Lee's Perspective - ecube's Year in Review

There have been two big developments for us at ecube this year. The first is the acquisition by Unical at the end of the summer. The second is the volume and range of aircraft we are supporting.

Already we’re seeing synergies between the two companies. We’re seeing the synergies of integrating two like-minded organisations. Our shared values are bringing greater benefits for our customers and people too. We have more people than we started the year with. Notable hires include VP Sales and VP Operations in the USA. We committed to no change, but good change with this acquisition and we’re proud to say that all our customers have stayed with us, and we’ve strengthened relationships. We’re integrating with Unical, whilst retaining the ecube way that our customers value.

On the disassembly front we’re working on some of our oldest and newest aircraft projects ever. One effect of the rise in demand for reusable parts, is that aircraft of all types and ages are being evaluated for part out.  Even “Zombie Aircraft”, stored at the time of the pandemic and not brought back into service, are now valued to the point that there is a business case for full disassembly.

We’re turning problem assets into valuable opportunities, working on long-forgotten aircraft. Keeping an aircraft running for longer clearly has environmental benefits too. Right at the end of last year we disassembled a 9-year-old aircraft. More recently, we took apart a 39-year-old aircraft, a decision driven by the economics of the market. This theme was discussed in more detail at MRO Europe.

For us it means we’re taking up market share, as well as growing the market. Growth at ecube continues and I’m pleased to say it has grown strongly in the widebody fleet. We’ve also seen a rise in remote projects. Our Spanish team have been all across Europe working on wide and narrow body disassembly projects. When it would take too much to get an aircraft airworthy, we can send a team of ecube experts to the aircraft.

We’ll disassemble onsite, and can then also store the parts in one of our locations in the UK, EU or USA. We see the rise in remote projects as driven by the continuing and growing demand for used parts, versus a constrained delivery of new aircraft.  This is giving an urgent need in the industry to monetise assets.

2024 has been an incredible year of growth for ecube. We’d like to thank all our current and new customers. This year we’ve seen new airlines and lessors coming to us, not just for disassembly, but for maintenance, storage and transition back into the fleet too.

As we look forward to 2025, we see a couple of important trends: a drop in the age at which aircraft are disassembled, and a rise in the significance of parts traceability.

Aircraft for disassembly will continue to get younger. This is being driven by the market need for parts and delays in making new ones. We’ll see more disassemblies in 2025 than 2024, as the industry demand for reuse grows. I do note however, that the return to the levels of 2018 are still a way off yet.

We think new technologies will also be important. As more parts come from reuse, traceability will be increasingly important. There are some new companies doing great work to bring industry out of the age of easily forgeable forms and into a world of digital fingerprints for parts.

It’s been a cracking year at ecube. There’ll be a lot happening in 2025 as we expect to continue at our current growth rate. We’re thankful to all our customers, partners and colleagues and looking forward to a successful 2025.

Lee McConnellogue, CEO, ecube.

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