The booming aircraft business has continued throughout the year with book-to-bill ratios remaining well above 1:1 and in some cases 2:1. Textron Aviation saw its backlog swell by $700 million alone in the second quarter to $5.8 billion. This sentiment was shared by many manufacturers.

Yet in July, Pete Bunce, president and CEO of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, testified before the House aviation subcommittee that “I have never seen a time where the manufacturers and maintenance organizations are under such tough times.”

At the heart of his concerns is the workforce. The lack of workers, exacerbated by a stubbornly persistent Covid pandemic, is constraining the supply chain and prolonging certification schedules. This is affecting industry and regulators alike. Compounding all of this is the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As a result, manufacturers have been unable to or cautious on their ramp-up plans to meet demand. And in some cases, these issues are causing aircraft deliveries to slip and certification schedules to slide.

In May, Dassault had announced a six-month schedule delay in the certification of its wide-cabin Falcon 6X. Dassault chairman and CEO Eric Trappier announced the decision to push back market entry during EBACE, citing the supply chain.

Two months later, Gulfstream also announced a six-month delay in its Gulfstream G700 program and in turn, a delay in the G800 program, pointing to the certification process not only of those aircraft but also of a software change involving its G500/G600.

Also in July during its second-quarter earnings release, Textron chairman and CEO Scott Donnelly cautioned that the supply chain is creating “headwinds” that may push some Cessna Citation deliveries into 2023 and soften Textron Aviation’s 2022 revenues by a few hundred million when compared with its guidance.

During the aviation subcommittee hearing, Bunce praised Congress for passing the Aviation Manufacturing Jobs Protection Act, which provided a cost-sharing program to preserve at-risk jobs. Without it, he said, “we would’ve lost a lot of our skilled workforce.” Even so, Bunce added, “We're down 20 percent in virtually every one of our factories,” including maintenance technicians, manufacturing workers, and engineers.

As for the supply chain, he acknowledged that it is a global problem, but aviation is a little different because the FAA is so immersed in the process. “It's very difficult to switch out things,” he remarked and cited as an example a manufacturer from Oregon that waited eight months to get a response from the FAA “just to switch out one light bulb for another. And then the FAA told them they were going to have to recertify the system.” While that situation was resolved, “that's what industry is facing right now.”

Compounding this is something Bunce said he has not seen in his experience before with the FAA: “The bureaucracy is grinding the industry to almost a halt.” He said the issue starts with a vast turnover in the ranks of engineers and technical specialists at the FAA.

“A lot...are brand new to their jobs; 40 percent have less than three years of regulating. Then they're working at home,” Bunce said. “Now when they're working at home, they can't collaborate together. They can't talk to one another. They're sending written notices to each other that just slows down the process, but worse than anything else is the funnel; all goes now to FAA legal and that funnel is clogged.”

All of this is creating a “perfect storm,” Bunce said.

Donnelly noted how Textron Aviation is trying to ramp up production “given the very strong demand environment,” but said that is a more difficult process in light of the supply-chain issues and related disruptions, Donnelly said. “So, I think we'll probably be a little light on revenue. We'll probably miss some deliveries as things push into 2023.”

He added the company has been hiring to bring additional staff on board and working with suppliers to help meet the ramp in production. This includes holding hiring fairs and recruiting to add “100 people or so a month.” But this takes time, and training must follow hiring. “It's a sizable number of people that we need to bring on board to support that ramp,” he said. “We’re working really hard.”

However, Covid continues to hit production through the supply chain. While the company may be big enough to shift around people when there are outbreaks, its suppliers struggle during those times. When smaller suppliers “lose a chunk of their workforce for a week,” he said, “they'll slip a week on parts availability. Our guys do everything they can to manage those inefficiencies. They're constantly working this.”

Donnelly added he doesn’t think the situation is getting worse, but “unfortunately, we haven't seen it get dramatically better.”  As a result, Textron Aviation is remaining cautious on its delivery plans to ensure it can meet customer commitments, he said.

Trappier echoed similar thoughts during the release of Dassault Aviation’s first-half results in July. “When you look at the orders historically, they're quite strong. So, we'll have to increase our pace and ramp up. And the supply chain is still concerning us,” he said.

As for Covid, he noted that the company officials thought it was behind them but at the beginning of the year “we were still hit.” Workers went remote again and countries such as China closed borders again.

“We had a lot of difficulties because of the Covid crisis and therefore we were a bit behind schedule,” he added, noting this played into the company's decision for the 6X. “We would rather take more time to make sure that we have the certification and the capacity to deliver the first aircraft. So the commissioning was put off to mid‐2023.”

Boeing Commercial Airplanes president and CEO Stan Deal also pointed to difficulties in hiring in the first place to ramp back up from slowed production rates.

Deal said during the recent Farnborough Airshow, “When we started our rate plan—and almost every industry is in this position—we underestimated the effect of bringing human capital back into the system. Largely that is one of the major contributors of supply chain performance today. It hasn't come back as fast. Labor that had left the market hasn’t returned as anticipated.”

This has brought a new learning curve, he continued. But a second issue he cited is a rise in chip shortages, which is constraining avionics suppliers. And engines have been another constraint, Deal said. 

In fact, Pratt & Whitney (P&W) discussed during Farnborough its plans to increase output but the difficulties behind that.

P&W president Shane Eddy said the engine maker acknowledged earlier this year that it hadn't kept up with its delivery commitments to Airbus. “It’s no secret around the industry…there are real issues with the labor force out there as the economy's recovering,” he noted.

Eddy, however, was encouraged that by the second quarter, P&W’s output “was largely where we had said it was going to be. So, we are trending toward recovery."

He added a sentiment that has been shared by many: "Certainly, we’re not happy about the position that we’re in right now.”