Avionics Spending Up 17 Percent In 2018

The Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) annual market report contains good news for avionics manufacturers and shops. Compared to 2017, last year's total sales topped $2.7 billion, a gain of 17.3 percent. This uptick follows a modest 2.9 percent rise from 2016 to 2017, that in turn followed two years of single-digit decline.

Of the total, 53 percent came from retrofit sales with the remainder being new avionics purchased by airframe manufacturers for new installations. These so-called forward-fit sales saw a strong bump in 2018 from $984 million to $1.2 billion, which mirrors the rise in airframe deliveries last year.

According to Geoff Hill, director of communications for AEA, the retrofit push is driven by the looming ADS-B deadline. "The retrofit market may be positively impacted due to an uptick in the aircraft equipage rate ahead of the FAA's 2020 deadline for ADS-B Out avionics. The retrofit surge also might be partially attributed to the possibility that aircraft owners are choosing to have additional avionics work done while simultaneously coming into ADS-B compliance. Many avionics shops are telling us that aircraft owners are electing to order full-panel avionics upgrades rather than just the ADS-B equipment."

The majority of these sales were in the U.S. and Canada, according to the AEA; just 22.3 percent of the volume was attributed to international sales.