Don’t fence me in
In many cases, the simple arithmetic of physical space is a deciding factor on whether to outsource MRO work. McCarthy, at Precision, said that lack of hangar space is a non-starter in the MRO world. Some conversions will later provide work opportunities for MROs, he said. “We have two lines at HAECO, two at Flightstar, two in China and one in Greensboro.”
One of the larger examples of the importance of size is IAI/Bedek. The company has 15 hangars for both wide- and narrowbody aircraft. The company is capable of handling comprehensive maintenance, including airframes, engines and 13,000 types of components for fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, as well as landing gears and APUs.
While not all successful MROs need to match that size, McCarthy says that there needs to be an adequate number of man-hours secured to match the space allotted. “For [smaller] narrowbodies, you will need to get at least 500 man-hours per day. For a widebody, it’s more like 1,000 man-hours. The same goes for 757s – they also need about 1,000 man-hours per day,” he said. “Winning the conversions game is all about having abundant hangar space, and that can involve more expensive real estate.”
Even many of these larger outfits – such as Delta, United, DHL, UPS or FedEx – which all do a substantial amount of their own maintenance work, still farm some of their work out to MROs. “These airlines, which have their own maintenance set up, have a lot of bill work that they cast off because they can’t handle it,” Kamenz explained. “In other words, all of a sudden there’s a mod requirement due, or an aircraft they’ve acquired is in their flow – that all gets outsourced, and that’s typically what we pick up.”