Outsourced maintenance, repair, and overhaul
Options are availabe from both OEMs and independent service providers.
By Owen Davies
Contributing Writer
Pro Pilot has covered the maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) scene thoroughly over the years – most recently in September 2025. Next September edition will offer an in-depth look at the industry.
What follows is a backgrounder for that story – a status update, a quick survey of the major MRO organizations, and a summary of the forces now shaping aircraft maintenance.
Let’s begin by getting a sense of this marketplace. It’s big. The global business aircraft fleet is approaching 25,000 jets – and growing by roughly 600 per year. Some 15,000 are based in the US. Worldwide, MROs do about $90.5 billion in business annually.
At a rough guess, business jets account for more than $20 billion. One lower-end estimate valued the US market at $7.7 billion in 2024. Some $12 billion seems more reasonable. Either way, it would make a lump under your sofa cushions.
Bombardier (L), Daher (R)
Add close to 40,000 civil helicopters. In the US there’s more than 14,000 units. Keeping all those parts flying in formation earns the sling-wing specialists about $9 billion a year in the US – perhaps $25 billion globally.
MRO comprises 5 segments. Engine work contributes about 32% of revenues. Airframe heavy maintenance is second at 23%. Component repair provides 22%. Line Maintenance and AOG garner 13%. And avionics and modifications yield the remaining tenth.
Predictably, the larger aircraft categories provide the greatest revenue. Large cabin jets account for some 30% of MRO earnings. Super midsize and midsize jets deliver 28% and 22%, respectively. Light jets yield about 8%, and VLJs contribute about 12%.
The best of frenemies
Independent MROs rely on the OEMs for parts and certifications, and often carry out warranty work under contract to airframers and engine makers. They also take business that OEMs would love to keep for themselves. All the airframers have extensive MRO networks to maintain and repair their products.
• Bombardier’s include 14 service centers in the US, and 15 more around the world.
• Dassault Falcon offers service at 8 company-owned and 6 authorized facilities in the US, 16 shops in Europe, and 9 in smaller markets.
• Embraer owns 5 executive jet service centers and has 25 authorized MROs in the US. It owns 3 major centers in Latin America and partners with 7 more. It owns a line maintenance station in Europe and has 28 authorized facilities there and in other regions.
Embraer (L), Airbus Helicopters (R)
• Gulfstream’s service network includes 10 company-owned centers in the US and 1 in the UK, plus 6 factory authorized service centers owned and operated by sister company Jet Aviation, and 26 independently owned and operated maintenance operations.
• Textron Aviation services its aircraft at 11 company-owned centers in the US, 6 service centers in Europe, 2 in Australia, and 1 in Singapore. Add 2 dozen line stations/Mobile Service Units for AOG incidents in the US, 2 in Europe, and 1 in Canada.
Bizliners, whether Boeing or Airbus, receive warranty work and other maintenance from contract service companies.
Airbus works with 2 in the US, 2 in Switzerland, and 1 each in Turkey, Dubai, and Singapore. Boeing contracts with 7 companies with branches in the US, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, China, and the UAE.
Turboprops
• Daher operates 2 primary maintenance centers for its turboprops – one at its final assembly site at
LDE (Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees, Juillan France), and one at PMP (Pompano Beach FL).
Dassault Aviation
They also offer a global network of 54 authorized service centers covering Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region.
• Pilatus has 3 company-owned service centers – one at its Swiss headquarters, one in Colorado, and one in Adelaide, Australia. In addition, there are 28 contract service centers in North America, 20 in Europe, 6 in Central and South America, 4 in Asia, 4 in Australia, and 1 each in South Africa and New Zealand.
• Piper delivers support through 90 authorized service centers around the world. Among others, they include 23 in the US, 3 in Canada, 5 in Latin America, 24 in the UK and Europe, and 1 each in Armenia, South Africa, Singapore, Japan, and Australia.
Rotary-wing service
Support for helicopters is widely distributed. If manufacturers do not operate their own service centers, they authorize a broad network of independent MROs.
• Airbus has 20 service centers around the world and partners with 96 independent MROs.
• Bell operates 14 service centers, including 5 in the US. Also available are 64 independently owned customer service centers and 14 MROs authorized for field service on certain models.
• Enstrom authorizes 20 MROs in the US and 1 in Mexico to service its helicopters.
• Leonardo has a network of more than 850 authorized service centers around the world.
• MD Helicopters contracts with 40 authorized service centers, including 18 in the US.
• Robinson Helicopters operates a network of nearly 300 service centers, including 112 in the US.
• Sikorsky operators can get help at 22 authorized service centers around the world.
Independent MROs
There are somewhere between 3000 and 4000 independent MROs in the US alone. The number of shops in other countries is even less certain, but most observers guess that the US is home to a modest majority of the world’s MROs. The largest operators include:
• Duncan Aviation, with 3 full-service MROs, 20-plus satellite facilities, and a nationwide network of avionics shops. The company handles thousands of bizjets annually from all major airframers, plus a wide variety of engines.
