Retiring labor-intensive aircraft, such as the Airbus A300, DC-9, and Boeing 737/747 classics, will help decrease maintenance labor hours per aircraft by 12% for narrowbodies and 25% for widebodies, according to AeroStrategy. The consulting firm says the 787 and A350XWB will not impact the MRO market much by 2018 because "they will only represent 5% of events at this time."

AeroStrategy predicts the decreasing man-hour requirements could affect the amount of airframe heavy maintenance migrating from North America to the Asia/Pacific region, which typically has lower labor rates than in Europe and North America.

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