A new joint study by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and consulting firm Oliver Wyman warns that ongoing supply chain constraints could add more than $11.3 billion to global airline costs in 2025. The report, Reviving the Commercial Aircraft Supply Chain, attributes the increase to a combination of higher maintenance expenses, longer engine shop visits and the operation of older aircraft.
The study said that roughly $4.2 billion of these cost increases are linked to excess fuel burn from aging fleets, $3.1 billion to additional maintenance, $2.6 billion to higher engine leasing tied to delayed overhauls, and $1.4 billion to surplus inventory costs. With a record backlog of more than 17,000 aircraft in 2024 and fewer deliveries than before the pandemic—1,226 compared to 1,374 in 2019—average lead times have climbed to nearly seven years.
Supply chain challenges could cost the airline industry over $11B in 2025. Delays in aircraft and parts production mean longer waits, higher costs, and older fleets flying longer.
— IATA (@IATA) October 13, 2025
Opening the aftermarket and improving transparency could helphttps://t.co/pFah69AzXQ@OliverWyman pic.twitter.com/vixTvdDwnm
IATA and Oliver Wyman point to three main drivers behind the slowdown: a supply chain structure weighted toward aftermarket revenue, persistent external disruptions including geopolitical tensions and raw-material shortages, and labor constraints across the aerospace sector. Those issues are being felt on the ground, with typical engine overhauls stretching from 30–60 days to as many as 120 days, and maintenance producer prices up more than 8% in 2024.
“Airlines depend on a reliable supply chain to operate and grow their fleets efficiently,” said IATA Director General Willie Walsh. “Now we have unprecedented waits for aircraft, engines and parts and unpredictable delivery schedules. Together these have sent costs spiralling by at least $11 billion for this year and limited the ability of airlines to meet consumer demand.”
To help stabilize the system, the study outlines five key recommendations: greater collaboration and production discipline, stronger end-to-end visibility, wider use of predictive maintenance and shared parts pools, expansion of repair capacity and use of alternative parts such as PMA and USM, and renewed investment in training and workforce pipelines.
The report also highlights strong demand growth, noting that passenger traffic rose 10.4% in 2024 compared with 8.7% capacity growth, pushing load factors to a record 83.5%.
“We see an opportunity to catalyze an improvement in supply chain performance that will benefit everyone,” said Oliver Wyman partner Matthew Poitras in the report.
Airlines not the only ones dealing with this. My company’s director of maintenance still has trouble obtaining parts for the business jets we fly. Also the shop I used for my annual inspection on my plane told me there is a 2 year wait on engine overhauls from Lycoming.