Autopilot Systems Market to Grow at 4.7% CAGR to 2020

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The global autopilot systems market 2016-2020 report says technological advancements will be a key trend for market growth. The incident of aircraft MH 370 missing has created ample chaos in the commercial aviation industry as the reasons for its disappearance still remain undetected. Keeping such events in view, the aerospace companies are developing their R&D technologies to prevent future aircraft accidents.

The analysts forecast global autopilot systems market to grow at a CAGR of 4.7% during the period 2016-2020. According to the autopilot systems market report, one of the key drivers for market growth will be increasing demand for automation. Automation enhances flight operational safety and efficiency through providing low operating costs and greater profits. This is especially critical for commercial airlines, which support millions of air travelers. In 2014, the airlines carried passenger traffic of 838.4 million passengers on more than 8.5 million flights, globally. In the same year, a survey of airline pilots was carried out, which reported that the pilots operating Boeing 777s spent just seven minutes manually piloting their aircraft during a flight, whereas, those operating Airbus planes, spent half that time. Thus, the growing demand for automation in aircraft is driving the autopilot systems market.

The growth of the market is fueled by the increasing emphasis on aircraft modernization. Several available next-generation products and systems have raised the demand for aircraft modernization. For example, Airbus and Boeing are currently focusing on the automation of cockpit technology, which will assist the pilot during autopilot mode using sophisticated design solutions. During 2015, the global autopilot systems market was led by the Americas with a market share of more than 37%. The growth of the market in this region is spurred by the need to comply with strict regulations to enhance the safety standards by leveraging modern technology for passengers and airlines.

The autopilot systems market analysts predict that the narrow-body aircraft sector will dominate the market and grow at a CAGR of approximately 6% during the forecast period. The increasing number of fleets of LCCs (low-cost carriers) will bolster the demand for sophisticated and technologically upgraded autopilot systems. This rising demand will also lead to the development of systems offering a wide variety of advanced functionalities like automatic control of payloads, compatibility with hybrid structures, curve-based navigation, and sense and avoid RTK precision, and obstacles and safe flight zones definition.