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MRO - Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul

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Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul providers (MROs) play an essential role in sustaining the world’s airline fleets. MRO is the blanket term for all the services relating to assuring aircraft safety and airworthiness. It is estimated that the global market is worth up to USD50 billion. MRO providers exist all around the world, with the majority of the market being occupied by North America (35%), Western Europe (26%) and Asia Pacific (17%). Indeed, most of the world’s top 10 MRO providers are headquartered in these regions.

The largest providers typically offer the three main MRO capabilities: airframe, engine and component services. Engine maintenance makes up the largest proportion of the global market (35%), followed by component (22%) and airframe heavy maintenance (13%). Line maintenance accounts for just over one-fifth of the global market (22%), with modifications making up the balance. Most major providers cater only for only commercial customers with the minority offering services to government and defence clients. Maintenance accounts for approximately 10% of airlines’ costs.
MRO providers can be categorised into four groups: in-house (e.g. Qantas Engineering); independent third party (e.g. ST Aerospace); airline third party, which serve both their parent airline and other clients (e.g. Iberia Maintenance); and Original Equipment Manufacturers, or OEMs (e.g. Honeywell).

In the past, most maintenance work was conducted in-house, with a movement in the 1990s towards outsourcing the work to independent and airline third party providers, led by the emerging LCCs. These days, the majority of line maintenance is conducted in-house. Engine services continue to be dominated by OEMs with other providers holding an evenly-divided share, with component services divided in a roughly equal proportion. Airframe maintenance is mainly conducted in-house, with a negligible contribution from OEMs. Most airlines which outsource work to a third party do so to allow them to focus on their core business, commercial flying.