Podcast: Live From MRO Americas 2026

Recorded live at MRO Americas 2026, Aviation Week editors and an analyst talk through the highlights of the big event and discuss MRO in the context of the current geopolitical climate.

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James Pozzi: Well, good afternoon everyone and welcome to this live recording of the MRO Podcast from MRO Americas 2026 in Orlando. I'm James Pozzi, MRO editor for the EMEA region. We're just going to look over some of the show highlights over the last few days. What our editors and of course Dan, who's on the data team, have seen from the show, whether it's news or insights or just stuff they've seen around the show on this very, very expansive floor we're sat in the middle of. So yes. So yeah, of course joining me then today to my right is Dan Williams. He's director of Fleet Data Services at Aviation Week.

Daniel Williams: Thank you very much.

James Pozzi: Finally got the job title right. Lee Ann Shay, of course, executive editor, MRO and Business Aviation. Lee Ann, hi.

Lee Ann Shay: Hello.

James Pozzi: And to Lee Ann's left, Sean Broderick, senior air transport and safety editor at Aviation Week.

Sean Broderick: Good to be here again.

James Pozzi: Always fun to do these in the middle of the show floor, as well. And great to have you all back doing this. So let's start with what you're seeing at the show. Perhaps Dan, to bring us in, of course, what are some of the things you've seen or noticed over the last couple of days?

Daniel Williams: It probably comes as no surprise. And we will get onto, I'm sure, workforce and supply chain because that's my little bell that I normally ring, but-

James Pozzi: Ring that bell.

Daniel Williams: Ring that bell. The biggest topic that I've come across or I've been asked, funnily enough, is about the conflict in the Middle East. It's very difficult. James, you and I have done podcasts about this, other MRO podcasts about this, and Alex Derber. A close friend of the podcast, you could say, it depends were his words, and it's true. It does depend. As we stand here today on day two of the show, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, so happy birthday, MRO Americas, is that we just don't know. The ceasefire has been extended indefinitely. We don't know how long that's going to be. The Strait of Hormuz is still blocked. The war itself is bad, obviously. However, for the aviation industry as a whole, it's actually the Strait of Hormuz that is the important bit. And all the questions that have come of what's next, and we don't really know.

Our take as it stands today is that aside from the Middle Eastern operators, we will probably see an uptick in storage of aircraft. If this is a prolonged period of time, if it's say through the end of the Northern Hemisphere summer. If it ends before that, then maybe not. Maybe we go back to what we were rocking and rolling on beforehand and MRO is very busy for the foreseeable future. But again, we're not going to know this for the next six months. The other question I get asked is what's going to happen with retirements. We may see a couple of aircraft that will retire perhaps a little bit early. We've all seen Lufthansa's announcement that they're going to close an airline and retire some A340s a little bit sooner, but-

Sean Broderick: Very sad.

Daniel Williams: But they were going to be retired in '27 anyway, so they're only pulling forward a little bit. So these are not massive changes yet, but I will be keeping an eye on the storage level of aircraft. That's going to be my indicator, and that's going to be the indicator that people in the room who do engine overhauls especially. Aircraft overhauls, we may see some pushing back of maintenance and rotation of fleets to keep hours and cycles down on them. So we're still in this, it depends. And by the time you even listen to this podcast, it may be different again. So we just don't know. It's changing so rapidly. And let's face it, we've dealt with things like this before. And this time last year, the hot topic was tariffs. It was just before the show. The tariffs had been announced and we're in some ways a similar boat.

It's a different boat, but we're still in that. Let's wait and see.

Lee Ann Shay: Can I jump in there for one quick sec? So yesterday I was moderating a panel with Megan Walsh, who's an investment banker, and someone in the audience asked if ... So back up. Mergers and acquisitions in the aftermarket space have been really robust. This is a growing market and there's a lot of investment money coming in to help some of the smaller companies grow bigger to scale. And they said, "Is the conflict going to affect the rate of mergers and acquisitions?" And she said it might pause it a little bit or maybe slow down some of the closings, but she said it's at this point not going to have a material effect on the macroeconomics of this.

