Podcast: Live From MRO Middle East 2026

Recorded live at MRO Middle East in Dubai, Aviation Week editors and analysts talk capacity ramp-ups, regional workforce challenges and new engine MRO capabilities.

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James Pozzi: I am James Pozzi, MRO editor for the EMEA Region, and we are doing a live recording of the MRO Podcast here at MRO Middle East in Dubai. And joining me today, as you can see on screen to my right is Lindsay Bjerregaard, who's managing editor for MRO. And to my left, Dan Williams who is director of fleet data services for Aviation Week. Lindsay, Dan, thanks for joining.

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Thanks for having us.

James Pozzi: So to kick things off, perhaps we'll start with you, Dan. You gave a very interesting data forecast presentation this morning. Lots of interesting stats around the Middle Eastern region related to fleet and MRO and plenty more things too. What are some of, I guess, the nuggets that you can share with us and what does it tell you about what we're seeing in the region at the moment?

Dan Williams: Yeah, thank you very much. The Middle East region is growing massively. If we look at global numbers, I look at the CAGR compound annual growth rate. People love it, people hate it. Globally, it's about 3% fleet growth here in the Middle East. It's much higher. It's 6.7%. The fleet is going to grow by about 1,500 additional aircraft in service come the end of the decade. Now, obviously with a higher fleet means a greater deal of MRO. There's a little bit of a time lag with that, but that's going to grow as well. The MRO industry we forecast is a $1.6 trillion industry, give or take a few cents, but the MRO operators alone account for nearly $200 billion of that. It's not an insignificant chunk, it's a growing region. We've seen a lot, just even this show, if you go back over the years, this show has grown, it's doubled in the space of about three or four years.

The fleet, likewise and the Middle Eastern fleet, we're all quite aware has traditionally been quite wide-body heavy. We're seeing that shift as well. We're seeing the big operators of MAXs and NEO fleets within the region grow as well. And that brings different challenges. And it's interesting, the usual supply chain and workforce challenges are there. People are still talking about it and no doubt we'll talk about it here as well. But it is interesting to speak to people on the floor what their special challenges are for the Middle East region. I'm sure we'll get onto engines, but engines is a huge issue here in Middle East because of the environment that they're in because it's quite a harsh environment for certainly these new engines. So we're seeing great growth. The MRO is going to grow at 5.2% globally compared to the global 3.2% CAGR. So it's growing both in fleet size, growing also in MRO. So the outlook for operators of this region and MROs situated within that region is also quite healthy.

James Pozzi: Absolutely, yeah. And you are right. We will get to engines shortly and thanks for giving us that rundown of the presentation from earlier. Some very interesting numbers there, Lindsay. Of course, we've seen some really interesting panels today covering all kinds of topics. As we mentioned, engine availability and capacity woes. We've had new technology related ones. We've had a really interesting airline fireside chat as well that you conducted earlier with Stephen Greenway who is the CEO of Flyadeal, of course, the Saudi Arabian low-cost carrier. We've all got our thoughts on that. So let's start with that, Lindsay, as the moderator, what were some of your takeaways from it?

Lindsay Bjerregaard: I mean, one of my biggest takeaways was they are growing very fast, right? They're expanding their fleet. They're expanding their workforce. I believe he had said they're trying to take over the world. When I had asked him about their growth plans for this year, and if you want to learn more about what they're doing, I would love to point to the most recent issue of Inside MRO. There's an interview in there that you did with him. You can pick that up at the show here. But yeah, that was probably my biggest takeaway from that chat with him.

James Pozzi: Excellent. Thanks for setting the scene because I know me and Dan wanted to talk about this as well. So I will start. Obviously their fleet is expanding massively over the next three years. They're going from 44 aircraft as of February 2026 to more than 100 in just three years. And obviously they're getting new aircraft not just in the narrow-body but also in the wide-body part. Now Stephen, who I know Dan spoke to earlier after the session, he's always pretty candid about issues like the supply chain and engine availability. Dan, what did you get from the discussion?

