Maintenance promotes the recovery of the aerospace industry in Querétaro

Queretaro, Qro. The aerospace industry of the state continues in a gradual recovery process, which translates into the reincorporation of jobs, said the secretary of Sustainable Development (Sedesu), Marco Antonio del Prete Tercero.

It is estimated that jobs in this industry already exceed 15,000 employees in the entity, it would even be exceeding pre-pandemic hiring levels, he explained.

“We are almost recovering jobs, the aerospace industry in the state represents almost 15,000 jobs in general, I could say, without fear of being wrong, that we have already surpassed them, it is very likely (…) In production volume, the manufacture of transportation equipment , which includes aerospace, is already surpassing the volume of production”, he added.

This growth is also due to investment announcements made by companies in the sector, including TechOps, Airbus, ITP Aero, among other. This recovery has been driven mainly by the area of ​​maintenance and repair of both engines and landing gear.

“It was a very aggravating issue for the aviation industry, however, it has been noted that it is moving towards maintenance, which is a very, very large area of ​​opportunity for Querétaro, because we are not only making parts, but we are giving maintenance to airplanes or the pieces that we build are inserted in the engines, in the landing gear and in some parts of the fuselage”, he pointed out.

After being one of the industries hardest hit by the Covid-19 health emergency, due to the slowdown in civil aviation, there are manufacturing subsectors that still face challenges in returning to pre-pandemic levels.

With the first effects of the contingency and the pause in air operations, the airlines chose to send the fleets to maintenance.

“Querétaro specializes in maintaining engines and landing gear, in that sense we are taking advantage of this good moment in aviation; manufacturing may take a while to reach the levels it had, however, the other sector, which is maintenance, is having an important participation and we are taking advantage of everything we can, ”he added.

Therefore, the state secretary reiterated that some branches of this industry have not managed to resume the activity they had prior to the contingency.

“There are specific sectors or subsectors of the aerospace industry that have not yet taken off, that have not yet reached the flight they had, but that are clearly recovering,” he stressed.

The Querétaro cluster, Aeroclusterbrings together nearly 80 organizations related to the sector, including companies, research centers, government agencies, etc.

The president of the Mexican Federation of the Aerospace Industry (female), Luis Lizcano, predicted that the national industry will achieve a pre-pandemic recovery between 2023 and 2024.

For this 2022, the aerospace industry in Mexico is expected to grow between 16 and 18%, reaching a value of 8,000 million dollars at the end of 2022, still below the pre-pandemic value of around 9,600 million dollars.

estados@eleconomista.mx