A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

The lingering supply-chain issues resulting from the Covid pandemic are still putting pressure on the aviation industry, according to speakers at last month's&nbsp;annual JetNet iQ Summit in New York. While those constraints are acting as a drag on production in a period of strong OEM backlogs, some see that as a positive.
“A big issue for a lot of us right now is the supply chain,” explained David Rosenberg, Textron Aviation's senior v-p and CFO. “We would all love to be building more airplanes right now, but the supply-chain constraints have resulted in a better equilibrium between supply and demand.”
“What that’s done is maintain price discipline, maintain supply growth, and maintain production levels so the industry stays healthy,” added Michael Amalfitano, the president and CEO of Embraer Executive Jets. “That helps the new buyer and that helps the used buyer because they have a residual value to protect.”
Problems in the supply chain have had a cascading effect that extends all the way to the support network, noted General Aviation Manufacturers Association president and CEO Pete Bunce. “An aircraft operator needs to be serviced and all of a sudden we get word that a first-tier supplier can’t provide an essential engine or avionics [component] on time because they can’t get parts, so they may have to take parts off the production line and give them to the aftermarket line to be able to fix it.”
Delray Dobbins, the head of sales and strategy for Pratt &amp; Whitney Canada’s Eagle Service Plan, noted that the industry's repair capacity is not where it was pre-Covid. He noted that normally if the company’s technicians couldn’t repair a part or component they would simply sell the customer a new part, which is now difficult with a reduced spare parts inventory.
“The lack of repair capability has exacerbated the strain on new-parts supply,” he said. "This is a relationship-driven industry. How do you have a relationship when you don't have all the parts on your shelf that you need?" Dobbins asked rhetorically.
“Right now, every one of us—whether they will admit it or not—is calling customers saying your airplane is going to be delayed,” Amalfitano explained candidly. “We’re all doing it, some more so than others depending on the segment you are in—that’s reality.”
To help ease supply bottlenecks, he said, Embraer has more than 60 employees stationed with critical suppliers around the world, looking to boost their production levels. His company is also looking to see what outside production it can bring in-house to give more certainty and control to supply lines.
Thierry Betbeze, CEO of Dassault Falcon, stated that rather than see its production lines hobbled by parts shortages, his company is sending factory workers out to bolster the production lines at some crucial small providers and has even acquired some of those companies whose owners are looking to exit the industry.
But it's more than just the finished products that are in short supply, noted Amalfitano, citing windshields as a pinch-point example in the manufacturing and repair sectors. “If you have a windshield, it has resins in it, and there’s a challenge with windshields all across the globe, so you don’t magically fix some of these things even at the raw-material level, whether it’s carbon-fiber, aluminum, titanium, resins, [semiconductor] chips, there’s a lot of challenges in terms of this recovery.”
Juergen Wiese, chairman of the European Business Aviation Association and managing director of BWM’s corporate aviation operations, added that there is competition for these materials between aviation and his employer’s industry as well.
The parts shortage has even begun to affect pricing on the second-hand aircraft market, according to Emily Deaton, CEO of aircraft brokerage JetAviva. “I think what is most interesting is the impact that we are seeing in the bigger marketplace as it even pertains to values because of the supply chain,” she explained to the audience. “We are having to devalue aircraft that are coming up on a hot section because we’re proactively anticipating extended downtimes and a lack of rental engines despite their being on programs or not.”
Labor, or the lack thereof among suppliers, is a major contributor to supply-chain problems. “The same lingering issues that we’re facing in terms of bringing talent in and filling our staffing requirements, our suppliers are facing as well,” said Rosenberg.
The effects of Covid on lower-tier manufacturers in the supply chain still cast a large shadow, according to Embraer’s Amalfitano. As these companies either closed or laid off workers, that restricted the flow of parts as master craftsmen moved on to different employers.
“The people shortage happened in months, the supply recovery is years,” he said. “It takes a long time to recover that skillset across the supply chain.”
Particularly affected were those small companies that provided just a handful of crucial, specialized parts, such as forgings or castings. “When we look at our vendors, a lot of them are small vendors that maybe had one master technician taking care of that one part,” said Dobbins. “Post-Covid, that master technician is gone.”
The shortage of such talent comes as the industry looks to increase production in the face of strong demand for new aircraft. “When we had these types of backlogs, our industry has ramped up rapidly,” said Bunce.
“Then when something happens like a recession, all of a sudden we are looking at layoffs, and we have these big amplitudes,” he added. “A lot of these companies either went out of business or they are trying to ramp back up and they don’t have the labor out there.”
With the strict part tolerances demanded by aviation manufacturers, quality control has been another aspect of the loss of skilled labor. “Even when something is built and shipped and it shows up, if it doesn’t meet the standards, it goes back,” said Amalfitano. “That has happened in this timeframe much more than it ever has in the decades before.”

