SINGAPORE—Despite third-quarter, double-digit year-on-year (YOY) growth, revenue at ST Engineering’s commercial aerospace division has not returned to its pre-pandemic level.
Nonetheless, the company’s Airbus A320-family passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversions remain a strong product, with backlogs extending beyond 2025.
The Singaporean MRO provider continues to be affected by the lagging recovery of Asia-Pacific (APAC) international travel, which only accelerated after June 2022.
In the three-month period ended Sept.30, ST Engineering revenue grew 28% YOY to S$776 million ($566 million), a 6% quarterly improvement. Its nine-month revenue rose 25% YOY to S$2.1 billion.
During that time, ST landed three major contracts worth a total of S$1 billion: a multi-year line-maintenance contract from an unspecified Asian airline; multi-year component maintenance hourly contracts from Nok Air and Turkish Technic; and 15 firm A321P2F conversion projects from lessor AerCap.
The company says its conversions booked through 2025-26 and its conversion lines in China and the U.S. are “still going through learning curves.” Elbe Flugzeugwerke, the ST Engineering and Airbus joint venture, also plans to expand its A330 P2F capability to Turkey and China, to be carried out by Turkish Technic and Ameco, respectively.
