StandardAero Maintains Growth Trajectory Despite Talent, Parts Shortages

Scottsdale, Arizona-headquartered StandardAero plans to invest between about $12 million in leasehold improvements over 2.5 years at its MRO facility in Springfield, Illinois. The work includes a hangar door overhaul, interior door replacement, resurfacing of hangar floors, interior and exterior paint, new HVAC systems, flat roof replacements, paint facility upgrades, and parking area and road resurfacing.

StandardArea has already started the repair and overhaul process for the facility’s hangar doors, said Dave Pearman, v-p and general manager of the Springfield location. “And we’re proceeding with the other phased improvements. We are grateful to the Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport for their support and once all of the upgrades are completed, we’ll essentially have a like-new operation.”

Apart from Springfield, StandardAero operates out of primary business aviation MRO facilities in Van Nuys, California; Dallas; Houston; Augusta, Georgia; and the UK. The company also maintains regional service centers in the U.S., Brazil, the UK, South Africa, and Singapore, as well as mobile service teams around the world.

The Springfield project follows a period of healthy growth for StandardAero, whose business has expanded even beyond the industry’s 20 percent overall increase in flight hours from 2019 to today, reported StandardAero business aviation president Tony Brancato during a wide-ranging interview with AIN ahead of NBAA-BACE 2023.

Keeping up with demand hasn’t happened without its challenges, however, given the industry’s shortage of maintenance professionals and long lead times for parts deliveries, he noted.

“We have an aging workforce, which isn’t uncommon in aviation,” explained Brancato. “We work closely with our team members, those that are getting ready to retire, to give us six to 12 months’ notice and then what we do is we'll go out and pursue talent.”

Generally coming directly from A&P schools, new hires typically undergo 90 days of further training at the StandardAero Aviation Maintenance Academy, where they spend time not only in the classroom but also on the shop floor to work with training masters on aircraft. “The long-term growth and dealing with training challenges has got to come from internal training programs, bringing [trainees] along and getting them indoctrinated into our culture,” said Brancato.

The company’s Dallas facility ranks as its largest, employing some 325 maintenance professionals. There, StandardAero must compete for mechanics with the likes of American and Southwest Airlines, posing a constant struggle to retain qualified people. Still, noted Brancato, the company has done well to maintain a flow of recruits.

“We’ve taken people who have HVAC experience or electrical experience, brought them in, done some testing, and then put them into our training academy,” he explained. StandardAero also offers reimbursement for expenses at A&P schools.

“We're very aggressive in that area,” said Brancato. “We’ll bring them in as interns while they're between semesters and pay them an hourly wage. Then, if they're interested, they'll come work for us, and we'll finish paying their second semester or whatever it may be.”

The other major challenge StandardAero continues to confront—parts shortages due to supply-chain disruptions—has proved as stubborn as the dearth of mechanics. In fact, Brancato noted that the improvements expected this year haven’t materialized, adding that he doesn’t expect a much better situation in 2024.

“So, 2024 is going to be another difficult year,” he said. “We work closely with our customers, we coordinate their service and maintenance needs in advance. It’s really a tight-knit group we're pulling together, between customers and the OEMs—whether they be engine or avionics or airframe—and ourselves to try and coordinate this better because of this challenging time that we're all faced with.”

While Brancato explained that the problem applies "across the board" in terms of the range of parts affected, he did note some improvement in the supply of avionics.

“Avionics has probably seen the best improvement,” he said. “Chip shortages have really reduced…getting boards, getting antennas, things like that. They still have challenges—don’t get me wrong. But they’ve probably progressed the most in terms of coming out of this trough of shortages.”

Engine work, meanwhile, still accounts for some 75 percent of StandardAero’s business, requiring a high level of coordination with OEMs and its customers, who benefit from the company’s lease pool of nearly 100 engines.

“A lot of it comes with really working with customers on what their flight hours look like when they’re planning downtime, when we can do an engine change, when they want to bring the airframe in for an annual inspection,” continued Brancato. “The pressure is on us to meet the turn time; the pressure's on them to work with us and plan, get it in on schedule, get it out on plan, and keep it to a defined work scope as much as we can.”