IATA director general Willie Walsh says that supply chain issues in the aviation industry will continue for up to five more years, causing frustration among airline managers and further pushing back a full post-Covid-19 recovery.
He made the comments at the ALTA Airline Leaders Forum in Nassau, Bahamas on 29 October.
Based on discussions with airline chief executives at this year’s ALTA meeting, he says the industry’s supply chain issue is ”probably not getting worse, but it’s not getting better”.
The machinists strike at US airframer Boeing is the latest wrench to be thrown into the industry’s post-pandemic recovery.
“Uncertainty is causing challenges for airlines who are trying to plan their programmes and networks and growth for 2025 and 2026,” Walsh says.
“We are seeing a lot of caution in the industry in terms of adding additional capacity. Nobody is really sure whether the aircraft that they ordered will be delivered, and whether the aircraft they have in-service, they’ll be able to maintain in-service, because of the ongoing problems with supply chain.
“The industry continues to adapt but it’s going to be three, four maybe even five years to come,” he adds.
Another cause of headaches for airline managers could be novel technologies that have not have been mature or stable enough to withstand teething issues, such as problems with Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan (GTF) engines.
”With the issues we have seen with engine reliability, it would suggest that maybe we have pushed things a little too far,” Walsh says. ”We are not getting hours on wing that we are used to.”
”The problem with the GTF, I think no one anticipated that…. the extent that the challenges the industry has faced goes way beyond anything that could have been anticipated,” he adds.
As of mid-October, airlines globally had 2,167 GTF-powered jets in their fleets, most being A320neo derivatives, Cirium fleets data shows. But of those, it listed 687 aircraft – or 32% of the fleet – as in storage, meaning they had not moved for 30 days. The remaining 1,480 jets were in service.
The in-storage figure of 687 aircraft increased since August, when 647 of jets with GTF engines were stored.
