As airlines across Asia-Pacific expand their fleets and networks, the traditional approach to component ownership is increasingly giving way to more flexible, access-based aftermarket models. Wheels and brakes, in particular, are becoming an area where airlines are looking to reduce inventory investment, improve cost predictability and ensure rapid access to serviceable assets when required. TP Aerospace’s expanding partnership with Parata Air, which has grown from two to five aircraft, reflects this shift towards scalable and integrated component support. In this exclusive Q&A with MRO Business Today, TP Aerospace discusses how pooling, global repair capabilities, AOG responsiveness and regional infrastructure are helping airlines manage wheels and brakes more efficiently while supporting continued fleet growth across APAC and new international markets.
Q – TP Aerospace has expanded its partnership with Parata Air as the airline has grown from two aircraft to five. How has the support program evolved alongside this fleet expansion, and what have been the key requirements from Parata Air?
Ans – When Parata Air first operated with 2 aircrafts, the focus was understandably on establishing a reliable wheels and brakes support model, that is scalable and can keep pace with the airlines’ growth plans. For a growing airline, adding aircrafts not just increases flying capacity to meet market demands. It also increases demand of spares, repair management, logistics coordination and maintenance planning. The challenge is trying to accomplish all of those things, without tying up excessive capital in inventory and adding complexity to the administration.
Q – TP Aerospace’s role is to remove much of that burden, by giving Parata Air access to our wheel and brake rotating pool and global repair capabilities. This enables Parata Air to keep its primary focus on growing their operations and keeping the administration as simple as possible.
Ans – The key requirements have been reliability, predictable cost and full confidence that assets will be available when needed to keep their operations running smoothly. These are exactly the areas our Land For Less Program is designed to address.
Q – With Parata Air operating both Airbus A320 and A330 aircraft, what are the specific challenges of supporting wheels and brakes across narrowbody and widebody platforms under a single program?
Ans – Supporting both the A320 and A330 fleets under a single program introduces several operational and financial considerations. The A320 fleet tends to be more cycles-driven, with higher frequencies of take-offs and landings. A330 assets carry substantially higher acquisition and repair costs and are typically scheduled to operate mid to long haul, leading to different maintenance planning requirements.
The benefit of a pooled support model under a single program is that TP Aerospace can absorb much of that complexity on behalf of the airline, simplifying planning while ensuring sufficient asset availability while keeping cost efficient across both fleet types.
Q – How are airlines in the Asia-Pacific region changing their approach to component management as they expand fleets and networks? Are you seeing greater demand for exchange programs, pool access and on-site inventory support?
Ans – We are seeing a noticeable shift from ownership models towards access models. This is particularly relevant in APAC, where many airlines continue to expand their fleets while maintaining a strong focus on liquidity. Rather than deploying significant capital in wheel and brakes inventories, airlines increasingly prefer to access assets through pooling programs.
Another trend is that fleet growth has generally outpaced the growth of aftermarket inventories. As a result, airlines place value on partners like TP Aerospace, who can provide immediate access to assets. This allows airlines to focus on their core businesses.
We are also seeing greater demand for integrated support that combine inventory and spares access, repair management, logistics and performance monitoring under a single agreement. This helps to reduce supplier interfaces and simplify maintenance administration.
Q – Aircraft-on-ground (AOG) responsiveness remains a critical factor for airlines. How is TP Aerospace strengthening its global supply chain and regional capabilities to improve component availability and minimise aircraft downtime?
Ans – AOG support is ultimately about availability and responsiveness. For airlines, an AOG is a race against time. Every minute the aircraft remains grounded has significant operational, financial and customer service consequences. Priority is to get the aircraft back in service as quickly and safely as possible.
At TP Aerospace, our ability to respond quickly is built on a combination of owning one of the world’s largest wheel and brake asset pools, having asset deployed directly with our customers, having a unique globally spanning network of in-house MRO facilities, as well as being able to offer 24/7 customer support. This allows us to support customers across different time zones and operational environments, ensuring assistance is available whenever and wherever its needed.
Q – What role does the Land For Less program play in helping airlines achieve greater predictability in maintenance costs while reducing the complexity of managing wheels and brakes in-house?
Ans – Wheels and brakes costs do not always occur in smooth or predictable manner. Repair events, shop visits and inventory purchases can create spikes in maintenance spendings. The Land For Less support concept addresses those challenges by giving airlines access to TP Aerospace’s assets and our global MRO capabilities, reducing inventory ownership and improving budget predictability. What we often hear from our customers is that the value goes beyond the financial aspect. It is also about reducing operational complexity. Their teams can then spend less time managing wheels and brakes, and more time focusing on broader fleet and operational priorities.
Q – Parata Air is looking at future expansion to the US West Coast. How will TP Aerospace’s Las Vegas workshop and wider global network support airlines as they expand into new geographic markets?
Ans – As Parata Air expands into longer haul and new international markets, support infrastructure becomes increasingly important. TP Aerospace’s Las Vegas workshop strengthens our ability to provide repair capability, technical support and asset availability closer to where their aircraft are operating. This reduces logistics lead times and associated cost as well as improves our response and their up time.
From a fleet expansion perspective, airlines benefit from knowing that the same support network is available regardless of whether the fleet is operating in APAC or anywhere else around the world.
The competitive advantage of a global wheels and brakes support model is our service consistency, inventory access and maintenance standards across multiple regions. These are TP Aerospace’s value propositions to our customers.
Q – More airlines are looking for scalable aftermarket solutions as they add aircraft. What trends are you seeing in the wheels and brakes aftermarket, particularly in terms of inventory strategy, component availability, cost management and outsourcing?
Ans – A few emerging trends are shaping the wheel and brake aftermarket. Firstly, airlines continue to seek ways to reduce inventory ownership. Capital is increasingly being directed towards core operational priorities rather than expensive rotable component holdings.
Secondly, access to spares and assets has become more important than ownership. Following several years of supply chain constraints post covid, airlines need confidence that spares are available when required rather than carrying excessive stocks themselves.
Finally, greater attention is being paid to total cost of ownership. Customers look beyond pure repair cost and instead are evaluating cost of inventory investment, logistics, turnaround times, utilisation and reliability from a holistic perspective.
These trends therefore continue to drive a continued and significant demand for pooling, exchange programs and outsourced wheel and brake solutions.
Q – Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for TP Aerospace in the Asia-Pacific aftermarket, and how is the company preparing to support the region’s continued fleet growth?
Ans – APAC continues to be one of the fastest growing aviation regions globally, and fleet growth naturally creates demand for wheels and brakes support. The challenge is ensuring that the industry keeps pace with that growth. Component availability, repair capacity and supply chain resilience, all these factors remain important drivers across the aftermarket sector.
For TP Aerospace, our focus is on staying ahead of that demand curve through continued investment in assets, repair capabilities and capacities as well as expanded our regional support infrastructure. A good example is adding Brake maintenance capability to MRO sites that previously only supported Wheels – in direct response to specific customer requirements.
Airlines today are looking for partners to help them grow without adding unnecessary cost and complexity. TP Aerospace’s objective is to ensure we continue to support customers in exactly that way as APAC as a region expands.
