Podcast: How MRO Changed In 2025—Biggest Stories And Breakthroughs

Aviation Week's James Pozzi, Lee Ann Shay, Lindsay Bjerregaard and Sean Broderick look back at 2025 and reflect on the biggest stories and breakthroughs in the MRO world.

Watch a video version of this podcast here.

• Is Parts Integrity Finally Having Its Moment?
• Supply Chain Integrity Coalition Shifts Gears 
• Rolls-Royce Unveils China MRO Joint Venture
• How Stability, Slots And Strategy Are Reshaping Base Maintenance
• Schools Say FAA Testing Hurdles Are Stifling MRO Workforce Growth

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AI-Generated Transcript

James Pozzi:
Welcome to the MRO podcast. I'm James Pozzi, Aviation Week's MRO editor for the EMEA region. And today we are looking at the year that was, and picking out the main stories as covered by our editorial team in the commercial MRO industry in 2025. So joining me today are Lee Ann Shay, executive editor for MRO and business aviation at Aviation Week; Lindsay Bjerregaard, managing editor for MRO at Aviation Week; and Sean Broderick, Aviation Week's safety editor. Lee Ann, Lindsay, Sean, thanks for joining us.

Lindsay Bjerregaard:
Thanks, James. Thank you. Good to be here.

James Pozzi:
Brilliant. Lee Ann, we'll start with you. Of course, you have traveled all over the world attending events and press conferences, covering a broad range of stories. What, in your opinion, is the number one main story you have covered this year, either in terms of importance or perhaps your favorite story? What would you say?

Lee Ann Shay:
James, thanks for the question. When we were thinking about what our end-of-the-year podcast would be, instead of making predictions, we thought, let's just look at our favorite story. And mine kind of goes around the whole October issue of Inside MRO when we, as an editorial team, start thinking about a new year. We create an editorial calendar, and usually that happens in July or August of the previous year. So the October issue theme or the cover story theme was rethinking base maintenance.

So then, when we get there a year later, we think we don't have an entire plan, but we look, analyze the questions and the trends. James and I wrote the cover story, and we interviewed, shoot, 12 to 15 people over the course of a few months and just tried to put it all together. So it's almost like a vegetable soup—what is it going to taste like?

We came out with supply chain efficiencies, processes, technology, and then we threw in some tariffs and some economic factors as well. And it was really fascinating. I think my big takeaway was just after several years of talking about supply chain and capacity constraints and problems in the MRO industry, it was nice to put this all together and see that there are a lot of positives in the MRO industry. It really comes down to de-risking businesses, growing to be able to handle that extra capacity, and then putting it into focus.

And one other thing: at the end, when we're about ready to send the issue to the printer, I write the editor's letter, and this is always the last thing. Lindsay has a lot of patience with me because this is always the last thing that goes inside MRO. Sorry about that, Lindsay. I ate breakfast that morning, and I always do Wordle. And I was thinking, like, okay, if I had a Wordle word—a five-letter word—what would my word be for this issue? And it really is "focus."

And then I took it, and again, it's this kind of de-risking, focusing. But when you look at even maintenance planning, Qatar Airways is looking into, instead of just the base maintenance planning, taking it down to not just tasks but breaking it into smaller chunks and even being able to get it to hour by hour. And the senior vice president said it might sound counterintuitive to take it down to that more granular level, but it actually increases productivity and increases safety as a benefit.

So that would be my favorite story. I think there were just a lot of lessons learned and positive angles to a lot of hard things that the industry has been executing.

James Pozzi:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, base maintenance is one of those areas of the market that maybe is obviously continuous and the demand's always steady, but it's good to highlight, I guess, some of the processes and innovation too. I think there's a lot of that happening in base maintenance, which maybe doesn't always get covered at events compared to other topics, of course, that we cover so much.

I was thinking, Lindsay, of course, you are one of the industry's foremost experts in training in MRO and emerging tech as well. So you've covered a lot of stories around those areas among many other things this year. What would you pick out as some of the highlights of 2025 in these areas?

Lindsay Bjerregaard:
Well, you nailed it on the head there, James. I was going back and forth about whether I wanted to pick a workforce-related story or a technology-related story for this, but I settled on the story that I wrote for the June issue of Inside MRO that is essentially about barriers in the U.S. for technicians testing to get their airframe and powerplant licenses.

