Jonathon Berger is a well-known industry analyst and consultant who is a popular figure when the industry needs advice (and when don’t we need advice?). Berger published an article yesterday, “The Great MRO Pause,” that details his ideas about what to expect as airlines economize. He explains that his predictions are based on the industry’s past experience in responding to crises:
With a long history of weathering numerous industry shocks, a playbook of cash preservation lessons-learned and best practices has evolved for airline maintenance and engineering divisions to follow.
One key element of his prediction is increased reliance on alternate materials strategies, including accelerated adoption of PMA parts.
Develop alternate materials strategy (i.e. accelerate adoption of surplus parts/USM, PMA, and DER repairs)
For air carriers, FAA-PMA parts are a win-win, because they are approved by the FAA against the same airworthiness standards that the FAA uses for the OEM parts, so an air carrier can use them without any diminution in safety (and in many cases, FAA-PMA parts are being designed to increase safety and reliability margins). But they also often reflect significant cost-savings as well, as the PMA manufacturing companies try to robustly compete in the market place. This helps air carriers to save money at a time when belt-tightening is necessary, without having to diminish safety or service!
This usually means less in per-unit costs, but some savvy PMA companies have also found ways to focus on life-cycle costs (like selling an on-condition unit that is slightly more expensive but lasts ten times as long – thus saving both life-cycle costs as well as costs associated with unscheduled maintenance).
We look forward to seeing the entire aviation community at the MARPA Virtual Conference on May 27-28 (see our website at pmaparts.org for more details). This will be an excellent opportunity to hear from regulators and customers about PMA’s role in the “new normal” of the post-Covid-19 aviation industry.