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The wait ends! You asked for it, and here it is—Inside MRO’s popular biennial Top 10 MRO feature, which examines airframe maintenance labor hours from 2023.
For the MROs that participated, thank you for your efforts and transparency.
Our team considered resurrecting this popular feature last year, but we did not think the global airline market had recovered sufficiently in 2022 to use that year as the new baseline—especially in the Asia-Pacific region, where the market was still restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But 2023 seemed to be a solid enough year to serve as the new baseline, so here we are!
We contacted the world’s biggest airframe MROs and asked them to provide their airframe maintenance labor hours, without line maintenance, and with and without parent company numbers if they are affiliated with an airline. We also asked for their total MRO hours (including airframe, component and engine) and revenue because most big airframe MROs offer multifaceted work packages.
Compiling this feature is always hard—partly because the data we ask you to provide can be difficult to extract. On top of that, several people who provided the data in 2019 are no longer in the same position, so we lost institutional knowledge about this project.
We do not base this survey on information found in quarterly presentations or regulatory filings. We need you to provide exactly what we need, and we trust it is accurate.
Even though I feel I need a vacation after completing the Top 10 project, I am glad we do it because it provides a barometer for the industry. I usually provide a more analytical view of how the numbers have changed, but given that we have a gap of five years, a few of which were tumultuous, I have included less analysis this time.
In the next survey, which will come out in 2026, we will use this one as the baseline. So onward and upward.
Inside MRO (previously named Overhaul & Maintenance) has been publishing the Top 10 MRO survey every other year since 2001. It started in Overhaul & Maintenance’s June 2001 issue by ranking the “Top 10 North American Airframe MRO Companies,” both civil and defense. Timco, part of Aviation Sales Co., won the top spot with 5.4 million labor hours. Goodrich MRO Division followed with 4.5 million, and Boeing Airplane Services came in third with 3 million. (For aviation history buffs, you will find the first two still in the survey, but in different forms.)
In 2007, we questioned whether we should include component and engine MRO labor hours, too. We now include “total MRO” to capture airframe, component and engine labor hours. In 2009, we added annual revenue figures. We have evolved so this survey continues to be a business barometer for the MRO industry.
How did we do? I welcome your feedback and hope to see you at MRO Europe.