News about simulators and training procedures, as well as workforce.

Aviation OEMS Still Struggling with Supply-chain and Labor Issues

Cascading effects from lower-tier suppliers are a drag on production

The Covid pandemic's lingering shadow is still causing problems among aviation suppliers, which are facing shortages of labor, particularly skilled labor.

Supply-chain Issues Continue To Roil Aviation Industry

2024 Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit

Matt Thurber

News and issues relating to business, corporate and private aviation, primarily regarding turbine-engine-powered airplanes and helicopters. Subjects include aircraft, engines, maintenance, operations, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security, and training.

News and issues concerning general aviation, specifically airplanes and helicopters powered by piston and alternative engines (i.e., non-turbine powered aircraft). Subjects include aircraft, engines, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security and training.

Why not teach new pilots to go around before learning how to land?

AINsight: You Can (and Should) Always Go Around

Kerry Lynch

News and developments about airplanes, helicopters and unmanned air vehicles used in all varieties of operations, including airlines, military, business, commercial, general aviation and private.

Most major manufacturers will be at static this year

NBAA-BACE Taking Shape with Expanded Program, Most OEMs

News and issues about aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), covering all segments of the aviation industry; and modifications for aircraft and engines. Subjects include product support of aircraft, engines and avionics, MRO company mergers, acquisitions, announcements and personnel, Airworthiness Directives, Supplemental Type Certificate approvals and other topics.

News and issues relating to international air transport and cargo carriers, national airlines and regional airlines, including aircraft, engines, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security and training.

First step toward licensing could encourage youth to seek aviation careers

GAO Wants High Schoolers To Take Mechanic General Test

Charlotte Bailey

Essential news and analysis on the defense aerospace business. Your trusted source for new and ongoing programs and requirements in military aircraft (manned and unmanned), engines, avionics, weapons and associated systems, including ground-based air defense.

Evolving AI-augmented simulator-based approach to ‘gamify’ learning 

Saab Shaking Up Gripen Training with Project Skynapse 

Howard Hardee

News and issues relating to the aerospace industry that are related to the science, engineering and business of flight in space involving civil, industrial and military applications, and similar topics related to flight in the atmosphere of the Earth that are not covered more directly by other AINonline subject channels. In other words, both astronautical and aeronautical subjects, except for those aeronautical topics that are specifically covered elsewhere on this website.

Spirit AeroSystems workers give Leeham News and Analysis the inside track 

Cutting 'Traveled Work' Delays At Spirit Critical To 737 Output

Jessica Reed

Michel Denis was named CEO of Daher,  Steve Varsano president of Flexjet, and Robert Sumwalt was the next Wright Trophy recipient

People in Aviation —September 2026

Charles Alcock

News and issues regarding all manner of civil and military rotorcraft and their powerplants, including helicopters, tilt rotors and unmanned air vehicles.

News and information on safety procedures and concerns.

Austrian manufacturer has yet to say which rotorcraft types it will support 

Axis Announces Plans for Helicopter Training Systems

AIN Staff

In a Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit (CALS) roundtable on retention, an aviation staffing expert and flight department leaders traded hard-won lessons on money, culture, and knowing who you’re really competing with.

NBAA-BACE 2023

In this article

JetNet

More In Training and Workforce