Africa Is Ordering Aircraft — But Who Will Maintain Them?

25 minutes ago

4 min read

By Garth Calitz

Africa’s aviation industry is entering a period of unprecedented fleet growth, with airlines expected to more than double the number of aircraft operating across the continent over the next two decades. But behind the headline numbers and multi-billion-dollar aircraft orders lies a less glamorous, and potentially more important, question: Where will all those aircraft be maintained?

The issue is already becoming visible in South Africa, where regional carrier Airlink is expanding its own technical footprint while facing constraints in securing suitable infrastructure at one of the country's most important aviation hubs. Airlink has expanded its maintenance capability to support a fleet of around 75 aircraft and about 250 flights a day. The airline has added capability in Polokwane and Cape Town, but says it is still struggling to secure suitable maintenance infrastructure at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. That may seem like an airline-specific infrastructure problem - It is not.

Airlink's experience provides an early warning of what could become a much broader challenge as African airlines acquire more aircraft, increase frequencies and open new routes.

Aircraft deliveries make for impressive headlines. The technical infrastructure required to support them rarely does. Every additional aircraft creates demand for hangar space, tooling, spare parts, component support, avionics capability and appropriately qualified personnel. As aircraft accumulate flight hours and cycles, maintenance becomes progressively more complex and requires increasingly specialised facilities and skills.

For African airlines, the strategic question is whether the continent can develop sufficient capacity to support its expanding fleet, or whether an increasing proportion of major maintenance will have to be performed elsewhere. That matters because overseas maintenance can add ferry costs, downtime and logistical complexity. It also means that economic activity generated by Africa's growing aviation market flows to maintenance centres outside the continent.

The alternative is to develop the capability locally and that is where the opportunity lies. Airlink is an interesting example because its business is built around a large regional fleet operating a high-frequency network across southern and eastern Africa. Its maintenance requirements therefore extend well beyond its Johannesburg base.

The airline has been developing additional technical capability closer to where its aircraft operate, including Polokwane and Cape Town. That can reduce positioning flights and provide more flexibility when aircraft require maintenance. But the reported difficulty in securing suitable infrastructure at OR Tambo highlights a fundamental problem: demand can grow faster than aviation infrastructure.

A modern airline maintenance operation requires substantial hangar space, apron access, workshops, stores and specialised equipment, all within an increasingly valuable airport environment. If airlines are going to expand their fleets significantly, airports will need to consider technical infrastructure as part of that growth rather than treating it as an ancillary requirement.

The scale of the projected expansion makes the issue increasingly difficult to ignore. Airbus, Boeing and Embraer all expect strong long-term demand for aircraft in Africa as passenger numbers rise, middle classes expand, and intra-African connectivity develops. More aircraft, however, mean more than additional seats. They bring more flight cycles, more maintenance events and a requirement for technical support across a much wider network. That could create a substantial MRO market — provided Africa captures it.

For South Africa and the wider continent, this represents an opportunity as much as a challenge. Africa already has established maintenance organisations and considerable technical expertise. The question is whether that capability can be expanded sufficiently to support the next generation of fleet growth.

South Africa has several advantages: an established aviation industry, a significant commercial fleet, experienced technical personnel, major airports and an aerospace and defence manufacturing base. But those advantages cannot be taken for granted. If infrastructure investment fails to keep pace with fleet growth, African airlines could increasingly depend on MRO providers outside the continent.

Africa could therefore become one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets while exporting a significant portion of the technical work created by that growth. The next decade could see a new contest develop alongside the competition for passengers. Which African cities will become the continent's major maintenance hubs?

Johannesburg has an established aviation ecosystem and a large installed base. Addis Ababa has Ethiopian Airlines behind it, Nairobi benefits from Kenya Airways and its regional position, while Cairo and Casablanca have developed significant aerospace capabilities and strategic geographic advantages.

Other centres could emerge as airlines expand and governments seek to capture more of the aviation value chain. The winners will not necessarily be the countries with the largest airlines. They will be those able to combine airport infrastructure, regulatory capability, technical skills, investment and access to the global aviation supply chain.

There is another constraint that aircraft manufacturers cannot solve simply by increasing production. Aircraft can be ordered and delivered within a few years - Engineers cannot.

Developing the technical workforce required to support a rapidly expanding fleet will require sustained investment in training, apprenticeships, type-rating capability and partnerships between airlines, training organisations and educational institutions. This is particularly important as newer aircraft bring increasingly sophisticated avionics, composite structures and digital systems into African fleets.

The number of aircraft delivered to African airlines should not be the only measure of success. A sustainable African aviation industry needs to capture more of the economic activity generated by those aircraft — maintaining them, training the people who support them and developing the industrial capability around them.

Airlink's MRO expansion is therefore more than a story about one airline adding technical capacity. It illustrates a much bigger issue facing the continent. Africa is preparing to put thousands more aircraft into the sky. Now it needs to build the infrastructure and skills required to keep them flying.