Dan Williams: A question I like to ask to anybody that we want to help, there's a data guy, I just want to help people. I want to give them information so they can be informed to make their own decisions. So a question I always ask is, what keeps you awake at night? What's your biggest headache? So the answer was engines and I think Mr. Greenway, Flyadeal and operators in the region are just having to learn very quickly that these latest generation engines are just different. They're never going to be, I say that they're probably never going to be as consistent as a CFM56 or a V2500, but then we weren't building CFM56 ERs from day one at the rates that we're building LEAPs and GTFs right now. And the second headache is reliability. And I don't know if there's any consolation, but it's not exclusively Mr. Greenway's issue. This is across the industry. It's getting new aircraft on time and when they were originally promised to be delivered. So that's the second headache is because you make these plans literally years in advance, only to be told maybe months in advance of when you are expecting an aircraft, you're not getting an aircraft and it's not a case if you're not getting that aircraft that month and it's delayed a month or two or a quarter or two. No, no, it's multiple quarters. It's potentially years that delays are happening. And this brings us back to the supply chain we talk about a lot. This is across the industry.

James Pozzi: Absolutely, yeah. And an airline was telling me just the other day actually on a call that they were looking at A350s and they were told I think 2032, 2033 if they order now. So on wide-bodies particularly, this seems like a very long wait.

Dan Williams: And it's across the board. If you go to Airbus and say, I want an A320 family member, it's going to be 2030 something. If you go to Boeing, you want a MAX, it's maybe late 2020 somethings, but this is just a fact of life now. You have to plan not 3, 4, 5, 6 years in advance. If you're looking to order aircraft, you need to be planning 8, 9, 10, 11 years in advance now.

James Pozzi: Absolutely. I think some of the challenges we can look at as well, obviously there's further challenges even because we've already looked at that particular issue. But what stands out to me, of course, I think the demand is very much there. The aftermarket in the Middle East has always been characterized as very ambitious. There's a lot of infrastructure growth. Hangar capabilities are coming more online now, but there are capacity issues that still need to be addressed, particularly engine MRO and components. And that's been ever since I've been coming to the show, nearly showing my kind of how long my tenure has been. Now we're talking nearly a decade. They've just said there need to be more component MRO specialists in the region and there's a cry for that capability. One of those places where they're all situated or a lot of them are particularly in the UAE is at Dubai South Al Maktoum.

And of course the airport is growing rapidly there and seems like that's going to have a massive impact on not just the region, but maybe even global MRO, because that's going to be a real MRO hub. And we have got quite a few hubs now in region growing. There's obviously that one on a massive scale, but there's other hubs that are taking shape. I think Jordan has some interesting MRO activity. Qatar are starting to maybe look more at investing in that. Bahrain is getting some attention. I did a panel later with Asia Digital Engineering, of course, not a Middle Eastern company. They are based in Malaysia and their CEO told me that they obviously are setting up an MRO business in Bahrain, and they may even be, that's obviously for airframes. There may even be potential there for component MRO. They may see an opportunity in that.

So it is very interesting where some of these companies are looking and what they're looking at, and I haven't even mentioned the Saudi Arabia influence or inputs. They'll be a key player in the next 10, 20 years because essentially they're investing so much money into their MRO industry, they're building that kind of super hub in Jeddah and that's going to have full capability engines, airframe components, shop back shops, the lots and other parts of the aircraft too. So that's very interesting how all these hubs are appearing as well to address that capacity issue. But going back to the challenges I mentioned, yes, material shortages seem to be quite a popular one, particularly on engines and people too. A big shortage of people. Of course, this region has sort of been characterized by expats, but there's been a big push in the last five years or so to develop domestic workforces too and really have their own pipeline of people coming through in everywhere from Saudi Arabia doing it. The UAE, they're doing it, Jordan, they're doing it too. Maybe start with Lindsay, is there anything on the people or talent side that's really stood out for you this year?

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Absolutely. One of the panels that you moderated earlier today, there was quite a bit of talk about the labor issue, the CEO of Lufthansa Technik Middle East had said that one of the two big challenges, the other one being supply chain was labor. And so said he thinks there's enough talent in the colleges in the Middle East region. However, there's still a gap. One because they lost people during COVID, but two, because there's such above average MRO growth in the region that they're just having trouble keeping up with that. I thought it was interesting. Fraser Currie from DAE Engineering also talked about the cost of the labor in the Middle East being an advantage here. He had said that in Europe it's incredibly difficult to staff your business at a rate that airlines can afford to pay and that people in Europe are paying engineers more than they're charging the customer.

