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HAECO is building what it calls the world’s largest single-span hangar, set to open in 2026 at Xiamen’s Xiang’an International Airport.
Although it has been five years since Inside MRO last published its popular Top 10 MRO survey—and so much in the aviation industry has changed—the top three airframe MRO service providers were the top three in 2019, too. ST Engineering remains the largest airframe MRO, HAECO secures the second spot and MRO Holdings claims the third.
This year’s Top 10 MRO survey, based on 2023 data, resets our popular feature, focusing more on what the major players are doing and what changes to expect in airframe maintenance, as opposed to how their numbers have changed since the last survey. As 2023 global airline traffic came close to 2019 levels, it seems like a good year from which to establish a new baseline for this survey, which first appeared in this magazine in 2001.
You will notice two big MROs that usually participate—AFI KLM E&M and Lufthansa Technik—did not provide 2023 figures. However, based on their reported 2023 revenues of $4.7 billion and $7.2 billion, respectively, both probably would make the list. In 2019, Lufthansa Technik produced 5.6 million airframe labor hours and AFI KLM E&M provided 3.7 million (Inside MRO May 2019).
The common theme among MROs that responded to our queries is that capacity is tight. That is not surprising: Passenger traffic demand is strong, airlines have extended the use of older aircraft as OEMs continue to struggle with aggressive ramp-ups, and service bulletins and airworthiness directives have prompted unexpected aircraft downtime. On top of all that, while increased demand for MRO is good, labor and supply chain constraints exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic are still causing headaches.
For airframe MROs, “build it and they will come” is no longer a hangar strategy. Securing anchor customers and a labor force to perform the work must come first.
The big are getting bigger through three pathways: increasing capacity, focusing on efficiencies to gain capacity, or both. Each option brings new capabilities.
Capacity and Capability Expansion
Many hangars are under construction, and these will greatly increase airframe maintenance capacity by our next Top 10 biennial survey.
ST Engineering has three new facilities in the works. In the U.S., it is building its third hangar in Pensacola, Florida. The MRO expects to generate an additional 500,000 labor hours annually after the 167,000-ft.2 facility, which can accommodate two widebodies, becomes fully operational in the second half of 2026.
In Asia, ST Engineering is building a greenfield airframe MRO with joint-venture partner SF Airlines in Ezhou, China, set to open by 2025. The company also is building another airframe MRO facility in Singapore at Changi Creek, which will add 1.3 million labor hours annually when finished.
To keep up with aircraft maintenance demand, ST Engineering recently added airframe MRO regulatory approval for the Airbus A350 and Boeing 737 MAX, and it is pursuing new approvals for aircraft such as the Boeing 787-10.
MRO Holdings, which operates 91 narrowbody lines at four facilities—the largest being Aeroman with 45 lines—expects to add almost another million labor hours this year, with the same capacity. The MRO has focused heavily on throughput—getting aircraft out the door on time—while maintaining quality, safety and compliance, CEO Greg Colgan said in June (Inside MRO June).
Could MRO Holdings add capacity? Possibly. “We continue to evaluate new strategic investments around capacity and capabilities, focused first on our current customer needs and second on the expansion of our customer base,” Chief Commercial Officer Jon Lee says, noting that the near-term focus is developing Airbus A220 and Boeing 787 capabilities while expanding its A330 and Boeing 777 footprint.
Expect Hong Kong-based HAECO’s numbers to be higher in our next biennial survey, given that 2023 was still a recovery year for the company as Hong Kong faced longer COVID travel restrictions than North America and Europe. The HAECO Group logged a profit of HK$400 million ($51.5 million) in the first half of this year, compared to HK$63 million in the same period in 2023.
“Looking ahead, the demand for base maintenance is expected to remain stable,” a company spokeswoman says, adding that engine output and line maintenance work should increase.
HAECO is building a huge hangar at Xiamen Xiang’an International Airport that is expected to open with the airport in 2026. The company says the new hangar—with 12 widebody and six narrowbody bays—will be the largest single-span hangar in the world, as well as its largest investment to date.
AAR anticipates a single-digit growth rate in airframe maintenance labor hours this year, but that figure should increase after the company expands two hangars.
AAR is adding 114,000 ft.2 to its Miami facility, bringing its hangar footprint there to 440,000 ft.2 by the fourth quarter of 2025 with a $50 million investment. It also is adding three bays to its Oklahoma City facility, expanding that site to 385,000 ft.2 when it is finished in early 2026. “We also continued to drive growth in our heavy maintenance hangars out of our existing footprint,” John Holmes, chairman, president and CEO, said in June.
Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co. (Gameco) operates from a 359,000-m2 (3.86-million-ft.2) headquarters facility in Guangzhou that includes three hangars with 31 heavy maintenance lines. It also provides smaller-scale airframe maintenance from shareholder China Southern Airlines’ hangar at Beijing Daxing International Airport.
By the end of 2025, Gameco plans to open a new hangar with four lines of narrowbody maintenance at Chongqing International Jiangbei Airport. Expect the company to establish a Comac C919 maintenance capability within the next two years and possibly offer Boeing 777 passenger-to-freighter conversions. For the latter, “preliminary negotiations and technical analysis have been conducted with different [supplemental type certificate] holders,” Gameco General Manager Marc Szepan says.
Szepan predicts increased demand for widebody maintenance over the next two years as airlines expand their international networks and use larger aircraft to meet passenger demand.
Etihad Engineering recently acquired a widebody hangar in Abu Dhabi, where it is building two new hangars that will add three lines of widebody maintenance, says David Doherty, vice president of commercial. “We have another two phases of development in planning that will take us up to 2030, which will add a further two hangars, adding another three lines of widebody capability and four lines of narrowbody capability,” he notes, adding that the MRO also is “looking at international expansion.”