James Pozzi: Yeah, of course that market's been very active in the last few years. And certainly even into this year in 2026, there's been some notable acquisitions in most parts of the market, but I can think off the top of my head some major ones in the engine space and component repairs. We're seeing a lot of activity there too. So that's a very interesting insight actually. Lee Ann, carrying on, what are some of the things that have come to your attention over the last day or two? I know you've been very, very busy here, there and everywhere, either in the conference room or the exhibition floor, and of course at the AMC too.

Lee Ann Shay: Yeah. A lot of artificial intelligence applications, new businesses to help maintenance planning to make documentation easier, to pretty much parts purchasing. AR, John Holmes, chairman, president, CEO, John Holmes, delivered the keynote yesterday. AR announced Airvoyant, a standalone subsidiary, a startup to streamline parts purchasing. And so that's one application, but there's been a whole lot of different AI applications launched, but also a lot of workforce. Usually my colleague, Lindsay Bjerregaard, who is our expert on workforce, she's right there in the red. She's our expert on workforce, but I'm really delighted to report. The AMC competition has 90 teams competing over there. So if you haven't gone over there, please go check it out. 90 teams competing on 29 different events this year. And it's a mixture of A&P student teams, airline teams, MRO teams, military teams. And there are two people over there, a father who is competing on a United Airlines team and his daughter is an A&P school competing against him.

It's got

James Pozzi: To be a first, right, at this event?

Lee Ann Shay: It is. It's a first that we've got a father-daughter competition going on over there. So go check that out. And Aviation Week has hosted a group of students the last several years. And today we have 75 students from local high schools, community colleges and colleges walking around and learning about our industry. And then during the rising stars, I met two gentlemen from the University of South Florida, engineering students who were here just exploring opportunities, thought they wanted to be in automotive, but heard about this event. And so they wanted to see if they could get any job leads. And I'm like, shoot, they've built this car, have structures experience, tolerance. And we talked to them and you could really do really well in the aviation industry. So hopefully we've recruited a few people. So anyway, there's a lot of students walking around today. So if you see them, just embrace them, answer their questions and ... Yeah.

Absolutely.

James Pozzi: I mean, MRO Americas are always likening it to a festival of MRO and also aviation. It's one of the great April traditions now in a lot of our calendars, of course. And the AMC, I would say is the jewel in the crown of this event. It's incredible, the reach of it and how it's grown. And some of the stories you told there are just reflect how broad and how big it is as well.

Lee Ann Shay: Exactly. And I don't know if I should do this on the podcast, but I'm going to. I'm on the board of directors of AMC, so I am biased about this, but we are hoping to bring the competition to MRO Asia-Pacific in 2027. Actually, we're planning on it. So if anybody has any questions about that, let me know.

James Pozzi: Interesting development there. Sean, what are some of the things that have caught your attention, either you've reported on or you've seen in the conference sessions where you've been moderating, of course, and also covering a lot of sessions?

Sean Broderick: Yeah. Well, first, I'm going to add my plug for AMC. Before I came here, I walked through the floor. 450 men and women inspiring and humbling. I can't even get a weed whacker started in the spring. Watching these guys and girls go through just about anything on a task card, safety wiring, fuel nozzle removals, doing it at pace and to compliance. I mean, it's a cool thing to see. If you're listening to the podcast three days from now, whenever we get it out, go look for some of the hype videos and go look for some of the results and learn a little bit about it if you don't, because it's an amazing and super cool thing.

So as for what I've seen, start with what I'm not seeing, and it kind of riffs off of what Dan said, not seeing panic, at least not yet in the industry. And I didn't expect to see it because it is early days, but we've been in sort of an interesting period with the exception of, I would say, the Russian invasion of Ukraine since the recovery from the downturn we've had, as we talk about on every podcast, it seems, not enough new airplanes, old airplanes with maintenance and demand, throw in a couple of other durability issues with some of the new stuff. And the maintenance market's just been, demand has been up. You're walking a tightrope on that because if something fundamental changes like the price of fuel, all of a sudden the [unclear] airplanes, they're only so ... They're maintenance hungry, right? So they cost more to maintain than the newer ones, usually, most of them, depending on the engine types on the newer ones, I suppose.

