Aviation Week's annual MRO industry surveys and forecast data represent a benchmark source for tracking commercial aircraft maintenance demand, shop visit projections, and market size estimates for the global and North American MRO industry.
The MRO market continues to expand in 2026, supported by record airline passenger traffic levels, delayed new aircraft deliveries extending service lives of older narrowbody and widebody fleets, and increasing engine cycle accumulation among the large installed base of LEAP and PW1000G engines now entering their first scheduled maintenance windows.
Engine MRO represents the largest single segment of maintenance spending, driven by the labor-intensive nature of turbofan overhauls and the high cost of materials and parts for hot-section work. Airframe heavy maintenance is the second-largest segment, with widebody heavy checks typically representing the most resource-intensive single maintenance events in commercial aviation.
The narrowbody fleet dominated by the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo family is growing as a proportion of total commercial aircraft in service, concentrating MRO demand on a smaller number of engine and airframe types. This concentration benefits authorized MRO providers who have built deep expertise and parts inventories around these platforms.
Source: Aviation Week -- https://aviationweek.com/mro