Boeing Shanghai Aviation Services, a joint venture between the OEM, China Eastern Airlines and the Shanghai Airport Group, did not provide airframe maintenance labor hours but said it is building a new hangar in Shanghai that will accommodate four widebodies and two narrowbodies simultaneously. It expects to complete that hangar, with an investment of 850 million yuan ($121.1 million), by the end of 2025.
Evergreen Aviation Technologies (EGAT) in Taiwan intends to expand its heavy maintenance capabilities to include the widebody A350 and narrowbody 737 MAX. Kin Chong, the company’s executive vice president of business coordination, sees three MRO services generating the largest growth over the next two years: structural repairs driven by service bulletins and airworthiness directives, supplemental structural inspections and interior fresh activities.
In Europe, LOT Aircraft Maintenance Services, which completed 572,200 airframe maintenance labor hours in 2023, should post a higher figure in our next survey, too. The company is adding two MRO bases in Rzeszow, Poland, the first of which should start operating in November. That hangar's area will be 9,458 m2. The second hangar, with 11,500 m2, should open in December 2025.
While Lufthansa Technik chose not to provide its labor hours, it did say its strategic plan calls for “investing extensively in the expansion of the core business, expanding sites and the international presence in [Europe, the Middle East and Africa]; the Americas; and [the Asia-Pacific region].” That includes establishing a site in southwestern Europe to repair engine and aircraft components.
Technology and Throughput
In addition to building infrastructure to gain capacity, MROs are investing heavily in technology to increase efficiency. Watch for a separate Inside MRO article on these initiatives, but here are a few that are underway.
EGAT is looking into automation equipment to help reduce turnaround times for labor-intensive paint activities, Chong says.
As part of its focus this year on making throughput times more predictable, MRO Holdings is investing in technology tools across its facilities. This includes enterprise-wide implementation of the SAP S/4HANA financial suite and SAP SuccessFactors human resources management software.
Gameco has many projects, including using automated tool and material delivery systems, as well as smart cabinets for parts and tools. The company also is deploying an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven hangar planning management system, Szepan says.
HAECO has several technology initiatives of its own underway, including exploring whether AI could help with nonroutine tasks and material prediction for aircraft base maintenance, which could shorten turnaround times and free up capacity. It also started a pilot project for drone aircraft inspections in June at its facility in Lake City, Florida.
One of many technology projects underway at ST Engineering is leveraging AI for operations and increasingly using robotics to automate routine tasks.
AAR, too, has technology programs in the works, including the Digital MRO app that digitizes workflow from initial inspection to signoff, as well as digital task cards.
Component Growth
Component repair is a strategic growth goal for several MROs in our survey. This is not surprising given the market’s supply chain constraints over the past few years, airlines’ desire to minimize downtime and costs and higher margins in component and engine MRO compared with airframe.
Gameco expects surging demand for component overhaul and repair, Szepan says, including a variety of aircraft systems and components such as “avionics, landing gear, hydraulics, pneumatics and accessories.”
MRO Holdings anticipates “significant organic and strategic growth in components,” Jon Lee says, and Etihad Engineering sees higher demand for component overhaul “especially as the used serviceable material (USM) market continues to introduce additional material,” David Doherty says.
Meanwhile, AAR expects component services, thanks to its March acquisition of Triumph Group’s product support business, to generate the largest MRO growth over the next couple years.
Aviation Technical Services foresees a bigger need for component services, too. With that in mind, it has combined its component repair, USM and asset trading, and Parts Manufacturer Approval (PMA) design and manufacturing businesses into a single component and engineering solutions team, leveraging these cross-functional groups to provide customers with broader yet streamlined options.
An ATS representative says the company also plans to add A220 and 787 component capabilities, proactively support new airworthiness directive and service bulletin requirements, investigate repair prevention products such as supplemental type certificate programs and develop structural-related PMA to help customers reduce heavy aircraft maintenance costs.
By Inside MRO’s next biennial Top 10 MRO survey, scheduled for 2026, several of these capability and capacity introductions should have come to fruition, generating more airframe labor hours. Digitalization rolling out across the industry will offset some of those labor hours, but that is a good thing.
One positive change since the last survey: Airlines are booking longer-term contracts with airframe MROs. Base loading helps these MROs better allocate labor and material, which is especially helpful in today’s market. And having longer-term relationships benefits both parties.
TOP 10 MRO METHODOLOGY
To compile this survey, Inside MRO contacted more than 70 MROs around the world to get a barometer of industry trends. The biennial survey asks for the number of airframe maintenance labor hours performed on civil aircraft on an annual basis. If the MRO is affiliated with an airline, the survey asks companies to report both maintenance labor hours performed for its parent, or affiliated airline, as well as those for third parties.
MROs in our Top 10 must have an active third-party business—including airframe MRO—to be included, so if they concentrate on component or engine MRO, for example, they do not figure in this survey. In addition, we separate out line maintenance figures, so those are not included in the airframe maintenance labor hours. Most of the airframe labor hours figures are not publicly available; we rely on the companies surveyed to provide accurate information.
Inside MRO published its last Top 10 MRO report in May 2019 (Inside MRO May 2019). This is typically a biennial survey, but in 2021 the COVID-19 pandemic was still heavily affecting global airline traffic, and we did not feel that had rebounded enough to provide a steady base in 2022. Hence, at the conclusion of 2023, we felt that year would provide a good baseline from which to resume this important industry survey.
Overhaul & Maintenance (Inside MRO’s original name) published its first Top 10 survey in June 2001. It was limited to North American companies that provided commercial or defense MRO and was based on annual labor hours.
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