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ORLANDO, Florida—Delta TechOps and LATAM Airlines Brasil have announced a new long-term collaboration for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services, with an initial focus on Airbus A320 component repair.
The collaboration, announced at Aviation Week’s MRO Americas in Orlando, builds on an existing commercial partnership between the two brands. Under terms of the agreement, Delta TechOps will serve as the sole commercial interface for an initial portfolio of A320 component repair services—that is expected to expand over time—supported at LATAM’s repair facility in Sao Carlos, Brazil.
“We share a common view that there is a need in the market, and there is growing demand,” Sebastian Acuto, VP of Fleet and Projects at LATAM Airlines told Aviation Week. “We have been talking about our complementary capabilities, in order to create something quite unique.”
Beyond the initial A320 scope, “this could evolve eventually into other fleets or other areas,” Acuto said.
Pending regulatory approval in Brazil, the agreement is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2026 with a phased transition of select Delta A320 components to LATAM’s repair facility. Once approvals are in hand, “we’ll start right away with a ramp up, and the idea is to grow over time,” Acuto said. “We are already ramping up our capabilities and hiring.”
Designed to support both Delta’s fleet and the growing needs of third-party customers, the collaboration expands Delta TechOps’ global maintenance network, and “is a real key part of our growth in the third-party MRO space at the moment,” Marc Meredith, SVP and chief commercial operator, Delta TechOps said, here in Orlando. “As we launch forward in that journey, we’ll probably see a number of similar-type arrangements.”
The collaboration with LATAM also allows Delta TechOps to accelerate its own growth as it works to realize future revenue targets, tapping into additional capacity and capabilities. TechOps expects 2026 to be a milestone year for the MRO business, Meredith said, anticipating TechOps can achieve $1 billion in revenue for the first time. TechOps is targeting $2-3 billion in the next couple of years and is projecting it can hit a $5 billion target sometime in the next decade.
For LATAM, the agreement strengthens its maintenance capabilities and expands the role of its Sao Carlos facility in Latin America. “It reinforces our ambition to establish the region as a strategic hub for aviation maintenance, engineering expertise, and innovation,” LATAM Airlines Brasil CEO Jerome Cadier said.
Expanding their commercial relationship will allow both companies to leverage complementary strengths. The conflict in Iran and other industry headwinds are not deterring the two, anticipating their collaboration to be long-term.
“We’ve been in this in this business for a long time, both companies, and we’ve seen lots of challenges during those times, and this is just the latest,” Meredith said. “When you have two premium brands like Delta and LATAM, we’re used to dealing with challenges, and that’s what we do. We feel confident that this will stand the test of time.”
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