• StandardAero overhauled its first aircraft engine in 1930. Although it supports airframes from most makers, its specialty is engines and APUs from Honeywell, GE, P&WC, and Rolls-Royce.
• Jet Aviation, based in Basel and owned by General Dynamics, operates 45 maintenance shops, including 12 in the US, 9 in Europe, and 10 in Australia.
• West Star Aviation got its start almost 80 years ago. Today it operates 4 full-service shops and 5 satellite locations.
• Constant Aviation/Flexjet Technical Services can handle anything from major structural repairs to paint, avionics, and engine line work on Bombardier, Embraer, Gulfstream and Nextant aircraft. Its extensive AOG/mobile repair operation is particularly well-regarded.
Striking a balance
Working with the airframer offers aircraft operators significant advantages over using an independent MRO. OEMs know their aircraft from the design data on.
They can update maintenance programs based on reliability data not available to independent service providers. Their work automatically meets company standards, so the manufacturer’s name can add dollars to the resale price when the time comes to trade up.
These benefits have given OEM shops almost 45% of the MRO market. Of course, this means that independent MROs own more than 55% of their market. There are reasons for this. One is simple numbers. As we established earlier, there are a lot of independent shops. Parts are another factor.
During a shortage, the manufacturer gets first access to new inventory. Yet, for the aircraft operator, this is not always a benefit. If a new part isn’t available, the OEM shop will twiddle its thumbs until one is delivered. That can add up to a lot of expensive downtime. Independent MROs are more flexible.
Bell Helicopters (L), Leonardo (R)
They routinely use PMA parts and sometimes yellow-tagged components. Some have even bought donor aircraft to guarantee access to used parts when nothing else is available. These options can cut downtime from months to a few days, and the parts will be cheaper.
You may even need less work at an independent shop. OEMs tend to deliver standard service packages, even when some included parts are not needed. Independents are a lot more likely to quote discrete jobs, saving on parts costs and working hours.
Their shop rates are likely to be lower as well, and they often have a corporate culture that emphasizes personalized service, fast response times, and direct access to decision-makers.
They are even more helpful for operators with mixed fleets. If you have nothing but Falcons, Dassault Falcon’s company-owned shops can handle all your aircraft.
But if you own a HondaJet, a Citation Longitude, and a Gulfstream G650, you will need to deal with 3 OEM service centers – or 1 well-chosen independent MRO.
Overall, OEM service is probably the best choice for an aircraft’s first owner, especially if the plan is to trade it when the warranty expires.
Seeing the OEM’s name on the service records is likely to encourage potential buyers. For those with multi-maker fleets, high cost sensitivity, or older aircraft, the balance often tips the other way.
Agents of change
OEMs are trying hard to grow their slice of the MRO pie. Bombardier, Dassault, Embraer, and Gulfstream all are investing heavily in service centers.
In the past 4 years, most have increased their capacity by 40 to 50%. This has made a difference in the bottom line. Bombardier and Gulfstream have been reporting services growth in the high double digit percentages. And at last word, GE projected 15 to 20% annual growth in aftermarket services.
Embraer has been especially ambitious. In 2023, the company announced that it might develop a company-agnostic MRO capacity so that it could maintain mixed fleets for its customers.
So far, its only brand expansion has been setting up a shop to maintain Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines at its OGMA subsidiary in Portugal.
The new business is expected to triple OGMA’s revenue by 2030. Embraer has doubled its MRO facilities in the US from 3 to 6.
It also added 28 more mobile response teams and shop space for interiors, paint, and component repairs. The company is working to double its executive jet MRO capacity at LBG (Paris-Le Bourget, France) by next year. It has also announced final negotiations to launch another big MRO at an undisclosed site.
Pro Pilot readers already know about the issue in the MRO market – a growing shortage of personnel. Maintenance labor costs used to grow by 2 to 3% annually. More recently, labor costs have grown by 7.3% in 2023, 6.6% in 2024, and another 5.8% in 2025. They will rise steadily in the years ahead.
Duncan Aviation (L), West Star Aviation (R)
Today’s aircraft technicians will not be available much longer. According to one estimate, 86% will retire or leave the industry by 2034. CAE’s 2025 Aviation Talent Forecast predicts that MROs will require 347,000 new commercial and 69,000 new business-aviation technicians over that period.
Where to find them is far from clear, but but successful programs ease the personnel shortage – at least temporarily. Many MROs are recruiting trainees fresh out of high school, and will offer them contracts to remain with the company for a few years after completing the program.
To a limited degree, technology will help ease this shortage. Predictive maintenance will make it easier to anticipate repairs and schedule maintenance slots when it is convenient.
Augmented reality training and maintenance manuals will help new techs learn their jobs and ensure that work is done to standard. Yet, it will be some years before robots can overhaul a hot section. Labor problems will be with us for as long as most fleet managers and many pilots remain on the job.
Owen Davies is a veteran freelance writer specializing in technology. He has been a futurist at Forecasting International and TechCast Global.