During my youthful days at a major airline, I distinctly recall a close friend who had just been promoted to an important position. After a while, I asked him ‘What could you have done to be better prepared for the job?’ Without hesitation, he said ‘I wish I had been more familiar with the GPM.’ Every airline has a GMM (General Maintenance Manual) or equivalent GPM (General Procedures Manual). It is thee operations manual for instructions on how the Maintenance Division conducts its business, ...

For those of you who contribute either directly or indirectly to the military Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) market, fasten your seat belts, realignment is coming. We often hear the civilian global MRO market quantified in the $50 billion range; that’s indeed huge. If that impresses you, consider this: as recently as 2011, the global military MRO market was valued at $66 billion, and that excludes China and Russia. On the other hand, that value fell to $62.5 and $60.7 billion respecti...

Leasing activity for aircraft, engines, and major components appears to be on the rise. For example, for engines, the leasing market is now at $14-15 billion, with new leases of $2.5 billion coming on line each year, and an estimate that as much as 50% of spare engines globally are funded by operating leases1. For aircraft, over a third of the world’s airline fleet is now leased2, and is expected to rise to 50% by 20153. Distributors and MRO’s should take notice of these trends because the terms...

I’m sure many of you have noticed movies that replicate the patterns, plots, themes, and scenarios of the blockbuster shows. Today’s predictable formulae might involve guns, car chases, government conspiracies, and of course the 2 minutes of sexual this-or-that, never mind the plot. Another subtle pattern you’ve likely noticed is the role of the supporting hero; you know, the one who comes up with that tantalizing bit of information that seems to break the logjam of suspense. A long running favo...

I was once in Miami and a friend shared a story. He works in a Repair Station there that performs maintenance on aircraft, and has frequent FAA visits. It seems one day an FAA Inspector expressed concerns to him that he had doubts some Repair Station Technicians and Inspectors could competently comprehend English as contained in Quality and Maintenance Manuals. The person responded; “Then why did you issue them A&P and Repairman Certificates?” It is, after all, the FAA’s responsibility to determ...