ST Engineering’s aerospace arm is based Singapore, whose warm, humid climate has apparently limited the local spread of coronavirus. But it has facilities in San Antonio, Texas, and Shanghai, China, and customers that fly all over the world, so is subject to the general forces hitting air-traffic demand.

“There is definitely an impact on aircraft maintenance,” summarizes Lim Serh Ghee, president of ST Engineering Aerospace. “Due to the evolving situation, the latest being restrictions by the U.S. on entry by foreign travelers from Europe, we are still assessing the extent of the impact.”

The ST Engineering exec acknowledges that it is hard to tell when traffic and maintenance demand will return to normal. “Some experts have estimated Covid-19 to last until end-2020 at least,” he says. But given how the aviation industry has proven itself to be resilient, for instance during the SARS period, Lim expects demand to rebound strongly when the outbreak is over.

Meanwhile, ST Engineering is working closely with affected airline customers to reschedule maintenance around changes to their operations. “We are also pursuing jobs from airline customers who may be taking this opportunity to finish their scheduled maintenance in advance,” Lim notes.

The global MRO has taken precautionary measures to minimize the risk of infection at its facilities, including increased cleaning and disinfection of premises. “We have also implemented temperature-taking for our employees and all visitors to our premises, and carried out work-segregation plans such as spilt sites, shift work and work-from-home arrangements,” Lim explains.