasingly got to integrate, innovate, and perform as much work in- house as possible. C&L; Aerospace grew out of "the syn- ergies" of melding two types of different businesses says K ilgour. His expertise in parts and aircraft trading combined with Telford Aviation Services' experi- ence in heav y maintenance combined to form a company better capable of competing in today's integrated mar- ketplace in which there's a premium on supply chain, inventory management, and support. One-stop shopping is becoming as important in the regional MRO arena as it is with full-size narrowbodies and widebodies. A comparatively small com- pany such as C&L; (with approximately 140 employees) now operates its own interiors shop and paint hangar. It also keeps a pool of powerplants. If breadth of offering is key, so too is the technology to execute it all. "If we could just keep working on an aircraft and repair things as we found them, that [would] make the repair go that much smoother," says Kilgour. Problem is, of AMT_16-20_CS CommMRO.indd 17 4/17/14 4:13 PM