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Aviation glossary

MRO

Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul · Also: maintenance, repair and overhaul, aircraft maintenance, Part 145 organisation

Manufacturing and maintenance

The industry and range of work that keeps aircraft airworthy: line maintenance, heavy checks, engine overhauls and component repairs.

What it is

MRO covers four broad areas. Line maintenance is done on the apron between flights or overnight; base maintenance takes place in the hangar and includes the heavy checks; engine shops strip and rebuild powerplants; and component shops look after items such as landing gear, auxiliary power units and avionics.

On commercial aircraft this work may only be carried out by organisations approved by the authorities, such as Part-145 organisations in Europe or Part 145 repair stations in the United States, and it is completed with a signature from certifying staff releasing the aircraft to service.

Many large airlines run their own maintenance subsidiaries, Lufthansa Technik being a familiar example, while engine makers sell contracts under which the airline pays per flight hour and the manufacturer looks after the engine.

On Vuelopedia

Lufthansa

Related terms

A, B, C and D checksPackages of scheduled maintenance, rising in depth from A to D, that an aircraft undergoes at set intervals of flight hours, cycles or calendar time. Engine overhaulA visit by an engine to the workshop, after thousands of hours on the wing, to strip it down, inspect it, replace parts and restore its performance. Return to serviceAn aircraft's return to operation after storage, repair or maintenance, once it has been confirmed as fit to fly. Airworthiness directiveMandatory instruction issued by an aviation authority to correct an unsafe condition found in a type of aircraft, engine or component. Service bulletinDocument in which the manufacturer of an aircraft, engine or component recommends an inspection, improvement or modification to its operators.
Whole glossary

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This page was last updated on October 9, 2026

APA

Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). MRO. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/mro

MLA

“MRO.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/mro. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Chicago

Vuelopedia. “MRO.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/mro.

Harvard

Vuelopedia (2026) MRO. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/mro (Accessed: 16 October 2026).

BibTeX

@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_mro,
  author       = {{Vuelopedia}},
  title        = {{MRO}},
  publisher    = {Fundación Poderia},
  year         = {2026},
  date         = {2026-10-09},
  url          = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/mro},
  howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/mro}},
  urldate      = {2026-10-16},
  note         = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Wikipedia

{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/mro |title=MRO |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}

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