Airbus forecasts huge hiring gap as aviation services market expands

By Tim Hepher

TOULOUSE, France, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Aviation will need to hire 2.44 million people over the next two decades to serve air travel, including 730,000 for maintenance shops where acute labour shortages have been one of the sector's biggest headaches, Airbus said on Wednesday.

The forecast, which includes 1.05 million cabin crew and 660,000 pilots, signals a major recruitment effort at a time when the aviation industry has been struggling to compete with other sectors for workers since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Training a new generation of workers is part of a market for post-factory services that Airbus estimates will double in size over the next 20 years to reach $420 billion, expanding on average by 3.8% a year.

Airbus aims to outgrow the rest of the market by boosting service revenue for commercial aircraft to more than $10 billion by 2030 from about €5.4 billion ($6.05 billion) in 2025, customer services head Cristina Aguilar Grieder said.

The move marks a second run at the $10 billion threshold for Airbus after it set the same target for 2025, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the industry to revisit growth plans.

"The old narrative was we deliver aircraft; the new narrative is we deliver aircraft and we offer services," Airbus Commercial CEO Lars Wagner told reporters.

Boeing groups all its services revenue in a separate division, which is now its most profitable. This had services revenue of $20.9 billion in 2025 including military business.

Airbus and Boeing see the fastest growth in air travel in India in the coming years.

Airbus' latest services forecasts, which closely match Boeing's prediction of 3.7% annual growth, show a shift in focus away from past order battles and towards the task of maintaining the latest generation of fuel-saving jets.

Roughly half the market for services will be connected to off-wing maintenance which has been at the centre of a growing industrial storm as engines faced more frequent repairs than expected, resulting in hundreds of jets being grounded.

Airlines have also pointed the finger at delays in the delivery of new aircraft.

Airbus has signalled that it wants to grab a bigger slice of service revenue in the next generation of jets, setting up a potential tug of war with engine makers who argue their deep investments in technology depend on long-term repair streams.

The fastest-growing part of the services market, however, involves data-crunching and connectivity as airlines increasingly see internet access as a must-have feature. This sector is expected to grow 5.3% annually to $27 billion by 2045.

($1 = 0.8933 euros) 

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Alexander Smith)