So obviously there's a labor advantage here in terms of training capacity here in the region. It sounds like there are already a lot of universities and aviation specific training schools, but there's a lot of MROs that are either setting up their own schools or they're partnering with local universities to set up the talent pipeline here. And going back to DAE Engineering, Fraser had mentioned that they've partnered with universities and they're now offering a bachelor's degree because he said that getting the bachelor's is culturally important here in the Middle East. So even though you don't need a bachelor's degree to work in a technician role in MRO, people want that for whatever reason, maybe for advancement in their careers and that sort of thing. And then lastly, one other thing that he had mentioned that I thought was really interesting was that they're doing specific on the job training where they're bringing in talent from other companies to come go through their SSA on the job training program to learn more about specific types of tasks that they'll need to advance within their career. So it sounds like partnerships within companies in the region is really crucial for getting people skilled.

James Pozzi: Absolutely. And a couple of other companies I heard mentioned that they had training schools alongside what they're doing and to I guess fulfill that pipeline, but to just have that kind of readiness there and develop their talent in-house whether it's upskilling or like you said, developing them for the longer haul. Dan, that brings me on nicely to engines. Of course, a lack of people was considered another major challenge for engines, specifically in the engine panel I hosted earlier with representatives from AFI KLM and Standard Aero, of course, not Middle East based providers, but very much global ones with a lot of Middle East business. So yeah, on the engines, obviously intense demand for engines. From what I can see. Obviously the Middle East has its own operating environments, quirks due to the nature of the environment of the place. Of course the sand based desert environment and corrosion that can occur for an engine that's done quite a few flight cycles. What were some of the other engine standout things you've seen over the last day?

Dan Williams: I think it's the fact that the word durability has just become commonplace when it comes to engines. Now we've seen recently the 777X is having engine durability issues. The difference is when the GTF and the LEAP came in, they were certified and started to be delivered, and then subsequently durability issues were uncovered through use, which these things happen, they used to be called teething troubles, they're now called durability issues and engine companies are trying to get ahead of that now, which is interesting. And James, you're right, it's a harsh environment, my terrible analogy. But for those of you who don't follow too much about the engines, if an engine's supposed to have an overhaul, let's say 12,000 cycles, I'm just making up a number. If it's operated exclusively by let's say a Middle Eastern narrow-body provider, then if it gets to six or 7,000 cycles before it requires an overhaul, it's kind of classed as a bit of a miracle engine.

It is getting to 55 to 60% at best before it's triggering an overhaul. And that adds strain because if you take that same engine and put it on let's say a Delta aircraft and it's not operating in quite the same environment that might make it to 12,000 or thereabouts. So that means over let's say 24,000, so two overhaul cycles, you'd have two engine overhauls. But for a Middle Eastern operator, if he's doing it at seven and then 14 and 21, he's having three. So that adds strain onto the already constrained capacity that's available because you're having to in effect fit in an additional engine overhaul during the course of its life. So it is inherent issues that are there and there's going to be more, we had some things to get fixed as other things become less durable, let's say.

James Pozzi: Be interesting. One of the reps on my engine panel said that in an ideal world, there'll be new modified designs on some of these engines needed to address obviously the durability issues, but also the harsh environment issues.

Dan Williams: And I think the idea of these new engines is twofold. One is to increase efficiency and save the operators some money, but ultimately this is a sustainability issue. We need these engines to be better and we'll do other podcasts about what's happening for the engine's futures. Because right now the outlook isn't saying optimistic, but there's just not a lot happening in the futures of aviation engine research and advances. And therefore the airframers are waiting for the engines to get better before they design something that can accommodate the engines. It's the horse before the cart situation. We just don't know which is the cart and which is the horse.

Lindsay Bjerregaard: I was just going to quickly note as well, you had mentioned the harsh environments on engines here in this region. I did find out recently that the Middle East is one of the biggest adopters of engine wash technology to shout out to Inside MRO. Again, the most recent issue has a feature about different engine wash providers. And I know Lufthansa Technik and GE with their 360 foam wash. They have a lot of airlines here who have adopted that technology.

