Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, air traffic has decreased drastically, resulting in many airlines returning their aircraft or leased engines. With an increased number of engine returns, the engine re-delivery inspections have also increased. Alexey Ivanov, Executive Sales Director at Magnetic MRO, shares his insights in our 3 Questions With… feature on how the recent growth in the need for engine inspections for their long-term conservation, storage and sale.
Has the recent pandemic influenced the demand for engine inspections, including inspections for re-delivery?
As you see, airlines have almost stopped flying in Europe and other parts of the world. Traffic went down by 80-90%. And it's forecasted that it will not return to the level of 2019 even in 2021.
So this means that a lot of airplanes will be not needed to the airlines and there will be a lot of transactions to return them back to Lessors, sells them or tear them down. It's forecasted that 3000-4000 of narrow-body airplanes will be phased out in the next 24 month. All those planes and engines will require inspections, and we are ready to perform it.
In the majority of the cases, it's required to perform 3rd party inspection when the aircraft is changing hands. And so we are here offering the most competitive solution to the asset owners.
What changes in customers behaviour have you noticed in recent months?
The behaviour itself has not changed much. Inspections were required before as well. Just number of them grew up due to the increased number of engine returns.
How long does it take on average to perform such inspection? What are the main re-delivery considerations?
It takes 3-4 business days to perform an inspection on 1 engine.
Usually, full nose to tail video BSI is required, engine external visual inspection, inventory check of components. But if certification is required than some C-Check maintenance tasks shall be performed and review of historical documentation to make sure certification is possible.
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