But in general, that's why you keep them around, you own them already. But the cost to run them on fuel that's gone up, what do you say? It's basically doubled if you look at the crack spread.

Daniel Williams: Yeah. The price of a barrel of oil has gone up 50% from about 65 bucks to 95 bucks, but fuel Jet A has gone up from 100 bucks a barrel to 200 bucks a barrel.

Sean Broderick: If it stays there for a sustained amount of time, and then there's any ripple in demand on buying tickets, we're going to have a whole ... Well, the cycle is going to begin to cycle.

Daniel Williams: Yeah. And just-

Sean Broderick: USM problem is going to be solved as quickly as they can tear down airplanes.

Daniel Williams: And that is true. The whole MRO premise right now is based on demand, travel demand.

Sean Broderick: Well, right. And you could argue that it is right, but we've had some other factors that have helped boost just about everybody in the business. And so I was expecting to see, I guess, a bit more concern here, and I really haven't heard any yet. And it was echoed by the earnings calls, RTX, GE yesterday, Boeing today, no signs of panic and really not even much concern outside of course of the Middle East where that's, as you pointed out yesterday and I wrote about it, made Dan a star by quoting him, pays me like, what are we up to 40 bucks a quote now? I'm making good money right now. Middle East is a different story. Little bit of an outsized impact on widebodies because of the fleet mix there. But beyond that, it's business as usual except for ticket prices. Oh,

Lee Ann Shay: Can I hop in here? I just thought-

Sean Broderick: You're the boss thing.

Lee Ann Shay: No, no, no. This is a team effort, but we have more business aviation people and exhibitors here. So as we saw from COVID, when airlines start not operating so well, et cetera, business aviation only grows. And there's a big pipeline of business aviation jets in a backlog. So when airlines start having some hiccups, that market is still going to be going strong. And especially as some of those jets keep getting bigger and the fleets keep getting bigger and they start bringing maintenance in-house. Some of those operations are starting to kind of look Part 121-ish, not quite, but they're starting to be a conversions and crossover.

Daniel Williams: And just to go back, the bizav community are not also immune to the workforce and supply chain issues. Building new biz jets is also still incredibly difficult right now. It's not reported as much because they don't deliver in the same volume as Boeing and Airbus, and they're not as visible to most of the people as Boeing and Airbus and others, but the reality is that they're held at a different standard because just because somebody extremely wealthy has to wait an extra month or two for their business jet, most people in this room probably don't care about that a great deal. Whereas a big operator waiting a month or two for a 737 or an A320, that becomes a big deal for us the most of the traveling public because it's capacity. And going back to what Sean said, you're right, at $65 a barrel, a CFM56 engine or V2500, the maintenance costs are slightly lower, but the fuel is more expensive.

And when you look at the LEAP as an equivalent, when it's $65, the maintenance is a bit more, but it's more fuel efficient. And now that's moved to 100 bucks a barrel, it moves the pendulum one way. So it makes a big difference.

James Pozzi: Absolutely. And I'd agree with that. People aren't panicking at the moment. I think they're very aware of the issues that could come down the line several months from now if this conflict continues and obviously things are disrupted with the oil price, fuel prices being spiked. I think there's an awareness of the problem. I don't think people are burying their heads in the sand, but I'd agree panic hasn't set in just yet.

Sean Broderick: Well, the moves that have been made, I mean Lufthansa detailed more the impact of some of their moves. They shut down Cityline, they're parking, what, A340s, 600s, two 747-400s, both near and dear to my heart, but that was happening anyway, as we've talked about. So that's not in direct response. I mean, Lufthansa had other fundamental issues that they were already working on before anything happened in the Middle East. So similar ... Well, Alaska's pulled back ... Some of the airlines are pulling back a little bit. And to me, that's the first sign of, okay, now we have watch items. Now we're going to watch utilization. And as you talked about, maybe some older airplanes, a little less shoulder flying for them, right? Fewer cycles. And then maybe you park a few of them, but we're- We're

Daniel Williams: Not there yet.

