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TOOLS & EQUIPMENTMRO Operations: Repair Stations and MROBY RONALD DONNER

Maintenance, repair, and overhaul, or most often referred to by the acronym MRO, is a phrase widely
used these days to describe aircraft maintenance activity. For many people, the MRO organization is
thought to be one of those large companies that holds numerous repair station authorizations from
different aviation authorities around the world, and it accomplishes major maintenance on transport
category aircraft that primarily belong to airlines and leasing companies.

Although this is true, the repair station industry goes beyond providing services for just this one
segment of aircraft maintenance; it is huge, covering all segments of aircraft maintenance. Regardless of
what segment of the aircraft maintenance industry you work in, be it general aviation aircraft, business
aircraft, helicopters, airline, military, or government, you name it, aircraft owners and operators today
rely on numerous organizations as part of their overall maintenance, repair, and overhaul requirements.

The aircraft maintenance industry encompasses small repair stations that typically perform specialized
services such as welding, plating, or nondestructive testing services. Many of these services are complex
processes that require specialized equipment, experience, and authorizations. Other repair stations
provide maintenance, repair, and overhaul services relating to specific types of components, such as
avionics and electronics, mechanical actuators, or fuel systems and carburetors. And many of the
aircraft maintenance workers from these companies, rarely ever see or actually touch an aircraft. Then
there are the repair stations that provide MRO services on large complex components such as
retractable landing gear assemblies, reciprocating and turbine engines, or auxiliary power units. And
finally, the repair stations that provide maintenance services on the aircraft itself, regardless if you’re
operating a general aviation training aircraft, a business aircraft belonging to a corporate flight
department, helicopters, or the transport category aircraft owned by those airlines and leasing
companies.
Today’s aviation maintenance professional very likely has some level of involvement with repair stations
and MRO organizations, regardless of what segment of the aircraft maintenance industry you represent.
With that, AMT is excited to announce that we will be including additional editorial content in our new
feature section titled, MRO Operations, relating to the repair station and MRO segments of the aircraft
maintenance industry. AMT will continue to provide our readership with the same high-quality
maintenance and technology related editorial in our long-established Recip, Turbine, Airframe, and
Avionics Technology feature sections. The addition of MRO Operations as yet another feature section
will complement our existing aircraft maintenance feature sections by providing more information to
our readership relating to the aircraft maintenance industry.