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The civil aviation MRO market will be worth about $56 billion this year, with engine maintenance expenditures representing about 40%, say analysts who presented forecasts at Aviation Week’s MRO Americas Conference in Atlanta. The civil aviation fleet will grow at a 3.1% rate over the next decade despite the fact that 6,400 jets and turboprops will leave the market through 2022, according to an ICF SH&E MRO market forecast.

A recently opened facility in Moses Lake, Wash., is helping Aviation Technical Services (ATS) meet increasing demand for heavy airframe maintenance and modifications just a few years after a dip in the market forced the company to cut capacity. Following the 2008 recession, U.S. airlines saw system available seat miles (ASMs) fall 7.7% in the next two years, according to FAA data.

Supply chain management and Lean are hardly the sort of specialities one would expect to prompt an employer to plumb a prospective employee's deep psyche, but Nordam's Julian Morgan says he was subjected to thorough "personality testing" before he landed a job in supply chain management there two years ago.

Tightening restrictions on sharing intellectual property are making maintenance of aircraft more difficult--especially on newer aircraft with large amounts of composites--speakers at Aviation Week's MRO Americas conference and exhibition in Atlanta said.

NEXA Capital’s NextGen fund, set up to help U.S. airlines pay for upgrades that will reap benefits from FAA’s satellite-based air traffic management (ATM) system, is in advanced talks with three airlines and expects to announce at least one customer by mid-year, says NEXA Capital Partners Managing Director and CEO Michael Dyment.

Delta TechOps, long acknowledged as a key part of parent Delta Air Lines’ vast revenue-diversification strategy, plays an equally important role in helping the airline keep costs down, airline CEO Richard Anderson emphasizes. Speaking at MRO Americas in the shadow of the carrier’s Atlanta headquarters, Anderson revealed that the airline’s engine MRO prowess means the carrier’s pool of spare engines totals just 5% of its on-wing fleet—about half of what an engine OEM recommends.

Airlines can save significantly by mining the parts aftermarket, and the avenues that beget those savings just keep getting wider.