Technicians at Elliott Aviation’s avionics installation shop, pictured here, provide the types of upgrades tracked by AEA’s latest avionics sales report. Photo: Elliott Aviation
The more than $1.5 billion in sales of avionics for business and general aviation over the first six months of this year represents a 14 percent increase over the first half of last year, the Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) said in a report published on Aug. 12.
Forward fit avionics installations saw a sizable jump. Avionics forward fit sales tallied nearly $562 million in the first two quarters of last year, compared to almost $713 million this year. Avionics retrofit installations accounted for $760 million in sales from January through June last year, compared to $794 million in such sales in the first six months in 2019.
Companies that chose to provide country and region breakouts of their sales to AEA reported that nearly 75 percent of their avionics sales were in North America, while 25 percent were abroad, AEA said.
Last year appeared to be a banner year for business and general aviation avionics sales. Such sales totaled more than $2.7 billion, a 17.3 percent jump over 2017, and were the highest sales figures in at least six years, according to AEA figures.
Mike Adamson, the president of AEA, said that “avionics sales for general and business aviation have now seen an increase in year-over-year sales for 10-straight quarters.”
“In addition to the ADS-B workload, our AEA member repair stations continue to report an increasing number of full-panel retrofits with new electronic flight displays and digital autopilots, as well as continued interest with in-flight connectivity solutions,” he said.
The FAA is requiring that aircraft have Automatic Dependence Surveillance-Broadcast (Out) capability for flight in most airspace where a Mode C transponder is required by Jan. 1, 2020.