The Federal Aviation Administration has initiated a rulemaking process that will broaden mutual recognition of maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) organization certificates issued by non-U.S. aviation authorities through bilateral agreements. The move responds to years of industry pressure to reduce duplicative certification requirements for MROs operating across multiple regulatory jurisdictions.
Under the current framework, a repair station certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) must undergo a separate FAA certification process to work on U.S.-registered aircraft, even when the two agencies have substantially similar standards. The FAA's new rulemaking aims to formalize a streamlined recognition pathway through bilateral aviation safety agreements, reducing the compliance overhead that hampers international MRO operations.
The rulemaking follows a February 2026 announcement by the FAA's Office of Inspector General that investigators would initiate an audit focused on consistency in domestic repair station certification. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 requires periodic audits examining how consistently regulators apply policies on supplemental type certificates, repair stations, and technical standards orders -- a move that has put MRO certification processes under additional scrutiny.
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Source: Aviation Week Network -- https://aviationweek.com/mro/safety-ops-regulation/faa-broaden-mutual-recognition-mro-approvals