So prior to going to the Aviation Technician Education Council (ATEC) annual conference earlier this year, I had known that there were some difficulties for people who wanted to become technicians here in testing. It's a long process, it's expensive, it's time-consuming, that sort of thing. But I really did not have any idea just how acute the problem was.

And so when I was at the ATEC conference, I was in a session that was talking about legislative priorities for that group, and it essentially just devolved a little bit into various schools complaining about the one company that's got what they claim is a monopoly on testing centers for technicians. The company's called PSI. One school in the room even said, "I think we all have a little PSI PTSD," and people laughed. And so I was like, huh, maybe this is a story.

So I started talking to different schools, quite a few of them actually, all across the country, and was pretty surprised to find that every single one, for the most part, had the exact same complaints about issues that they were dealing with. So this ranged from difficulty setting up testing centers where students are able to go and take their written exams, technology glitches with the system, increased costs for students and for schools that are running these testing centers, et cetera.

So the story kind of became a little bit of a beast. I spent a lot of time just manually looking through databases and comparing locations and numbers of testing centers versus schools in different areas of the U.S. And on top of that, in the research for this, I also started to realize that the DME shortage was a similar problem. So DMEs—designated mechanic examiners—those are the trained, experienced people who essentially proctor the oral and the practical tests that technicians have to take.

I was finding out that there's such a shortage that students were sometimes driving hours across state lines or even flying. I found out that students in Hawaii have to fly to the mainland U.S. to take these tests. So I hadn't realized just how big the problem was.

And the article actually got, I think, quite a response from the community, and I was really happy to find out that in September, ATEC had their fly-in event in D.C., and both PSI and representatives from the FAA came to that event. They showed up to talk to the schools about how the situation can be improved. And I get the impression now that things are moving in a more positive direction. So I guess I feel like the story actually had a bit of an effect in the industry. It's something that I certainly didn't know about, and I think a lot of people also did not know about. So it just was a lot of work, but I felt like it all came together for a positive change.

James Pozzi:
Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. Very interesting, and it'll be interesting to see what the developments in those areas are heading into 2026. But so far, for the two of our editors, it seems from the stories they covered and parts of the industry, there is that kind of positive spin heading into 2026, which is never a bad thing for this industry.

Of course, bringing in Sean, the safety editor, you've been front and center, of course, for a lot of the stories that come to mind. I guess regulatory developments, obviously, but also I guess some of the key fixes related to various engine programs and everything surrounding that. But from your side and the things you cover, what has been, I guess, the one or two big stories for you this year?

Sean Broderick:
So for me, engine-related and safety-related, but maybe not what you might've been thinking I'd pick. For me, the most interesting and enduring story of last year really dates back a couple of years and has been parts integrity. And so where we started to focus on that—and certainly not the beginning of the story, but where the story sort of grabbed headlines—was back in 2023 with the AOG Technics scandal, where parts were being sold with paperwork that was falsified.

So what that did was really jumpstart an effort that had been going for years, really, to try to get the industry on the same page, settling on ways to document parts, ideally when they go out the door when they're made, but at the very least to collect data on them when they're in service and try to fill in any gaps, do it in a way that's digital, and where those digital records can be passed on from user to user, to MRO shops, to operators to ensure that a part is what the vendor or what the distributor says it is.

So I wrote a big feature for, I guess it was the September cover story, where it talked about some of the progress that has been made at the urging of the Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition, which was formed as a result of the AOG Technics situation. But the most interesting part to me is not so much what needs to be done to close some of the safety issues; it's how industry can benefit from implementing some of these things.

Electronic airworthiness release certificates is one. Another one is getting data on parts from birth and then as they're going through their service life. Parker Aerospace is in a big collaboration with GE and CFM on LEAP fuel nozzles. So the LEAP fuel nozzle has a sort of on-wing challenge related to coking. CFM has addressed the issue by developing a reverse bleed system that's going on both the LEAP-1A's and the 1B's and the 1C's to solve the issue.

But in the meantime, you have fuel nozzles that need to be removed before the original projected limit. What Parker is trying to do is get data from operators so they can help get data from GE, get data from operators so they can tell the operators, "Hey, here's when you need to get in there and get those nozzles removed." So be proactive versus reactive.

