Why airliners are still parked despite the increase in air travel

It is an exciting time for airlines as they are finally recovering profits after a long pandemic. But the future has not always been so bright.

Last year, most airlines around the world began storing their planes indefinitely at facilities around the world, many in the American Southwest.

But even with U.S. airlines taking back much of their stored planes, some facilities remain as crowded as they were at the start of the pandemic. Here’s why.

Ascent Aviation Services has the largest storage and maintenance facilities at Pinal Airpark in Marana, Arizona, approximately 90 miles south of Phoenix. At its peak, the company received 400 planes between its facilities in Marana and Tucson, Ariz., Arriving at a rate of one per hour from March.

“80% of all planes stored in the world are stored in the southwest,” Scott Butler, Ascent’s chief commercial officer, told Insider.

US storage facilities have highly trained mechanics and a better business environment in which to transact. The American Southwest, in addition, offers a dry and arid climate ideal for storage and preservation.

Before the pandemic, Ascent’s actions and business were to provide maintenance, repair and overhaul services to airlines, with up to 70% of its revenue coming from that division. But with the decline in aircraft use and the increased demand for storage, the majority of revenue then came from storage fees during the pandemic.

Air Canada and WestJet planes could be seen around the airfield and still make up a large portion of the population. At the time of our visit, Canada was still requiring a two-week quarantine for international arrivals, making once-lucrative routes south of the border to the United States, the Caribbean and Central America almost worthless to airlines. Canadian.

Butler said the engines are the most important part of an aircraft that must be secured or “stripped.” “It’s the main money on the whole asset, it’s the engine,” Butler said.

And in the wilderness, rattlesnakes are always a concern. Maintenance workers on planes stored by Australian airline Qantas in California had to work out protocols for removing rattlesnakes.

Source: Qantas

The reactivation of the aircraft can then take from one to three weeks, depending on the size of the aircraft and the type of work to be done before it can once again carry passengers. Some aircraft may require complex maintenance checks and others may require minor repairs.

Aircraft components have maintenance manuals and processes to restore them and extend their life beyond a single aircraft. This Airbus A330 cockpit had been stripped of all its valuables.

Inside this Airbus A330, for example, most of the seats remain intact.