“Digital twins” revolutionary role in predictive aviation maintenance

April 1st 2025

Print Friendly

In a recent background paper analyzing the transformation airline MRO is undergoing, aviation recruitment consultancy, Aerviva, stressed the importance of “digital twins” in the sector’s digital revolution. Read More »

Quoting a McKinsey & Company report, it said the international consultancy had concluded business generated by digital twin technology- virtual copies of real-life machinery – will increase to US$48 billion in 2026 as more MRO providers introduce predictive simulation into their operational processes.

Aerviva, based in Dubai, said aviation digital twins either are virtual models of an entire aircraft or a part of it, for example an engine.

Industrial conglomerate GE has developed digital twin technology for landing gear, the consultancy said, but cautioned the revolutionary technology is only as good as the input it receives. It must be constantly updated although it is “at the heart of predictive maintenance”, consultants universally agreed, McKinsey wrote.

“To say digital twins are a must in aviation MRO would be an understatement when every hour of airline downtime can cost tens of thousands of dollars,” it said.

A recent Deloitte study calculated implementation of digital twinning in predictive maintenance programs results in a 15% reduction in Aircraft on Ground (AOG) time and a 20% improvement in labour productivity.

Aviation predictive maintenance gathers information from data collected by digital monitoring and analyses the condition of the aircraft and components to predict accurately future necessary MRO.

McKinsey calculates commercial aviation MRO savings can range from 18% to 25% and increase airliner availability by 5% to 15%.

Combined with generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), predictive simulation (digital twinning) can complete MRO assessments in seconds instead of hours.

Air France KLM, the operator of a fleet of 500 aircraft, is investing in AI solutions to take their predictive maintenance efforts to a higher level, Reuters reports, by using AI capabilities from Google Cloud to reduce time taken for data analysis of predictive aircraft MRO from hours to minutes.