by Charles W. Thurston
Latin America Correspondent
Latin America’s relatively steady economic growth suggests that the regional demand for aviation coatings will more than double GDP expansion, predicted by the World Bank to be
1.0 percent this year and back to a more
normal 2.3 percent next year.
Boeing projects Latin American
airlines will need 3,050 new airplanes
valued at $350 billion in the next two
decades, tripling the region’s current
fleet size. “Over the long term, Latin
American economies will grow faster
than the rest of the world,” said Donna
Hrinak, the president of Boeing Latin
America. “This growth will create in-
creased passenger traffic in the region
and drive Latin American airlines to
expand and compete for business that
has traditionally been dominated by
foreign operators.”
The CAVOK 2015-2025 Global/
Regional Fleet Forecast for Latin America
predicts that the region will have an 8.0
percent share of the global commercial
aircraft fleet, expanding at 4. 7 percent
per year, to a value of $27.8 billion in
2025, up some $5 billion from last year,
according to Tom Cooper, the executive
vice president of the Atlanta-based divi-
sion of Oliver Wyman.
Similarly, Latin American air traffic will grow by a projected 4. 7 percent
annual rate over the next 20 years, compared with a projected 4. 6 percent global
average, according to one analysis.
Not surprisingly, the region’s $3.2 bil-
lion Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul
(MRO) aviation market is estimated to
grow even faster, at 7. 3 percent, accord-
ing to Cooper. “Improvements in cor-
rosion control at the factory and at the
MROs are reducing coatings consump-
tion in airframe repair,” he said. “The in-
tervals between inspections is increasing,
and then they find less corrosion. Now
most airliners are repainted only every
five to six years.”
A paint job for a Boeing 777 might re-
quire 40 gallons of primer and 46 gallons
of topcoat paint, depending on the color
scheme, noted Chris G. Athansopoulos,
the director of global sales for the
Aerospace Division, of Hentzen Coatings.
Multiple colors can readily double the
price of re-painting, others point out.
With a back-of-the-envelope esti-
mated cost of painting a new multi-color
commercial aircraft at around $150,000,
the 3,000 new aircraft Latin America will
purchase over the Boeing 10-year forecast
period includes some $450 million worth
of coatings; at an average rate of 100 de-
liveries per year, the component cost of
coatings would be $15 million per year.
Many of the components for new aircraft
are manufactured in Mexico, where some
300 companies are active. Boeing alone
imports $1 billion worth of parts from
Mexico every year.
If these new aircraft are painted every
six years, the MRO coatings the region
consumes maintaining the new aircraft
will be worth some $75 million per year.
Given the current regional commercial
aircraft fleet of about 1,750 now, MRO
coatings every three years on the existing
fleet will continue to cost about $45 mil-
lion per year. So total MRO coatings may
represent some $120 million per year in
Latin America moving forward. Adding
the coatings component of new aircraft
purchases (from calculation in prior
paragraph), the region may consume a
grand total of some $135 million worth
of aviation coatings per year.
The market positions of the major
coatings suppliers to Latin America seem
to vary greatly. In a 2014 presentation by
Michael H. McGarry, PPG executive vice
president, the company estimated that
aerospace coatings represent a $1 bil-
lion market led by PPG, and followed by
Akzo-Nobel. Mark Cancilla, the global
director for aerospace coatings at PPG in
Sylmar, CA, reckons that Latin America
represents about 10 percent of the global
market. “Latin America, and especially
Mexico, is exciting for us. There are a lot
of sub-suppliers there and more custom-
ers relocating there,” he noted.
Axalta Coating Systems is another
player in the region, but focuses more
on the smaller aircraft segment of the
market: “We only sell aviation coatings
into the small and executive aircraft
OEMs,” noted Matthew Winokur, the
vice president of corporate affairs for the
Philadelphia-based company.
Similarly, “BASF Aerospace activities
related to aerospace coatings typically in-
volve pigments and additives, as opposed
to directly supplying finished coatings
Latin American Aviation Lifts Coatings Demand
Chart source: Cavok
