In both defense and commercial aviation, maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) providers face a challenging set of trends. Manufacturers can’t build new aircraft fast enough, which means that airlines must fly older airframes that require more frequent and complex maintenance. Currently, the MRO industry does not have enough technicians to meet this demand, and training and hiring new technicians takes years. The result is that aircraft are grounded while they wait for maintenance—a situation that translates directly to lost value. In our analysis, unavailable assets and MRO inefficiencies lead to roughly $27 billion in lost value each year. (See Exhibit 1.)
MRO providers cannot hire their way out of the capacity gap. Instead, digital is the primary lever to sustain growth. New digital tools are increasingly available to make processes and technicians far more efficient and effective. These are proven applications that capitalize on AI to generate rapid value. By developing a digital operating system and prioritizing the applications with the fastest initial value, providers can build data capabilities and increase the capacity of their current workforce.
There is a clear and compelling opportunity at hand: the global MRO market will grow from $114 billion in 2024 to $156 billion by 2035. Companies that want to capture that growth need to use digital to help them do more with less. Moreover, because MRO providers, airlines, aviation OEMs, and regulators are all bound together by their regulatory framework, a digital transformation doesn’t just benefit one organization, it delivers benefits across the entire ecosystem.
Critical Constraints in MRO Capacity
Around the world, defense budgets are increasing, and the passenger demand for commercial aviation continues to grow—up 10.4% in 2024 alone, according to the International Air Transport Association. But production bottlenecks mean that manufacturers can’t turn out new aircraft fast enough. On the commercial side, the backlog now stands at 17,000 aircraft. Deliveries scheduled for 2025 are 26% below what was promised just one year ago.
That has cascading implications across the industry. As airlines are pushed to fly older aircraft that require more in terms of MRO, demand for maintenance hours is projected to grow from 310 million a year to 565 million by 2043, according to Boeing. To meet that demand, the industry needs more than 600,000 qualified maintenance professionals by 2037, yet current training pipelines produce fewer graduates than the industry loses to retirement and attrition each year. The Aviation Technician Education Council projects a 20% shortfall in certified maintenance technicians by 2028. The technician shortage is not cyclical, it is permanent.
As a result, maintenance backlogs are growing, especially for specialized services. Engine reliability issues have overwhelmed shop capacity industry-wide, with repair wait times that have increased 150% for modern engines. (Exhibit 2 shows the pain points across the life cycle for engine MRO processes.) Some airlines are now stockpiling parts to offset unpredictable supply, which increases inventory pressure across the system. In the military, government reports indicate that roughly 20% of fighters are grounded and waiting on parts. Turnaround times for heavy checks are now 45 days longer than before the COVID pandemic.
The result? MRO providers, along with internal MRO functions within airlines, face a capacity-demand squeeze. They are being pushed to do more work, with fewer resources, for customers who won’t pay more. Providers cannot hire their way out: training and certifying new technicians takes two to three years, and even longer to become proficient across multiple complex aircraft systems. And they cannot charge their way out: airline customers operate on thin margins and will push back.
Instead, they must transform their way out. In this environment, digital is no longer optional. It’s an imperative.
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Three Priorities for Digital Transformation
To succeed, MROs must go beyond incremental changes at the margins. Instead, they must fully transform their operations through digital systems that fundamentally change how maintenance work is planned, executed, and documented. This is not an abstract transformation but a digitization program that addresses how frontline work on aircraft happens, with the goal of increasing the capacity of the existing workforce. Every additional minute of wrench time for a technician increases throughput and gets assets back in service. With digital, MROs can accomplish the same amount of work (or more) in fewer labor hours, leading to faster turnarounds and less waste.
Beyond efficiency gains, organizations that master digital transformation have an opportunity to capture disproportionate value through new business models, enhanced customer relationships, and sustainable competitive advantages that compound over time. Already, digitally mature organizations in other industries report increased revenue, lower costs, and structural competitive advantages by avoiding barriers to entry that late adopters will struggle to overcome.
Currently, most MRO organizations are still in pilot mode or at an early stage of digital adoption. The challenges are real: limited IT resources, the complexity of integrating new systems with decades-old processes, and the fundamental challenge of transforming operations without stopping production. Independent MROs, in particular, feel these constraints acutely; they lack the scale to absorb dedicated transformation teams and cannot pause revenue-generating work to implement new systems.
This reality makes strategic clarity even more essential. Organizations that understand which digital investments deliver the highest impact, how to sequence transformation efforts, and where quick wins can fund longer-term capabilities will navigate the chaos more effectively than those lurching from crisis to crisis.
Our work with commercial and military aerospace clients suggests that three issues should be prioritized.
Digital Planning and Work Prep. One analysis found that roughly half of technician time is spent on non-wrench activities: waiting for parts, searching for documentation, or resolving authorization questions. Often the underlying problem arises before the job even starts. When work packages aren’t adequately prepared before aircraft arrival, the entire maintenance event starts behind schedule.
Digital planning and work preparation tools eliminate these inefficiencies. Before an aircraft arrives, they ensure that everything is ready for a specific maintenance event: parts are available and properly staged, technicians have verified access to the data they need, tooling and equipment are in place, and the right workforce capacity is allocated (with the right certifications and all authorization paths cleared).
