Andrew Doyle, Senior Director, Market Development

Unique insights into the previously opaque world of airframe maintenance checks and cabin retrofits are available following the launch of Cirium’s Ground Events Analytics. I used the new tool to take a look at the Chinese MRO market, the progress of Emirates’ massive Airbus A380 cabin refresh campaign and the impact of Boeing 787 delivery delays on demand for 767 upgrades.

Lifting the lid on China with space-based tracking

The competitive landscape for maintenance, repair and overhaul operations in China has been challenging to map out in the past due to difficulties in sourcing comprehensive flight tracking data, but Cirium’s partnership with space-based ADS-B service provider Aireon means aircraft ground time locations and durations can be precisely monitored for the first time. By combining this tracking information with Cirium’s market-leading aircraft and MRO contracts data, our market experts and data scientists have been able to develop sophisticated algorithms to infer – with a high degree of confidence – when and where specific aircraft are undergoing scheduled maintenance events.

An illustration of the type of analysis that can be performed using Ground Events Analytics is shown in the tree map below, which ranks Chinese MRO providers by the total number of ground days per specific aircraft type logged during the 12 months to February 2024. In each case we can show the number of aircraft that underwent heavy checks and their median ground stay.

Getting to grips with a mammoth retrofit programme

Turning our attention to Emirates, the new tool shows the carrier has managed to complete cabin retrofits – including installation of all-new premium economy cabins – for at least 22 of its A380s out of a total of 67 scheduled to receive the upgrade. Detailing its plans for one of the industry’s biggest ever retrofit programmes in November 2022, the carrier said it aimed to induct one aircraft every eight days with each upgrade taking approximately 16 days to complete, meaning all 67 A380s would be modified and returned to service by the end of May this year.

Ground Events Analytics reveals that nine of the 22 aircraft confirmed to have been upgraded to date also underwent ‘C’ or ‘heavy’ maintenance checks during their ground stays.

The shortest tracked ground time was aircraft A6-EVF – which received a cabin retrofit starting in mid-May 2023 – at 23 days. The 22 aircraft upgraded so far join the final six A380s that were delivered to Emirates with the new cabins already installed.

Dreamliner delivery delays hand new lease of life to legacy twinjets

Finally, I took a look at how the suspension of 787 deliveries between May 2021 and July 2022 likely impacted on plans by United Airlines to upgrade the cabins on its legacy 767 fleet. My chart shows a marked ramp up in retrofit activity for the older twinjet type in the face of delayed Dreamliner hand-overs.

---

Find out more about how Ground Events Analytics can help you monitor and predict future aircraft maintenance events.