How Aviation MROs Can Reduce Backlog and Improve Turnaround Time Anyway

Across aviation maintenance today, heavy aircraft checks, engine shops, and component repair operations like landing gear, hydraulics, avionics, and accessories, one issue appears in nearly every industry report: There are not enough qualified technicians.

A recent Oliver Wyman 2025 MRO survey clearly calls out a maintenance technician labor shortage across the industry.

Meanwhile a combination of increased aircraft utilization and an aging fleet that needs higher maintenance to stay operational. Demand for maintenance continues to grow while experienced labor takes years to train. Recruitment pipelines are tight, retirement rates are rising, and the problem is not expected to resolve quickly.

So the industry has reached a widely accepted conclusion:

Maintenance throughput is limited by technician availability.

The conclusion is understandable. It is also incomplete.

Because something else is happening at the same time, something quieter, but operationally more important.

Despite facing the same labor market, MROs can consistently deliver faster turnaround times, meet schedules more reliably, and grow their workload while others struggle under mounting backlog.

If everyone shares the same labor shortage, why are outcomes so different?

The Real Impact of the Technician Shortage

The industry is correct: technician availability is constrained. Hiring is difficult and will remain difficult. But the shortage does not affect every organization equally.

Labor scarcity does not simply reduce capacity. It exposes operational differences.

When labor is abundant, inefficiencies are hidden. Workarounds absorb delays, and throughput differences between shops remain small.

When labor is scarce, inefficiencies become visible.

Two MROs with similar staffing, facilities, and tooling can produce dramatically different output because throughput is not determined only by headcount.

It is determined by how effectively each technician hour is converted into completed maintenance.

The real question is no longer: “How many mechanics do we have?”

It becomes: “How much completed work do we produce per mechanic?”

Why Turnaround Time Slips Even When Staffing Looks Adequate

Aircraft and component maintenance are not linear processes. They are interconnected production systems with variability.

Unexpected inspection findings occur.
Engineering dispositions are required.
Parts fail testing.
Specialized processes like NDT, machining, or plating have limited capacity.

Individually, these events are small. Together, they create queues.

Typical delay sources include:

• inspection release
• engineering review
• parts availability
• specialized repair stations
• testing bottlenecks
• shift handoffs
• planning assumptions

The important observation: Maintenance delays rarely come from one large failure. They come from small delays interacting across the complex workflow.

When one step becomes saturated, an inspector, an engineering approval, a test bench, or a repair station, work accumulates behind it. Turnaround time expands across the entire line or component shop, even while technicians remain busy. The process is complex, and has many dependencies and resources. Because of the complexity, it becomes difficult for managers to anticipate future performance of the system.

This is why some checks or component repairs exceed planned flow days despite adequate staffing on paper.

The limiting factor was never total labor. It was coordination of resources.

In a labor-constrained industry, productivity matters more than staffing levels.

The Visibility Problem

Most MRO operations are managed using schedules, meetings, spreadsheets, and experience. These tools are valuable for monitoring progress.

They are not designed to predict complex system behavior.

They show where work is today. They cannot reliably show what will happen next month.

As a result, many organizations discover bottlenecks only after delivery dates are at risk. The only remaining options are expediting, overtime, and replanning.

The operation becomes reactive instead of controlled.

A Different Approach: Modeling the Maintenance System

This is where operational simulation becomes useful. MRO Simulation models the maintenance process as a working system rather than a static schedule. It represents:

• aircraft or component arrivals
• tasks and work cards
• labor skills and shifts
• inspections and approvals
• engineering review time
• parts delays
• queues at constrained work centers

Instead of guessing how the shop will behave, the organization can evaluate:

• realistic delivery dates
• workload acceptance decisions
• staffing coverage impacts
• scheduling strategies
• backlog growth risk
• optimization to meet goals

Simulation does not make technicians faster. It makes their time count.

By identifying where congestion will occur before work begins, the MRO can adjust scheduling and coordination to prevent delays rather than react to them.

What Changes When Workflow Is Understood

When the true behavior of the system becomes visible, practical improvements follow:

• adjusting induction timing
• sequencing work differently
• supporting inspection coverage
• protecting constrained stations
• staging high-risk parts earlier
• aligning engineering availability
• balancing shift transitions

Notably, many improvements require no additional hiring and no facility expansion. They come from optimizing existing resources.

The goal is not to increase activity. The goal is to increase completed maintenance output.

Business Results: Throughput, Revenue, and Market Position

Reducing backlog and improving turnaround time produces measurable outcomes.

Financial

• more aircraft and components completed annually
• increased revenue
• improved profit margins
• reduced overtime and expediting
• better utilization of hangars and shops

Customer

• predictable delivery schedules
• stronger operator confidence
• increased repeat business

Competitive

Operators plan fleets around turnaround time. An MRO that consistently meets commitments becomes easier to schedule and more valuable to customers. Faster helps. Performance and predictable wins contracts.

The Opportunity Inside the Constraint

Technician shortages will remain part of aviation maintenance for years. But they do not affect all organizations equally.

The industry constraint is labor supply. The competitive difference is labor effectiveness.

The MROs that outperform will not necessarily be the ones that hire the most technicians. They will be the ones that produce the most completed maintenance per technician.

Backlog, then, is not merely a demand indicator. It is a performance indicator.

And the organizations that grow in a constrained labor market will be those that can confidently promise, and consistently meet, a delivery date.

Turn Efficiency Into a Competitive Advantage

What would MRO efficiency optimization look like in your operation?

Most MRO leaders already know demand isn’t the issue. The question is how much additional work your existing workforce could realistically complete, and how predictable your delivery schedule could become, with better coordination of inspections, engineering, parts, and specialized work centers.

We work with aircraft and component MRO organizations to model their real maintenance workflow and evaluate practical operational changes that improve turnaround time and increase completed work using the resources they already have.

We can help you:

• increase aircraft or component output per year
• improve schedule reliability and delivery confidence
• reduce backlog growth without adding staff
• support additional customer demand

You don’t have to change your processes first, you can use MRO simulation to evaluate the impact before committing to schedules, staffing, or new work.

Request an MRO throughput review and see how much additional capacity your current operation could support.