These tools take an integrated approach. They look at the big picture (by linking commercial scheduling to production planning ) and the small details (by generating automated pre-arrival checklists for each job). In that way, they ensure that technicians spend their limited hours on value-creating activities.
Support for Technicians. Digital transformation is uniquely powerful in addressing the MRO workforce challenge. It doesn’t just make existing technicians more efficient, it makes the profession itself more attractive to the next generation. Currently, some aspects of the job can be frustrating. Procedures are often still documented on paper, or with a confusing combination of paper and disparate digital systems that don’t interact with each other.
In addition, some technicians are pushed to become competent across many systems and don’t develop true mastery of any of them, creating cognitive overload. A NASA study found that human factors contribute to 28% to 46% of maintenance-related incidents, depending on the aircraft system—a burden that falls disproportionately on individual technicians. And technicians are personally liable for safety issues under their Airframe and Powerplant certification.
Digital tools can reduce the administrative burden for technicians, making jobs less overwhelming and more fulfilling. For example, decision support tools clarify processes in real time, amplifying technicians’ professional judgment rather than replacing it. Digital compliance documentation provides real-time verification and automatically creates audit trails for each procedure.
Digital tools can help in training and development as well. AR- and VR-enabled training systems can help technicians gain new skills faster. Knowledge management systems can capture institutional expertise from older technicians before they retire and thus serve as digital mentors for the next generation. A common theme among many of these solutions is that they appeal to the younger generation of digital natives, who want the same kind of intuitive, online experience at work that they get in their personal lives.
In addition, GenAI can help make these tools more intuitive and easier to use. In the past, some automation efforts were limited by the tech skills of the MRO workforce. Today, tools can capitalize on natural language inputs and other features, reducing the learning curve and helping technicians become more productive the first time they adopt a new solution.
Regarding safety, digital systems that are engineered to reduce human factors simultaneously provide professional risk insulation for individual technicians. When the system catches errors before they become incidents, the technician’s personal and professional exposure decreases. That makes aviation maintenance careers more sustainable and appealing.
Supply Chain Visibility. Parts availability is a key operational constraint, and MROs cannot become more productive without better visibility across the supply chain. Currently, information does not keep pace with the physical movement of goods. Rotable components—including engines, auxiliary power units, gearboxes, and avionics—cycle through complex ownership and custody chains, with limited visibility among stakeholders. OEMs don’t have real-time demand signals. Parts sit waiting for an aircraft, or vice versa.
Digital supply chain solutions can dramatically improve this situation, providing end-to-end visibility across the entire ecosystem. These tools integrate inventories and provide real-time positioning information, enabling MROs to proactively stage material. AI-driven demand forecasting and automated reordering processes reduce stockouts. Digital pedigree tracking (enabled with blockchain) maintains an accurate component history regardless of custody, reducing the risk of counterfeit parts. Expediting systems coordinate a rapid response across multiple parties—for example, in critical cases where an airline or a defense unit needs to get an aircraft operational again rapidly.
Key Success Factors
Our work supporting airlines and MRO providers indicates that a digital transformation requires some key success factors during implementation.
Don’t just layer in technology, redesign the operating model. Technology by itself merely automates inefficient processes. Leading MROs start by redefining how work is planned, released, and executed—with a clear understanding of which decisions, workflows, and accountabilities must change—and then embed technology into that new model.
Enlist technicians in designing the new system. Adoption on the hangar floor determines whether transformation delivers value. High-performing organizations treat technicians as co-designers of tools and workflows, ensuring that digital systems reflect how work is actually performed. This is not a cultural initiative, it is a productivity requirement.
Integrate supply chain and production into one system. Throughput is constrained as much by parts as by labor. Leading MROs eliminate the disconnect between material planning and maintenance execution by linking inventory, procurement, and production schedules in real time. Work is only “planned” when required materials are confirmed and staged.
Invest in capability building as a continuous system. One-time training programs are insufficient. Digitally enabled MROs continually build capabilities through onboarding programs, recurrent training, and embedded “digital champions” at all levels. The goal is to go beyond learning discrete skills and instead evolve new ways of working over time.
Create visible wins to build organizational momentum. Transformations gain momentum when the workforce sees tangible improvements: reduced waiting time, clearer job scopes, fewer disruptions, or other benefits. Leading organizations design early use cases that deliver measurable impact on the floor and communicate those wins broadly to build credibility and boost adoption.
Benefits Across the Aviation Ecosystem
While a digital transformation directly benefits the MRO providers that implement it, the program can also lead to benefits across the industry. Because of the way regulations are structured, the aviation maintenance ecosystem is interdependent: MRO providers, OEMs, technicians, and regulators all succeed or struggle together, and a digital transformation affects—and benefits—all of them. Airlines and armed forces spend less on maintenance and keep more of their assets operational. OEMs gain richer insights into fleet-wide performance. MROs can plan their capacity more effectively and reduce reactive scrambles. And technicians have more rewarding careers doing the work they enjoy.
The aviation industry has navigated deregulation, post-9/11 restructuring, and the COVID pandemic. Digital transformation is the next challenge. The question for airline executives and MRO leaders is not whether to transform digitally, but how quickly and comprehensively they can execute.
By shifting to a more digital operating model and prioritizing a manageable number of proven, high-impact applications, companies can unlock rapid value and build organizational capabilities and momentum. Companies that seize the initiative can give themselves a first-mover advantage—and position themselves to win in a fast-growing market.
