DAE Engineering has held a majority stake in Jordanian MRO Joramco since 2016.
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise’s (DAE) engineering business continued to feel the effects of regional conflict and associated airspace closures during the first half of 2026, despite booking approximately 720,000 maintenance work hours and completing 142 aircraft checks in the first-half (H1) period.
In first-half 2026 results reported in late July, DAE Engineering, which has owned an 80% stake in Jordanian MRO provider Joramco since 2016, remained under pressure from disruption to customer maintenance schedules—illustrating the challenges resulting from conflict in the Middle East since February.
Joramco, which operates its main facility in Amman, Jordan, completed approximately 142 aircraft checks during the H1 period. The company can accommodate up to 24 widebody and narrowbody aircraft, and just under one year ago, it opened the new “Hangar 7” at the site in the Jordanian capital following a $30 million investment.
Despite ongoing regional conflict, the company pointed to a robust pipeline and a healthier outlook for the upcoming northern hemisphere winter 2026-27 maintenance season. DAE CEO Firoz Tarapore said that the winter maintenance pipeline is robust, suggesting some of the weakness could reflect deferred or disrupted maintenance rather than a longer-term decline in demand.
Pressures in the engineering business are in contrast with the relatively resilient performance of DAE’s wider business. The Dubai-based parent company said it has been largely unaffected by the regional disruption at group level, with revenue and profit both increasing modestly during the first six months of 2026.
Revenue rose 2.6% year on year to $865.9 million, while pre-tax profit increased 5.9% to $229.9 million. The pre-tax margin improved by 0.9 percentage points to 26.6%.
Coinciding with its H1 results, DAE announced the closing of its $9 billion acquisition of Dublin-headquartered Macquarie AirFinance from Macquarie Asset Management. The deal will expand the combined fleet to around 1,000 owned, managed and committed aircraft. DAE said the deal will make it the third-largest aircraft leasing company in the world. Pre-acquisition, the DAE fleet stood at approximately 638 aircraft.
Over the next five years, the company plans to add $15 billion of new aircraft assets to its total fleet. Its new Equator platform with Blackstone, announced in April this year, is targeting $1.6 billion of aircraft investment annually, while Mustang Aerospace, launched with Neuberger as an aircraft leasing coinvestment vehicle, targets $6 billion over the medium term. DAE says the two platforms could add around $15 billion of aircraft assets over five years.
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