That is not so much a safety issue, but it's not necessarily a parts integrity issue. It's a predictive maintenance issue. And Parker's really leaning in heavily, trying to leverage the opportunity in the spotlight that the AOG Technics saga created to advance some of this. Every nozzle that goes out, they have a record of it from birth. The ones that are in service, they're trying to get service information from the operators so they can dial in and say, "Okay, if that nozzle is there and there's the environment you've been operating in, here's when you're probably going to have to go in there and remove those."

So those are the kinds of things that come from a difficult situation—in this case, thankfully not an accident, but certainly a safety issue—that have long-term benefits and tangible benefits to the industry that go far beyond risk mitigation.

So I think that story is really just beginning. Again, it didn't begin with AOG Technics. We have companies—G Telesis is one, and there are many others or a handful of others—working on systems that they hope industry will embrace. And it's going to be interesting to follow that not just in 2026 but beyond, because it's really something that I think is long overdue for the industry to recognize that there are not just issues here, but opportunities here. And so we're starting to see that shift as a result of the AOG Technics issue. Opportunities are being spotlighted. So it's been a fun story to cover, and I'll look forward to collaborating with you folks and keeping the coverage going.

James Pozzi:
No, we look forward to it, Sean. Of course. Yeah, you said not just 2026, but way beyond, of course, with parts integrity being a very important issue and one that will no doubt develop further next year and beyond.

As said, before we go, I just wanted to throw in—I thought the big, or one of my favorite things to cover this year, and I'm cheating a little bit because I'm combining it together—it is the engine aftermarket, of course, and I guess the OEM and, let's not forget, the independent and airline shops. Not just expansions, but I guess the network expansions for certain engine programs.

This hasn't just been confined to the LEAP and the GTF, although they've been prominent this year in terms of that development, with several companies adding capability there, but also in the widebody space. I'd say Rolls-Royce, of course, the British engine manufacturer, has been incredibly prominent this year.

I think the main story of the year from their side was their first mainland shop in China opening only a few weeks ago for several Trent engine types. That's obviously their first shop in mainland China. And also they're expanding in the Middle East with Emirates, of course, for the Trent 900 network. And of course their Turkish Technic joint venture, which covers the 84K and 97K variants of the Trent XWB engine, that comes online in 2027. And it seems quite a few shops will be online that year, so that—I know it's a couple of years away—but that could be maybe a big year.

But going into 2026, there's definitely more market capacity. Obviously, independents have emerged. AMCO in Cyprus is focusing on a LEAP offload agreement with GE, and they'll eventually have full overhauls in the next few years. That's a big one, having a newcomer on the block there in that space.

Now, of course, in the Middle East, in Abu Dhabi, they've joined the GTF network. And a company that has been very prominent in the commercial segment this year, ITP Aero, of course—we talked about them a lot in the last couple of years. Of course, a former Rolls-Royce business now under the ownership of Bain Capital-led investors, of course, private equity. But they've added two variants, the PW1500G and the PW1900G for the GTF engine, FF34 service capabilities as well.

And as of a few days ago, earlier this week, they acquired Air Norway, of course, a longstanding independent CFM specialist. Of course, CFM56 predominantly is what their capability has been known as for a while. But they're also growing into the LEAP engine, of course, gradually introducing some capability there over the last couple of years.

So they've been one of the prominent companies of the year, I think, and they've been very interesting in that commercial space. They really look to grow that. Of course, they've really, I guess, built their reputation in defense engines—not just manufacturing parts, but maintaining defense engines, regional jets, business jets, et cetera. So that's very interesting for the commercial segment as a whole.

And last but not least, I think Ryanair, of course, in the summertime, I did a few stories with them about potentially going into engine MRO and repairing their engines internally, which was not something anyone could have guessed, given obviously an airline, but also a low-cost airline that's run on that model very successfully.

That business model—so they were obviously a bit biased given my liking for the engine segment. But yeah, they would be the stories that really stand out, I think, just summarizing them there, a handful of those.

Okay. Well, thank you very much, Lee Ann, Sean, and Lindsay. Thank you very much for your insights and, I guess, contributing to the podcast throughout 2025.

This is the last one of the year, and thank you for listening to the MRO podcast. A big thank you to producer Cory Hitt for making us sound great today and throughout the year, of course. Last but not least, a big thank you to our audience for listening and supporting the MRO podcast in 2025, and we look forward to welcoming you back in 2026, where there'll be a lot of interesting things to talk about over the course of the year on a weekly basis. Of course, every Monday is when we deliver that podcast. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, then please leave us a star rating. Thank you very much.