The aviation aftermarket is entering a period of sustained pressure and growth.
Airlines are flying older aircraft for longer. Engine maintenance capacity is constrained. Parts remain difficult to source. Turnaround times are high. At the same time, passenger demand continues to grow and the global fleet is expected to expand significantly over the next decade.
For companies active in maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), engine and component leasing, parts trading and aviation asset management, this creates opportunity.
It also creates a technology challenge.
As operations become larger and more complex, the question is no longer simply whether a company has the right systems in place.
The more important question is whether those systems, the data inside them and the processes around them can keep up.
A growing market under increasing pressure
The scale of the aviation aftermarket is already considerable.
Oliver Wyman estimates that the global aviation MRO market exceeded $136 billion in 2025, an increase of 8% compared with 2024. By the end of the decade, annual MRO spending is expected to approach $193 billion.
This growth is being driven by several developments at the same time.
Aircraft fleets are ageing because manufacturers cannot deliver new aircraft quickly enough. At the beginning of 2026, Oliver Wyman estimated that around 30,000 commercial aircraft were in service globally. That fleet is expected to grow to approximately 41,000 aircraft by 2036.
Meanwhile, maintenance requirements are increasing.
IATA warned in June 2026 that aircraft delivery delays, engine durability issues, shortages of materials and spare parts, and constrained maintenance capacity continue to disrupt airline operations. The organisation estimates that aviation supply chain problems cost airlines at least $11 billion in 2025 through additional maintenance, engine leasing and inventory costs and delayed fuel-efficiency benefits.
Engines provide a particularly clear example of what lies ahead.
According to an IATA and Emerton study, annual shop visits for CFM LEAP engines could increase from around 600 to 800 in 2025 to more than 5,000 by 2040. For Pratt & Whitney GTF engines, annual shop visits are expected to grow from approximately 1,000 to more than 2,000 during the same period.
More assets, more maintenance and more pressure on available capacity inevitably mean more decisions have to be made.
And those decisions increasingly depend on data.
The challenge is not always a lack of software
Aviation companies rarely start from zero.
They already have systems for ERP, maintenance, inventory, finance, asset management, document management, CRM and other specialised processes.
The difficulty is that these systems were often introduced at different moments, by different departments and for different purposes.
One system knows the commercial status of an asset. Another contains its technical history. Inventory information sits elsewhere. Documents may live in another platform. Market information is collected externally. Teams may still use spreadsheets or email to bridge the gaps between those systems.
The problem therefore becomes less about acquiring another application and more about connecting the information that already exists.
IATA identified this directly in its 2026 priorities for strengthening the aviation supply chain. One of its four priorities is to unlock the value of data, digitalisation and AI.
IATA specifically points to better integration between airline maintenance systems and external market intelligence to improve inventory management, identify material availability and scarcity, support repair-or-replace decisions and strengthen warranty claims.
That is an important distinction.
Digital transformation does not necessarily mean replacing every existing platform.
It can also mean creating a better digital layer around them.
Better decisions require connected data
Consider how many pieces of information can influence a single operational or commercial decision around an aircraft component or engine.
Availability matters.
So does technical condition.
Maintenance history matters.
Expected repair turnaround time matters.
Inventory levels, acquisition costs, market demand, contractual conditions and customer requirements may all influence the same decision.
If that information is fragmented across systems, people become the integration layer.
Employees search for information, export spreadsheets, compare records, send emails, request updates and manually combine data before a decision can be made.
That can work at a certain scale.
It becomes increasingly difficult as transaction volumes, assets, customers and operational complexity grow.
This is why real-time information is becoming a strategic priority within aviation.
Deloitte's 2026 Aviation Finance Leaders Survey found that 82% of respondents identified enhanced management information and real-time data as their leading digital investment priority. The survey represents senior executives in an aircraft leasing sector collectively overseeing more than 4,000 aircraft worldwide.
The value is not simply having more data.
The value comes from making the relevant data available at the moment a decision needs to be made.
Where modern software can make a difference
This creates an interesting role for modern software development.
Core aviation platforms will remain essential. But they do not always support every process that makes an organisation different from its competitors.
Custom software can fill those gaps without requiring companies to rebuild their entire IT landscape.
For example, organisations can create applications or integration layers that combine information from multiple internal and external systems into one operational workflow.
That could support areas such as:
- asset and component availability;
- inventory and materials planning;
- technical and commercial workflows;
- repair and maintenance coordination;
- lease and contract processes;
- document and technical-record processing;
- customer and supplier portals;
- management information and operational dashboards;
- exception handling and decision support.
The objective should not be to digitise every manual process simply because it is possible.
The real opportunity is to identify where fragmented information, repetitive work or slow decision-making is restricting the business, and redesign that process around the information and technology now available.
AI becomes more useful when the foundation is ready
AI naturally enters this conversation, but it should not be the starting point.
The aviation industry is clearly exploring its potential.
The 2026 Oliver Wyman MRO Survey found that 58% of respondents still described their organisations as being in the experimental stage of AI development. At the same time, around two-thirds reported receiving value from AI that met or exceeded their expectations.
The research also highlights one of the main barriers to scaling further: the quality and availability of data.
Deloitte found a similar pattern within aviation finance. While 64% of respondents see generative AI's biggest opportunity in automating financial and technical modelling, relatively few organisations have progressed substantially beyond exploration.
This points to an important principle.
