Ontic Plans New MRO Centers In U.S., Europe

Aircraft parts and services specialist Ontic is growing its global MRO service center network as part of efforts to expand the business. Under its new investment strategy, the company will be establishing MRO centers of excellence in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific.

The first MRO center will open in Miramar, Florida in early 2025. The company will consolidate its MRO product lines—including avionics, satcom systems, mechanical and linear actuators and other components—from its Creedmor, North Carolina and Chatsworth, California facilities to the new 60,000 ft.² facility in southern Florida. Jack Karapetyan, vice president of Ontic’s global MRO operations, says the move will enable the company to focus and grow on the repair side while providing its Creedmor site with more space to manufacture new parts.

Ontic says it has no planned job losses because of the move, with MRO teams getting the opportunity to relocate to Miramar or move into new manufacturing roles at the Creedmor site. Karapetyan says about a quarter of Ontic’s Creedmor MRO staff will be moving to Miramar, and some staff from Chatsworth will also move to the location in 2025. The new MRO center will initially operate with around 60 people, eventually growing to a staff of around 100 by the end of its second year in operations.

Karapetyan adds that the Miramar site will “act as a gateway to South American markets,” becoming “a logistics hub to be able to support South America, as well as give us better time zone overlaps to service those customers on a day-to-day basis.”

Up next will be a similar effort in Europe. Ontic operates three sites in the UK, and it plans to consolidate its commercial MRO operations there into a single location so its facilities in Cheltenham, Staverton and Bolton can focus on more manufacturing work.

“We’re speaking with the economic development staff in different countries to see where our best option would be [in Europe],” says Karapetyan. “We’re working toward securing a site by January, and then we’ll move into a build-out phase and a transition.” He adds that Ontic expects its European MRO hub to open for business by the end of 2025.

Matthew Pritchard, Ontic’s vice president of sales and customer engagement, says the company has seen strong demand in the European market post-pandemic. “We’re seeing a lot of airline partners wanting to work more closely with us across the board,” he says. “We’re not nose-to-tail and we’re not going to be anytime soon, but we’ve got a much bigger range of opportunities to work with them than we did three or four years ago, so this investment is very purposeful and it’s great timing.”

Ontic is targeting 2026 for similar efforts in the Asia-Pacific market. The company currently operates a repair station in Singapore.

Helping to fund this growth is a new investment cycle with private equity firm CVC Capital Partners. In September, CVC renewed its partnership with Ontic for an additional 4-5 years and it brought on several new investors in minority positions. Ontic says the new investment structure will help it grow dedicated repair capabilities, customer support teams, data analytics capabilities, and resources for supply and sustainment engineering.