Top 10 Airframe MROs

ST Aerospace, which logged 12 million airframe maintenance man-hours, has capacity to accommodate 36 widebody and 29 narrowbody commercial aircraft simultaneously. The MRO completes Boeing 757-200 passenger to freighter conversions at its facilities in Singapore and the U.S., and it has redelivered 120 out of 144 contracted so far.

In addition to providing 11.7 million airframe maintenance man-hours at its facilities around the world in 2014, the Haeco group also logged more than 4 million line maintenance hours. One of Haeco’s three widebody hangars in Hong Kong is featured here. It also has facilities in the U.S. and China.

AAR operates six facilities in the U.S. and plans to open another one in Rockford, Illinois, in late 2016 or early 2017. In 2014, it performed 4.9 million maintenance man-hours and is now seeing an upswing in requests for interior modifications, landing gear overhauls and widebody MRO.

AFI KLM E&M logged 3.6 million airframe maintenance man-hours in 2014, including work for Air France and KLM. It completed third-party airframe MRO at its facilities in Paris; Amsterdam; Norwich, England; and Morocco.

Lufthansa Technik’s group of 21 companies generated $4.8 billion in revenue and performed 3 million airframe maintenance man-hours last year. Engine and component MRO generate most of its sales, but its airframe business is still expanding, as evidenced by plans to open a narrowbody hangar for heavy checks in July. 

Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co. (Gameco) has capacity for up to seven widebodies, 14 narrowbodies and three aircraft in for paint simultaneously. It also plans to add a massive hangar that could hold six widebodies and four narrowbodies. It performed 2.9 million airframe maintenance man-hours in 2014.

Turkish Technic’s airframe maintenance man-hours increased 6% in 2014, to 2.9 million, compared to the previous year. Based at Istanbul’s Ataturk and Sabiha Gokcen Airports, Turkish Technic, the MRO arm of Turkish Airlines, performed nearly 900,000 line maintenance hours at those airports last year, as well.

Evergreen Aviation Technologies, based in Taiwan, accomplished 2.2 million airframe maintenance man-hours in 2014 and generated $465 million in third-party revenue in 2014. It expects GEnx engine repairs and Boeing 787 airframe maintenance to fuel the greatest growth over the next two years.

Aviation Technical Services logged 2 million maintenance man-hours in 2014 from its facilities in Everett and Moses Lake, Washington, and in Kansas City, Missouri.

Sabena Technics, which is based in Paris but operates out of 15 sites, performed more than 2 million airframe maintenance man-hours in 2014 and generated nearly $400 million in revenue. Early this year, it started a 15-year contract with Airbus that calls for painting 80 A320s per year.