Appearance is not everything, but airlines know well that it is a major component of the passenger experience. And the exterior of an aircraft—including the sheen of its livery—is arguably as important to public perception as the cleanliness of its interior. With post-recession demand on the rise, airlines aim to catch up on the fleet refresh work they delayed.
Oil prices started falling sharply in early May, but the pickup in aircraft makeovers precedes the slide. Aircraft maintenance providers from Timco to Israel Aerospace Industries note resurgence in demand for airframe work, and painting services in particular seem to be a growth area. The uptick is fueled by catch-up work as well as merger activity. Aviation Week’s Top 10 MRO Providers survey, which will be published in Overhaul & Maintenance on June 1, finds that new and expanded paint hangars are popping up around the world to satisfy demand for new liveries.
And aircraft paint service is a fairly high-grossing line of business. According to Lufthansa Technik, painting an Airbus A340-300 in fresh livery represents 200-300 kg (440-660 lb.) of paint and about 12 days of work. The price tag for such a job? As much as €300,000 ($426,600).
Many companies in Europe, the U.S. and beyond want to expand their hangars to attract more painting work.
In the U.S., Leading Edge Aviation Services just opened a new hangar in Victorville, Calif., and it is planning to add two new widebody painting facilities in Amarillo, Texas. CEO Mike Manclark says his company paints 19 aircraft a week. Much of that work has been fueled by merger activity. “Maintaining that keeps us busy,” Manclark says, noting that Leading Edge has rebranded more than 225 United Airlines aircraft this year.
Dean Baldwin Painting plans to nearly double in size with a new location north of Indianapolis. It is investing $10.5 million to transform a hangar complex at Grissom Aeroplex in Peru, Ind., into a state-of-the-art painting facility. When the project is complete, the site will have two widebody and two narrowbody bays capable of accommodating aircraft as large as a Boeing 747 or an Airbus A330. Dean Baldwin Painting plans to launch operations at the new site in December.
Airlines and MROs in other parts of the world report an increase in demand for painting services, too. Air Works India, which purchased U.K.-based Air Livery last February, plans to open a new widebody paint hangar at Hosur, near Bengaluru, this winter and already has begun booking customers there.
Air Works India Managing Director Vivek Gour says he sees large demand for regional aircraft painting in Eastern Europe, Turkey and former Soviet states. “There’s untapped demand lying over there,” he says. “The widebodies, we’ll still take them to the U.K. But the regional operators don’t like flying their aircraft 3 hours to get painted—the economics don’t work for them.” Eastern Europe is one of the areas Air Works is eyeing for a medium-sized business acquisition this year.
In Lebanon, Mideast Aircraft Services Co., the maintenance arm of Middle East Airlines, confirms the trend. While aircraft structural maintenance demand should decline in 2011, aircraft painting will be the company’s largest growth area, says Vanig Garabedian, head of sales and marketing.
PIA Engineering/PK MRO in Pakistan is constructing a Boeing 777-sized paint and maintenance hangar as it aims to grow third-party business in other areas such as landing gear overhauls.
Beyond paint lie clues to a renewed focus on interiors. From Delta Air Lines’ near completion of its Economy Comfort cabin to Southwest Airlines’ May 13 tentative agreement with its “appearance mechanics” (the workers who clean, wash and polish aircraft interiors and exteriors and do myriad other tasks such as replacing seat covers and aisle rugs during service checks or turnarounds), the signs indicate that cosmetic improvements are gaining traction in airline business plans.
By Elyse Moody, Aviation Week
Photo credit: Leading Edge Aircraft Services
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