Prices of airline tickets stay high as upkeep woes crimp fleets

Labour shortages and supply chain snarls are making it harder for airlines and lessors to return airplanes grounded during the pandemic to the skies as quickly as they would like, operators and maintenance providers say. A global squeeze on maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) capacity is one of the factors contributing to higher airfares for travellers, as demand has rebounded faster than aircraft can be made available and costs are rising. "Some suppliers are coming out with double-digit escalations and surcharges," said Mahesh Kumar, CE of Asia Digital Engineering, the maintenance arm of Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia. "The airlines keep increasing their fares but that is not a sustainable business," he added at the MRO Asia-Pacific conference in Singapore. Complications of that kind mean that just about 110 of AirAsia's fleet of 200 planes have returned to service, he added. Yet getting the rest back in the air is challenging because of the scarcity of MRO slots that also drives up their prices. The bottlenecks at MROs have been compounded because airlines returned planes to lessors at a much higher rate than usual during the pandemic, which crushed travel demand. Aircraft switching to a new airline need maintenance checks, cabin interior changes and livery repainting at MROs that are often short-staffed after pandemic lay-offs of workers while facing delays at parts suppliers struggling with similar woes.<br/>