Dan Williams: And it's true. And the other aspect is it's very different for wide-body and narrow-body, A wide-body engine flies from a harsh environment to a potential non-harsh environment then. So it's only every other engine cycle. But then that means because some engines don't play well in this environment, Trent engines on the 787 as a pure example, BA don't use their 787s into Dubai, they use the 777s, which means that the cabin offering is very different. So that brings us to the second part of this show. It's MRO and AIM together when it comes to interiors, aircraft interiors, that's also a supply chain issue from new build aircraft. You see Boeing talk about issues getting cabins in already, but then also because aircraft are going longer, operators are having to make a decision and Emirates are doing this with some of their aircraft where they're having to, right, actually we need to reconfigure or redo the interiors on these older aircraft, which may be in a different scenario in a different world wouldn't have happened. So it's part of the MRO network. Ultimately it's maintenance, repair and overhaul just of the inside of where we all sit. So that's also interesting because why this AIM and MRO Middle East come together well because they are kindred spirits.

James Pozzi: Absolutely. And just before we move on, another shameless plug, you could call it towards engines, a little company, a bit of a snapshot of what a big local player is doing, of course, based in Abu Dhabi, an engine specialist. I spoke to them earlier and of course they're bringing their new GTF shop online in the next few years in Abu Dhabi, and that's going to really ramp up capacity. But they've been very busy, of course, the last five years since COVID specifically. So last in 2025, they inducted 230 engines. That's a 40% jump on 2024. And a big driver of that is their LEAP center, which opened last year as well. But obviously they've got some of the legacy engines as well. They do stuff on the Trent engines and the wide-body. They said there's many more work to come on that and the V2500 as well, of course, that they've repaired for a long time.

But interestingly, they're really doubling down on their asset management business, which they I think first established around 2022. And that was a sort of a replacement for their previous model, which was long-term leases of engines. They've switched to the asset management side of things where they're more heavily involved in the engine's life cycle, and they've invested $100 million US in that. They gave me the figure earlier and they're really ramping up their workforce this year. They intend to bring 1,000 new people into the business asset management and MRO as well. So I know they're probably the major engine player in the Middle East, but it's a real snapshot of, I guess the growth that is coming in region, not just in terms of capability and working on new programs, but the people side too, which of course is cited by most as the number one driver of any future this business has. Because without people, you can't really achieve anything, even in this age of all this kind of technology adoption and increased efficiencies from AI or whatever else, people drive this industry. Yeah. So I thought that was very interesting what they're up to. And I just wanted to share some of the snapshots from that. Just finally, Lindsay, so to close out day one, you hosted or moderated the Skyward Innovations segment of the conference. Could you maybe just run us through what that entailed and what were some of the outcomes related to that?

Lindsay Bjerregaard: Sure. So as far as I'm aware, this is the first time we've done a competition like that. Essentially four different startups in the industry who all offer very different types of technology or products, pitched their products to us. We had a live judging panel, so myself and one other judge asked each of the companies questions at the end of their presentations. And then at the end, the audience voted on their winner. So the four companies were AR Genie, which offers augmented reality technology for technicians working on aircraft. There was Symetri, which has technology that relates to automating of drilling and that sort of thing. We had Staff Now Aero, which was a company that focuses on helping to make the hiring process for technicians more efficient. And then the winner, I'm going to mispronounce this Chaise Longue, it's a concept for aircraft cabins. I'm going to simplify it, oversimplify this, but essentially it's a concept where they're utilizing vertical space for seating. So it's like in the business or the first-class area in the central part of the cabin, there's an upstairs seating stacked on top of seating downstairs. And so if you want to learn more about that, certainly look them up. But yeah, they were the winner voted on by the audience.

James Pozzi: Thank you. And yeah, it's good to see some of these innovations firsthand and a lot of creative and innovative things happening in this industry, of course, as we know. So good to see it firsthand. And that was a great feature, of course. Okay, well that brings us to the end of today's MRO podcast. Thank you for listening, both the audience in Dubai and the audience at home. Remember, a new podcast episode drops every Monday on Apple and Spotify. And while you're there, please leave us a review and a star rating. Thank you.