Sean Broderick: No, but we're closer than we were eight weeks ago, which is someplace we haven't been in a while here.

Lee Ann Shay: Yeah. But also I think we haven't talked about regional airlines. Regional airline schedules are also the one to watch for that.

Sean Broderick: Well, yeah. Well, you mean because of the operating costs of the airplanes? Yeah, wow. Right. Well, yeah. Well, that's a US problem.

Daniel Williams: I think the other thing to look at is, and I talked about this yesterday in the presentation, is the price conscious traveler, because what's going to happen is I've had to learn about fertilizer. As an aircraft forecaster, I'd never thought I'd have to learn about fertilizer, and I've had to learn about it because 20% of the world's fertilizer flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Now, without that fertilizer, and I'm not even talking fuel here, I'm talking about fertilizer. Without that fertilizer, we don't get better crop growth efficiency. So therefore, we don't get better crops or we don't get better yields. So therefore, what we do produce in terms of supply demand curve, there's a little less ... There's less produced, demand stays high for your groceries. I'm rolling this up. So therefore, your grocery weekly shop goes up by X percent. Inflation's going to go up because the price of gas to put in your car has gone up, but also it's going to go up because your weekly food shop is going to go up as well.

So that means those price conscious travelers will have less disposable income to use. So therefore, that is going to affect some of the regional networks because you're right, the cost to operate some of those aircraft is higher because they don't have the RPKs. However, those ultra low cost carriers are in a bit of a pickle potentially because they're in that position where the people who they would traditionally attract because they are all about price. Those operators have got business class and first class. It doesn't matter if you've been on a cost $1 or $1.20 to the people who fly in those classes. So that's not going to be a difference, but those that are price conscious, that could be an impact. And I can think of a certain US airline that's already struggling, right? So does that add weight to their potential issues over the coming weeks, months, summer season?

James Pozzi: Recently came out of Chapter 11…

Daniel Williams: Yeah. Yeah. I think they're kind of yellow.

Lee Ann Shay: But I think it's an important point to make about our industry. The MRO industry has been making a lot of process improvements, a lot of efficiencies. Talk to anybody out there. They're cutting X percentage by doing this, this, and this. It's a continual process. And especially then going back to the AI tools, I really think in the next several months, there's going to be some really good efficiencies that are gained and that's going to help cut down on those costs. So I think that's a bright spot.

Sean Broderick: I think one of the AI tools you're talking about was Alaska's announcement that they invested in ... This is what I get for not bringing out TailSite, tailgate. I don't think it's tailgate. I think it's TailSite. Anyway, a startup software company that got incubated out of a ... This is like Silicon Valley kind of stuff, but it happened out of Austin. Alaska didn't just ... And they identified Alaska's line maintenance optimization as an opportunity. So make sure you have the right amount of technicians scheduled at the right stations and you have the parts there and the tail is actually going to be there. Take a whole bunch of data from that Alaska Airlines has from their scheduling to all the task cards, the work that needs to be done, pull it in and the maintenance schedulers set up a schedule, but then this tool optimizes it and says, instead of doing these 12 tasks in Seattle, you can actually just do eight and these four can be done in Anchorage or wherever.

And all the compliance items are ... I mean, I was very impressed with the tool, but I was more impressed with the fact Alaska's not just buying it. They're investing in the tool and they want to help go and sell the tool. And I'm assuming they're going to make some money from that. But the fact that they're not just a vendor, that they're a partner, to me, a little bit of a different approach than what we see a lot with airlines either trying to develop them internally or they just become a customer. I thought it was interesting, and it's going to be an interesting one to watch as it rolls out. I mean, it's rolling out now, but six to 18 months is what I was told for the Alaska mainline fleet to be on there and real benefits to be reportable.

Daniel Williams: I think collaboration, partnership across our whole industry will in effect help everybody in the grand scheme of things, be that looking after mentor, mentees, be that people collaborating in this room to help make things a little bit easier, a little bit quicker, a little bit better. We see it with the airlines sometimes as well, and we also need to see it with some of these people in this room.

