7 Business-Critical Reasons Airlines Are Investing in Digital Twin Technology

7 Aviation Maintenance Trends to Watch in 2026

In the years since COVID-19 disrupted global aviation, airline maintenance performance has taken a measurable hit. Industry-wide data shows:

• Technical dispatch reliability declines by up to 50%
• Maintenance-related delays increase by a factor of two to three
• Maintenance-related cancellations per thousand departures double or triple, now ranking among the top three causes of controllable cancellations

While some operators have stabilised, many are still stuck in reactive mode, rebuilding plans manually, chasing short-term fixes, and wrestling with disconnected M&E tools. From what we’ve observed in conversations with planners and fleet leaders, it has come to the idea of future-proofing the planning process.

That’s why more airlines are investing in digital twin technology for its proven ability to improve visibility, cut planning cycles, and reduce costly surprises.

In this article, we’ll look at seven business-critical reasons why airlines turn to digital twin technology to modernise their planning process and regain control over maintenance performance.

#1 Legacy Tools Can’t Support the Speed or Scale Airlines Now Need

Airline planning teams often work with a combination of legacy systems and spreadsheets to manage heavy maintenance, or some are still using manual planning like paper-based methods. While tools like M&E platforms provide valuable support, they sometimes have limitations in modelling full fleet operations, integrating with other departments, or testing alternative plans.

Planners are forced to export data, build schedules manually, and reconcile inputs across disconnected sources. These tools were built for static planning environments, not for the complexity and volatility airlines face today.

Digital twins solve this by modelling the entire operation in one place. Every aircraft, constraint, and resource is accounted for, allowing planners to simulate scenarios, forecast long-term outcomes, and update schedules in minutes. This integrated and responsive planning approach helps airlines operate at scale.

#2 Short-Term Focus Limits Long-Term Planning and Investment

Most maintenance planning systems are built to manage short horizons, generally one to four years. While this may be enough to keep immediate operations moving, it falls short when airlines need to plan long-term investments in fleet, spares, infrastructure, or sustainability. Without the ability to look 10, 30, or even 50 years ahead, it becomes difficult to assess the true impact of today’s decisions on future readiness and costs.

Digital twin technology allows airlines to simulate long-range operational and environmental scenarios with precision. Planners can forecast demand, test resource strategies, and assess how current decisions will affect future capacity and cost.

For example, they can model whether upcoming fleet retirements will create a capacity gap in five or ten years, or whether current check intervals align with projected maintenance demand across a growing route network.

This kind of long-term visibility helps airlines make smarter investments, avoid reactive decision-making, and stay ahead of emerging challenges.

#3 Experience Gaps and Poor Knowledge Transfer Are Raising Error Rates

The average age of aviation mechanics is now over 50, and retirements are accelerating. As senior staff leave, airlines are losing critical knowledge. Key planning data often sits in silos, spread across spreadsheets, legacy tools, or in people’s heads.

In North America, the industry could face a shortage of over 40,000 mechanics by 2027. Without experienced staff or easy access to shared knowledge, errors are more common and planning takes longer.

A digital twin helps preserve knowledge and make it easier to share. With Aerogility, planning rules, task logic, and maintenance steps are all built into one system. Instead of relying on memory or old documents, new team members can explore how things work and learn as they go.

Planners can see the impact of their choices, and junior technicians can understand how jobs connect. This keeps operations consistent, even as the workforce changes.

#4 Airlines Need Faster “What-If” Scenario Planning to Stay Resilient

When an unexpected event hits, such as an engine inspection directive, a late aircraft delivery, or a regional labour strike, planners must understand the knock-on effect on fleet availability, hangar slots, and revenue. Spreadsheet models struggle in these situations.

Running one new assumption can take days, and the final output often arrives too late to be useful. This can cost grounded aircraft, missed flight rotations, and finance teams waiting for numbers that are not yet available.

A digital twin lets planners simulate changes quickly and compare outcomes in real time. Instead of rebuilding plans from scratch, they can adjust variables directly in the model and see the operational and financial impact within minutes. One of Aerogility’s clients reduced planning time from several weeks to just 15 minutes.

