Aircraft manufacturers are predicting great things in the future. According to them, most of the action will be in the Asia Pacific region. Randy Tinseth, VP of marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes said in the next 20 years, he expects both the passenger and cargo segments of the industry to grow five percent per year. As a result, he sees a total demand of 35,000 new airplanes valued at US$4.8 trillion.
This increase will no doubt be a catalyst for manufacturing more airplanes, many of them destined for Asia. “Over the next 20 years in Asia, we expect a total demand of 13,000 aircraft. It is close to US$2 trillion in investment,” he said, adding that Asia is “the biggest market” for single aisle, wide body and large aircraft.
Driving the demand for aircraft in Asia, from the wide body perspective, is replacement. “There is a pent up demand for new airplanes, especially pent up demand for replacement,” he said, before pointing out that the emergence of new business models will continue to create demand in the market.
Finally, he shared although the single aisle segment is also expected to grow, it will be for different reasons. He said: “The dynamics of the single aisle (market) is a little bit different; this is a segment that has benefitted from emerging, developing economies. It is driven by growth of low cost carriers.”
The surge in passenger numbers however, is not the only reason for the Asian aerospace to rejoice.
Philippe Poutissou, VP in charge of marketing Bombardier’s commercial aircraft said there are two other reasons.
“They are the development of new airport infrastructure and the liberation of traffic rights. China is a good example, they have a national program of expansion and the development of new airports. Those tend to be in regional centres. They are exactly the types of destination that our aircraft are used to service,” he said.
Opening up the skies, according to him, is something that will drive up the demand for aircraft.
“When you liberalise that market into essentially the open sky principle, business models evolve. That is where you get the innovation from the airline industry that drives the demand for aircraft,” concluded Mr Poutissou.
MRO Industry In Singapore Taking Off
Over the last two decades, Singapore’s aerospace industry has grown at an average rate of 10 percent, and achieved a record output of S$8.7 billion (US$6.9 billion) in 2012. The country is an aerospace MRO hub in Asia, accounting for a quarter share of the region's MRO output.
Seletar Aerospace Park (SAP), the country’s industrial park catered to the aerospace industry, spans 320-hectare of purpose-built land and infrastructure, including the Seletar Airport.
The SAP is now home to 45 companies. The clustering of aerospace-related operations and businesses in the SAP is intended to help companies located there derive benefits from economies of scale and the many synergies from being in an integrated environment.
JTC has completed Phase 1 and 2 of the SAP and has embarked on the third (and final) phase of development and the organisation has reported that the JTC Aviation One @ SAP and JTC aeroSpace @ SAP, which enable quick start-up, are nearly fully taken up by companies.
The JTC aeroSpace @ SAP serves as a key Asia-Pacific hub for aircraft component manufacturing and MRO. It provides a series of eight land-based ready-built factories with gross floor areas ranging from 1,600 to 3,600 sq m and functional layouts with extended mezzanine floors.
