AFRA President
Derk-Jan van Heerden,
AELS BV
AFRA Vice President
Amy Bann,
Boeing Commercial Airplanes
AFRA Treasurer
Marco Gehr,
ELG Haniel Group
AFRA Secretary
Kahina Oudjehani, Bombardier
James Cobbold, Air Salvage International
Mike Corne, eCube Solutions
Jason Reed, GA Telesis LLC
Gary Spoors, GJD Services Ltd.
Nigel Marsh, Rolls-Royce plc
Philippe Fournadet,
Tarmac Aerosave SAS
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Reed Hitchcock
Executive Director
Laura Dwulet
General Manager
David Bernstein
Industry Affairs Coordinator
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"FAA's Flight Standards Service will officially be re-organized. The changes, in the works for nearly four years, will not be apparent to industry right away. But if all goes as envisioned, the ramifications will become clear to operators and certificate holders-and they will be positive..."
- MRO-Network
Date: Thurs., August 17, 2017
Time: 2:00PM EST
"In this webinar, you will learn how Aerospace and defense companies are trying to find a more efficient ways to enhance collaboration between design and manufacturing..."
- Aviation Week
"GA Telesis announced it was launching a specialized finance unit, called Structured Credit Products (SCP), to focus on structured financial solutions for airline, MRO, and OEM customers..."
- MRO-Network
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Please email
AFRA staff
to get involved in AFRA's committees:
*AFRA BMP Development Committee
*AFRA Communications
Committee
*AFRA Government Affairs Committee
*AFRA R&D Committee
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Save The Date!
September 24-26, 2017
Edinburgh, Scotland
October 3-5, 2017
London, UK
October 4-5, 2017
Los Angeles, CA
October 31 -
November 2, 2017
Singapore
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AFRA Advertising Opportunity
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AFRA is currently offering advertisement space on its website to promote companies and services relevant to the aircraft end-of-life management industry. If your company is interested in purchasing ad space, please contact AFRA staff. This is an opportunity to show support for the Aircraft Fleet Recycling industry and Association while also gaining valuable exposure for your company, promoting new and upcoming product offerings, or announcing relevant company news and information.
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Growing Our Social Media Footprint
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Please
let us know about your company's Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter profile. Follow AFRA and share our news that you think might be interesting for your followers - we will of course do the same with your messages!
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Association Update
From Mike Corne, eCube Solutions
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 In his presentation to the recent AFRA AGM, Adam Pilarski used the expression 'may you live in interesting times' as one of his typically under-stated comments to describe the volatile business environment in which we operate.
The aircraft dis-assembly sector has always been unpredictable with no identifiable seasonality or repeatable business patterns. This is largely due to the nature of the investment market that underlies the majority of aircraft end-of-life projects, particularly those that take place in a growth market. Transactions are driven by buyers and sellers finding an acceptable price point for the trading of the asset, which in turn is driven by a myriad of factors relating to the two unrelated markets of operating lessors and parts traders. Consequently, the flow of projects has traditionally been extremely 'lumpy', and companies that perform aircraft dis-assemblies find it very challenging to plan resources for the business at appropriate levels for long term sustainability.
This unpredictability is not going to ease with time. Less than two years ago, we experienced the fewest numbers of aircraft retirements since 2007, as a consequence of low oil price, low interest rates, and an airline market delivering record profitability and the confidence to increase capacity. This year, there is a sense that storm clouds are gathering after more than 8 years of unbroken economic growth in the aviation industry, with the prospect that a wave of aircraft will be retired.
The aviation analysts at Ishka calculate that the global fleet currently has 2500 aircraft in storage and a market correction, depending upon severity, generally forces an additional 3-6% of the fleet into temporary storage. Given that the world commercial fleet stands at 29,500, that means a potential of approximately 900 to 1800 aircraft seeking refuge until a market recovery. With reference to Dick Forsberg's seminal white paper on Aircraft Retirement trends, less than 10% of passenger aircraft that remain stored for more than two years will return to service, indicating the potential of a substantial demand for disposal of those assets with no operational future.
While this may sound like the prospect of exciting times for the end-of-life sector, I contend that our business environment will continue to be at least as unpredictable, and risky, as before. Quite whether a market softening will occur, and, if so, when it is likely to take place, just asks further unanswerable questions of us. When it happens (as history tells us that it is inevitable at some point) asset owners will struggle with book values and impairment issues, parts traders will need to manage greater supply of components and a changing demand profile, and many more aircraft are likely to fall into an economic disposal category rather than part-out. We shall all have to deal with a rapidly changing economic landscape.
What will it take to prepare for this vision of the future? Perhaps no changes will be required - longstanding players in our dynamic sector already recognise that the secret to success is to be nimble, creative and responsive to opportunities. One thing is guaranteed, volatility in the end-of-life market is here to stay!
Mike Corne
Commercial Director
eCube Solutions
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Government Affairs Program
The Government Affairs Committee had a teleconference on Thursday, August 3, and discussed the EU waste framework directive and how certain aspects are relevant to AFRA in regards to how the general definition of waste may impact future changes in aircraft recycling. The Committee also is in the process of finalizing a policy position statement on the Circular Economy and looking to prepare language for Kathleen Van Brempt, Belgian member of the European Parliament, so that she can make another parliamentary question to the European Commission on the topic of waste transport legislation and waste definition in relation to aircraft.
For a report on recent policy & regulatory updates, please click
here.
AFRA BMP Development Committee
The BMP Development Committee's next teleconference will be taking place on Wednesday, August 23 from 10:30am - 11:30am ET. The Committee will be discussing the roll-out of the BMP 3.3 Single Accreditation update as well as additional Committee initiatives.
If you'd like to get involved and be added to the participant list, please contact staff.
AFRA Communications Committee
We welcomed three new participants to the AFRA R&D Research Network this month: University of Pittsburgh, Envisa, and Adherent Technologies, Inc. AFRA members are able to reference R&D information, and access research papers on the AFRA Member Page
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Unical MRO provides aircraft parking, aircraft storage, off wing engine storage and end-of-life solutions to customers from around the globe. Specializing in both narrow and wide body commercial aircraft, Unical MRO works closely with customers to ensure a clear work scope and to plan on-time re-delivery schedules that meet customer needs.
The Laboratory for Advanced Materials at Pittsburgh (LAMP) under the direction of Professor Paul W. Leu, focuses on designing and understanding advanced materials by computational modeling and experimental research. Simulations and experiments are used in a synergistic manner to study the mechanical and electronic properties of nanomaterials and surfaces for various applications.
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