This ability to run fast, clear “what-if” scenarios is a key reason Gartner recently recognised Aerogility as a sample vendor in digital-twin driven AI models. For airlines facing constant disruption, this kind of rapid time-to-value is a major advantage.

#5 Airlines Are Under Pressure to Reduce Costs Without Sacrificing Safety or Uptime

Every planning decision affects cost, whether it involves the size of the spares pool, the timing of maintenance checks, or how resources are allocated. Cutting costs in the wrong place can lead to missed flight hours, longer turnaround times, or reduced reliability. For many airlines, the challenge is finding ways to reduce spend while maintaining high levels of safety and performance.

Aerogility’s digital twin helps planners test cost-saving options without taking risks. Teams can simulate adjustments to inventory levels, staffing efficiency, or maintenance intervals and assess how those changes affect operational outcomes.

One of Aerogility’s clients saved £3 million by removing a landing gear set from its spares pool, while still meeting performance targets. With this kind of modelling, airlines can make leaner, more confident decisions that protect both uptime and margins.

#6 Disconnected Teams and Systems Make Cross-Functional Planning Difficult

Maintenance planning does not happen in isolation. It affects finance, engineering, operations, procurement, and even external suppliers. But in many organisations, each team works in its own system or version of the plan. Updates are shared through spreadsheets, emails, or disconnected dashboards.

This creates delays, conflicting priorities, and misaligned decisions. When something changes, such as a part delivery or a shift in available labour, it can take hours or even days for everyone to catch up.

A digital twin provides a single, up-to-date view of the entire plan. Teams across the organisation can access the same data in real time, see how a change in one area affects others, and align their decisions accordingly. This eliminates version confusion, improves response time, and helps everyone stay on the same page.

#7 Airlines Must Proactively Navigate Regulatory and Sustainability Pressures

Like many industries, the airline sector is under growing pressure to improve sustainability and meet tightening regulatory requirements. Carbon reporting, fuel efficiency, and ESG commitments are now directly shaping investment priorities and operational decisions.

Yet most planning systems do not offer a way to test how choices made today will affect emissions, fuel use, or compliance decades into the future.

A digital twin allows airlines to simulate long-term environmental outcomes and align their strategies with sustainability goals. For example, Rolls-Royce uses Aerogility’s digital twin to assess the carbon impact of global inventory decisions, test the viability of synthetic fuel production under future surge conditions, and explore how to maintain decarbonisation efforts during high-demand periods.

This ability to model complex trade-offs over time gives leadership teams the insight needed to make informed, credible decisions.

How Are Digital Twins Benefiting the Airline Industry Today?

A digital twin is a virtual model that replicates the structure and behaviour of an airline’s real-world operation, including aircraft, spares, maintenance facilities, personnel, and other critical resources. But what makes them truly valuable is how they enable teams to test decisions in a virtual environment before making changes in the real world.

Traditionally, maintenance planning relies on M&E systems; these systems are essential for day-to-day execution, but they are not designed for long-term forecasting, scenario analysis, or strategy development. A digital twin fills that gap. It integrates data from these tools and creates a live, interactive model that shows how different decisions ripple across the fleet and the wider operation.

For example, planners can simulate the impact of a delayed C-check, a new aircraft delivery, or a shortage of skilled labour and instantly see how that affects resource allocation, downtime, and cost. Because the model understands operational constraints, it only allows viable plans, helping teams avoid unrealistic assumptions or over-buffered schedules. This enables faster, more confident decision-making.

In a highly dynamic industry, where small changes can have large downstream effects, digital twins give airlines the ability to plan proactively, respond faster, and get more value from every asset.

Future-Ready Planning Starts with the Right Technology

Airlines today are managing a wide range of operational challenges. Costs are increasing, regulatory requirements are expanding, and workforce changes are affecting day-to-day planning.

Traditional tools often fall short in helping teams make timely, well-informed decisions. Digital twin technology is helping airlines move from reactive decisions to proactive, strategic planning.

Aerogility provides a digital twin platform designed for planning across fleet, maintenance, and sustainability operations. Its solution is trusted by organisations such as Lockheed Martin, SAS, and Rolls-Royce to improve coordination, reduce cost, and support long-term planning goals.

You can connect with the experts at Aerogility at any time to learn how digital twin planning can support your team’s goals and help you get more value from your existing systems.