Airlines, Suppliers Relationship Has Improved: Aeroméxico

The COVID-19 pandemic brought changes to every industry, including the aerospace sector. The difficult situation forced suppliers, manufacturers and airlines to reinvent and improve their relations to survive the worldwide crisis, agreed all participants of the CCMA & MRO event, organized by the Latin American and the Caribbean Association of Air Transport (ALTA).

“Although we were not 100 percent in the office during the past months, there has been a lot of communication with assemblers, suppliers and even internally, and this is a new improvement. We are in a good position now and, with the (Boeing 737) Max in the skies again, we are boosting our operation and, for the future, this new relationship will lead to a win-win situation for all of us,” said Jorge Jácome, Corporate Senior Vice President of Maintenance and Engineering at Aeroméxico and President of the ALTA Technical Committee.

The relationship between Aeroméxico and Boeing improved substantially during the past years, explained Jácome, due to the difficult times the 737 Max’s grounding and the pandemic brought, which forced both parties to improve communications and become more flexible during negotiations.

In the CCMA & MRO event, leaders from General Electric, GOL and Airbus also discussed the new improvements that the adversity brought. Communication between GE Aviation and its clients improved and the company learned to listen to them, said Jayesh Shanbhag, Regional General Manager for Customer and Product Support of GE Aviation.

On the other hand, Airbus has adapted its portfolio to serve its clients in the best possible way, said Yohan Closs, Vice President of Customer Service at Airbus. The company also worked hard to earn the trust of passengers, health authorities and governments in sanitary and COVID-19 related matters.

“At Airbus, we support our customers by developing new platforms, which will be useful not only in this crisis, but in what is to come afterwards. We are already seeing an increase in demand in domestic markets such as China and the US, for example. We need to be ready for this growth,” he said.

The company leaders also agreed that these improvements in the relationships between every part involved in the aviation supply chain will prevail, even when the economic situation returns to normal. The full recovery for the Mexican aerospace industry will not happen until 2024, when passenger traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels, according to FEMIA.