The aftermarket is becoming a major source of income for OEM’s, accounting for up to 72% of revenue in some cases, according to analysis by Corporate Jet Investor (CJI).

Across OEMs including Bombardier, General Dynamics (Jet Aviation), Textron Aviation and Rolls-Royce, aftermarket services made between 26% and 72% of revenues.

The most significant share can be seen in Rolls-Royce’s most recent financial results, where almost three quarters (72%) of its £2.34bn revenue came from services. In the 2022 half-year results, the company said it had higher services revenues from shop visits and long-term service agreement (LTSA) catch ups. In the first six months of the year, Rolls-Royce reported a total of 477 shop visits, and 6.1m LTSA engine flying hours.

More than a quarter of Bombardier’s revenue came from aftermarket services in its most recently filed accounts. The firm made $1.46bn in the third quarter (Q3) of 2022 and 26% of this ($380m) was generated through aftermarket.

At our CJI Singapore 2022 conference, Éric Martel, CEO, Bombardier said: “We’ve made the commitment that for 2025 we will grow our business to around $7.5bn of revenue, 73% of this will come from selling and delivering airplanes, but also we are going to grow our service business to be about 27% of our revenue.

“Anywhere we are in the world, we want to make sure we can serve our customers in their time zone, in their geography, with a service centre and with parts available. It’s been a long journey but a very successful journey so far. We want to significantly grow our service presence.”

In July, Bombardier quadrupled the size of its Singapore service centre to become the largest OEM business aviation facility in Asia Pacific. Located at Seletar Aerospace Park, the centre which opened in 2014 was expanded from 70,000sq ft (6,500sq m) to 290,000sq ft (27,000sq m).

Including Jet Aviation, General Dynamics’ total revenue for its aerospace division in Q3 of 2022 was $2.35bn, with 27% of this due to services.

Textron’s most recent results, its annual report for 2021, showed that aftermarket services accounted for more than a third of its revenue increase. Textron Aviation revenues were higher than the previous year by $592m, and more than a third of this growth ($204m) was due to higher aftermarket volume, which includes parts sales, maintenance, inspection and repair. The group’s full-year revenue stood at $12.28bn, compared with $11.65bn in 2020.

Watch Éric Martel’s presentation from CJI Singapore 2022 below. 

*revenue growth from previous year