MROs, eVTOL Manufacturers Begin Collaborating on Maintenance Ecosystem

Urban air mobility (UAM) vehicle manufacturers and MROs are beginning to lay the groundwork for the maintenance ecosystem the industry will need to service electric-vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles.

At Aviation Week’s UAM Virtual event earlier this month, German startup Lilium—which is developing its Lilium Jet eVTOL for operations starting in 2025—noted that it is beginning to create maintenance manuals for the aircraft and collaborate with MROs to identify how the maintenance process will work. Oliver Walker-Jones, head of communications at Lilium, says the company is fairly confident maintenance is “not something that would get in the way of the service we want to offer.”

“We want to operate as much as possible, so you’re talking 10, 12, 14 hours a day, potentially—which is a lot of uptime,” says Walker-Jones. “Obviously, there’s a lot of existing knowledge and expertise in the world of aircraft maintenance. At the moment if you look at the aircraft that we’re trying to maintain, it is substantially different from a lot of aircraft that are out there.”

He notes that the Lilium Jet is much simpler than typical Airbus or Boeing commercial aircraft, with approximately 1,000 times fewer individual parts. “It only has one moving part in the engine, for example, and it has no single points of failure as well, which you see, for example, in a helicopter,” says Walker-Jones. “That reduces the maintenance burden, which is very helpful, and it reduces both the time, the cost and frequency required, but it doesn’t take away the need for maintenance.”

Walker-Jones adds that the shorter journey lengths expected for eVTOLs are an added bonus for maintenance, since it will provide more flexibility to swap out aircraft as needed.

Jaunt Air Mobility, which is developing its Jaunt Journey eVTOL for a targeted entry into service in 2026-27, points out that electric charging infrastructure will be another element to consider for turnarounds.

“Today you have jet fuel that you can store in tanks and there’s really little that can go wrong between taking it from one tank at the airport to the aircraft—it’s just liquid. But [with] energy and electricity, there could be a failure,” says Simon Briceno, head of advanced air mobility, Jaunt.

Briceno notes that one of the keys to ensuring supportability of eVTOL will be working with MROs to develop expertise in repairing electric motors, batteries and novel systems. “The tempo, the utilization and the frequency of operations at any given vertiport in the future are going to be such that you can’t afford to have a downtime,” says Briceno. “We have to ensure that as we grow as an industry on the airframe side, that we’re also providing the education and gaining the experience on the maintenance side so that from day one you have that reliability and ensure that you can keep that tempo of operations consistent from the beginning. It’s truly a group effort here in the ecosystem and, of course, the aircraft is only one part of it.”

A number of MROs are already working to build up expertise in maintenance and repair services for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Earlier this month, AFI KLM E&M subsidiary Barfield joined the Robotic Skies network to provide maintenance and repair services for UAS in its Louisville, Kentucky facility. According to Barfield, it is already equipped with the appropriate test benches and expertise to support UAS and it well positioned to adjust technician knowledge to meet the emerging market.

“The skill requirements and equipment are the same as required of a Part 145 repair facility. You must be extremely experienced in troubleshooting electromechanical components, following detailed schematics and understanding the mechanics of the system,” says John Rogers, senior VP sales and marketing, Barfield. Rogers says Barfield is looking into all UAS platforms, including eVTOL, as the market continues to move in that direction.

Meanwhile, Lufthansa Technik (LHT) is offering a SafeDrone Health service for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). LHT says the cloud-based service helps drone manufacturers and operators monitor the technical condition of their drones by providing data on failures and maintenance recommendations, so repairs can be “carried out at the optimal time rather than too early or in reaction to a critical situation.” It says the service can reduce maintenance costs by 50% or more.

Drone manufacturers Matternet and SwissDrones signed contracts with LHT earlier this year for SafeDrone Health and Klaas Klasen, head of LHT’s UAS Capability Center, says the offering may be expanded further if customer demand arises.

Klasen echoes Lilium’s point about the simplicity of eVTOL compared to traditional aircraft, noting that building up MRO capability for these vehicles’ electric systems could become even more important in the future. “The biggest difference is certainly the lower complexity of the aircraft, especially due to the electric propulsion system,” he says. “Considering the demand that aviation becomes more sustainable, the role of electric/hybrid propulsion may become more important for conventional aviation as well.”