Aftermarket avionics at Elliott Aviation’s Milan, Illinois facility. Photo: Elliott Aviation
Global sales of business and general aviation aircraft electronics were $2.7 billion in 2018, according to the latest year end avionics market report published by the Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA).
That’s a 17 percent increase compared to sales reported in 2017, according to AEA, and the largest total dollar amount reported by AEA since the association began publishing the report in 2012.
“We have now seen eight-straight quarters of positive year-over-year sales growth dating back to the end of 2016,” Paula Derks, president of AEA said of the new report.
The report is an aggregate of twenty-three participating companies, including Garmin, Collins Aerospace Gogo and the appropriate divisions of Honeywell, L3 and Cobham. Participating companies submit sales to a third-party firm to produce the avionics market report in the interest of confidentiality.
Among the total sales reported, 57 percent were for retrofit avionics installations, while the remaining were for forward fit installations. According to the companies that separated their total sales figures between North America and international markets, 77.7 percent of the 2018 sales volume occurred in North America while 22.3 percent took place in other international markets, AEA said in its report.
The increase in demand is being driven by airspace mandates, connectivity and an explosion in the availability of new communications, navigation and surveillance technologies being certified for in-service Part 23 and Part 25 aircraft. Check out the article recently featured in our October/November 2018 edition analyzing some of these trends.