MRO Overview – Infrastructure Report 2021

Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) services were established to secure the proper working and safety of aircraft; they can be carried out as a preventive measure before the emergence of trouble, or as troubleshooting for existing problems. MRO is generally broken down into two main categories: line maintenance and base maintenance.

MRO Facilities by Country/Region

Asia-Pacific Region Top Business Jet MRO Ranking

Infrastructure remains a central issue for business aviation in the Asia-Pacific region. MRO has been one of the most active segments over the past two to three years, with Dassault acquiring ExecuJet, Jet Aviation acquiring Hawker Pacific, other OEMs significantly increasing their footprint in the region and new independent entrants coming into the market.

To answer what the most important service criteria is when choosing an MRO, and which is the best MRO in Asia-Pacific, Asian Sky Media created a survey to collect the opinions from a variety of respondents, including MRO service providers, business jet operators (flight departments), aircraft owners and other stakeholders.

The aim of the survey is to find out who is the best MRO in the Asia-Pacific region. But how does one define the “best”? To do this, we split the survey results into two distinct sections, with the ‘hard’ section looking at how many facilities, country, and type approvals that an MRO company has, and the ‘soft’ section focusing more on the quality of work and customer service that the MRO gives: so size versus service.

If we were to simply combine the sections into one, it stands to reason that the winners would be the MROs with the most facilities and approvals i.e. the biggest size. However, this would not necessarily give a true picture of the best MRO i.e. the best service provider, as the smaller MRO facilities with fewer country and type approvals would be excluded.

So yes, in the second section we are trying to ensure the little guy, if he’s offering outstanding service, gets due recognition.

The survey is divided into two phases. In the first phase, a respondent is asked to weigh the importance of ten criteria – six ‘soft’ ones and four ‘hard’ ones; each with the score range from zero to five. The average score of each criteria is used to weight the final average score calculation.

Asian Sky Media received 189 valid responses for the importance of ten criteria. According to the result, on-time delivery and efficiency is the criteria that respondents value the most, giving an average importance score of around 4.6. The second and third important criteria are customer service and in-house capabilities, each with around 4.5 and 4.4 respectively.

In the ‘Hard’ category, based on ASM’s MRO research, the number of Facilities, Authority Approvals, A/C Type Certificate and OEM Authorizations of different MROs are linearly scaled from zero to five, and then MRO facilities are ranked with the weighted average score. Jet Aviation and ExecuJet rank first and second with an average score of 3.60 and 3.44, respectively.

‘Hard’ Criteria Definition
• Facilities: Number of different facilities in Asia-Pacific region.
• Authority Approvals: Approvals from different authorities.
• A/C Type Certificate: Number of A/C types covered.
• OEM Authorization: Is the MRO an OEM Authorized Service Facility that can provide warranty service?

Jet Aviation has the most A/C Type Certificates – 59, which means it covers most aircraft models from different OEMs, whilst ExecuJet and Air Works can provide warranty service to most OEMs’ aircraft. Although Air Works has 17 facilities, only three are base maintenance facilities, with the remaining 14 all being line maintenance bases. All the facilities are located in single country – India.

In the second phase, a respondent is required to score the MRO facilities he/she has had experience with for six “soft” criteria; each also with the range from zero to five. ASM carefully verified all responses one by one, and excluded those that were clearly self-assessed, multiple responses from the same person, and suspicious responses from people that did not leave verifiable contact details.

There were a total of 119 valid responses from business jet operators and owners. According to the responses, Hongkong Jet ranks first ‘soft’ category, with an average score of 4.88. Execujet Haite came next, with an average score of 4.35. ExecuJet Haite also received the most responses in the survey, indicating a wide user base of the company in the region. Although fewer responses were received for Hongkong Jet, it doesn’t make them less valid, as all responses are carefully verified by ASM.

Soft’ Criteria Definition
• In-house capabilities: Does the MRO have other capabilities outside of the type and country approvals that it holds? (This category includes
interior repair, NDT, Painting, component repair, sheet metal repair, etc.)
• On-time delivery & efficiency: Does the MRO complete the work in a timely and efficient manner and to your expectations?
• Pricing: Does the MRO offer competitive and transparent pricing, and accurate and timely invoicing?
• Customer Services: Does the MRO provide constant feedback on the progress of work it is undertaking and does the service level meet or exceed your expectations?
• Human Resources: Does the MRO provide professional and courteous certified staff?
• Flexibility: Is the MRO able to react well to unexpected issues or unplanned services?

Overall, Jet Aviation, ExecuJet Haite and Metrojet rank highly in both the “Soft” and “Hard” lists, suggesting that they are the top MROs in the region.

Some other MROs, including ExecuJet, Air Works and Shanghai Hawker Pacific all have very strong capabilities in approvals, certificates and authorizations. However, ASM did not receive enough valid responses for them in the survey, and therefore they are not listed in the ‘soft’ criteria ranking.

Asia-Pacific MRO Networks – Business Jets