James Pozzi: Yeah. Collaboration's been a ... I mean, it often is, but it's been a recurring word over the last few days, along with diversification in relation to the supply chain and adaptability as well. They're two words that have cropped up a lot as well during the various sessions, usually related to supply chain, of course.

Lee Ann Shay: Lots of bell ringing. Yes. Oh, and I talked to an airline who has a lot of GTF fans, and he said that they have fewer parked. It's not perfect, but the whole supply chain and groundings are ... They're following what Pratt said. It's slow, but it's improving.

James Pozzi: Yeah. And just before the show, it's worth actually the AdvantEdge was upgrade was certified by EASA, MRO Americas, which was quite significant.

Sean Broderick: Speaking of Pratt, we had an interesting interview with their head of aftermarket US, it's what I get for not writing down names. Amish. Amish, right? Amish country, the head of US MRO, I guess. And we talked to them on the same day. They touted $100 million of an investment that they've made recently in three sites. And there were two really big ones or two sizable ones. And then, yeah, West Palm Beach and in Irving, Texas where they're opening the USM, and then there's this little 5% of the money, $5 million go into one of their legacy shops down in Arkansas. And I said to do engine case repair. And I said, "What is this?" They're putting tooling in there, and I guess more than that, software, to do additive manufacturing on engine cases, repairs. And the benefit is going to, starting with the GTF, and the benefit is going to be that they're going to do repairs not just faster and more efficiently, but they're going to be able to do repairs they couldn't do before.

And so if all goes well, the plan is to extend that to other platforms, including, I guess, potentially some legacy ones too, because Pratt's still has a lot of demand on the PW2000, PW4000, and of course on the V2500. But a smart investment like that, it's interesting because the number was little, but to me it was the coolest ... I mean, opening, doubling your USM capacity or whatever they did in Irving, Texas, that's kind of cool. And any investment in a current generation engine shop, also cool. But to me, that was the coolest part of the release because that's something that's a really smart investment, can make a huge difference to customers for a relatively nominal amount of cash, at least $5 million.

James Pozzi: Yeah. GTF developments over the last couple of days have been a lot more showcased than they were last year. I think I mentioned in last year's recording at MRO Americas in Atlanta that a lot of the engine stuff, pretty much all of it really seemed to be focused on the LEAP and the LEAP network developing. But as you mentioned, Pratt, they've invested a lot of $100 million into their US MRO network, and it's ramping up around them as well. ITP Aero, of course, Spanish company based in Bilbao have an MRO shop in Madrid, of course. They're really scaling up to compete in the commercial aftermarket, and they've been doing a lot of stuff over the last years, acquiring BPRO in Dallas, for example, end of last year, they got more exposure to the CFM56 and the LEAP by acquiring Aero Norway in Stavanger, and that's come online, but they're developing more repairs.

They announced, I spoke with Alan Jones earlier, who heads up the MRO operation there, and he said they're developing more GTF repairs because they really want to be established in that market. And they think they're going to end up their first GTF engine either in March or April next year, it's going to come into the shop. So they're bringing that online, of course. They announced they were joining the network at the Paris Air Show last year, as I remember. So yeah, that's kind of developing as well, and they're doing a lot of interesting stuff on there, and you can read all about that on aviationweek.com anytime in the next, well, anytime when you're watching this really. And just on the LEAP as well, I think it's worth mentioning the Premier MRO network, Lee Ann, you reported on that. That's grown. That now has a seventh shop member in the form of Iberia Maintenance, who are now part of that Premier MRO network, following, I think MTU Maintenance, Fort Worth now, not Dallas, Fort Worth operation as well, joining those original five companies when it was announced a year or two back.

So yeah, important and significant developments on those two narrow body programs, but definitely a lot more GTF stories and announcements this year than last year. Excellent. Okay. Well, we've come to the end actually. So yeah, we're going to wrap this up today. So a lot to mull over, but thank you for the insights. Dan, Lee Ann, and Sean, great to have you. Let's do this again. Well, thank you as well for watching and listening at home. Thank you very much.