How to Value an Aircraft MRO Business in 2026

Aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul businesses are some of the most undervalued assets in aviation — and also some of the most frequently mispriced. I've seen family-owned Part 145 repair stations with 40-year histories get valued at book value by sellers who had no idea what a StandardAero or West Star Aviation would actually pay. The gap is often two to three turns of EBITDA.

Here's how MRO valuation actually works, and where the value hides.

The Multiple: 5-9x EBITDA Based on Certifications and Capacity

MRO businesses trade at 5-9x EBITDA, with the spread driven almost entirely by three factors: what you're certified to work on, who holds the certifications (the business or the individual mechanics), and how much hangar capacity you control.

At the low end, sheet metal shops, interior shops, and generic Part 145 stations with limited ratings trade at 4.5-6x EBITDA. At the high end, MROs with OEM authorizations on popular airframes (Gulfstream, Bombardier, Textron), engine overhaul capability, or avionics modification authority (ADS-B upgrades, Garmin G5000 retrofits) trade at 7-9x EBITDAand occasionally higher when a strategic like StandardAero, Duncan Aviation, West Star, Jet Aviation, or Constant Aviationis building out a geographic footprint.

The Part 145 Certificate and Ops Specs

A Part 145 Repair Station Certificate is the foundational asset. But the certificate alone is worth a lot less than the Operations Specifications attached to it. Your ops specs define exactly what work you're authorized to perform: which airframes, which engines, which components, which ratings (airframe, powerplant, radio, instrument, accessory, limited specialized services).

A repair station with Airframe Class 3 (large aircraft), Powerplant Class 3 (turbine), and a limited specialized services rating for a specific engine model is worth meaningfully more than a shop with only Class 1/2 airframe work. Adding a new rating takes 6-18 months of FAA paperwork and a demonstration project. Buyers will pay a premium to skip that process.

The gold standard is an OEM-authorized service center designation. Gulfstream Authorized Service Centers, Textron Authorized Service Facilities, and Bombardier Authorized Service Facilities carry real premium because OEMs route warranty work and owners route relationship work to authorized shops. Losing an OEM authorization in a sale is a deal killer — confirm assignability in the dealer agreement before you go to market.

Hangar Capacity: The Binding Constraint

In MRO, hangar space is the constraint on revenue. You cannot charge for mechanic hours if the aircraft can't get inside. Shops with 80,000+ square feet of heated hangar on a long-term lease are worth a full turn more than shops renting transient space or turning away work in winter.

When I underwrite an MRO deal, the first thing I ask is: what's your billable hours per square foot of hangar per year? A well-run heavy maintenance shop should be doing $400-700 of labor revenue per square foot of hangar annually. Under $300 and the facility is under-utilized or the labor mix is wrong.

Like FBOs, the ground lease situation is critical. MROs on municipal airport leases with 20+ years remaining get institutional bids. Short leases push you into the regional buyer pool at 5-6x EBITDA maximum.

Labor: The Real Bottleneck in 2026

The A&P mechanic shortage is the defining business problem for every MRO in the country. A&P mechanics with IA (Inspection Authorization) now earn $95-130K in most markets and $140K+ in high-cost regions. Avionics technicians with real Garmin/Collins experience are over $120K. Shops that locked in labor with retention bonuses, ESOP structures, or apprenticeship pipelines carry a premium.

Buyers ask: how many A&Ps do you have, what's your IA count, what's your annualized turnover, and what's your open-req ratio? An MRO with 40 A&Ps, 15 IAs, 8% turnover, and no open positions is worth a half-turn more than a similar shop running 25% turnover and constantly short.

The other labor question is classification. Are your "mechanics" W-2 employees or 1099 contractors? Repair stations running heavy 1099 labor have compliance exposure that surfaces fast in diligence. Buyers add back the cost to convert them to W-2 and deduct it from the offer.

Parts, Inventory, and Tooling

MROs carry inventory — rotables, consumables, OEM parts, specialized tooling. This creates two valuation complications. First, inventory has to be independently appraised because book value and market value diverge dramatically (a 15-year-old rotable might be carried at $2,000 on your books and worth $25,000 on the open market, or vice versa). Second, specialized tooling for specific aircraft types is a capital asset that rarely shows up at fair value on the balance sheet.

In practice, buyers value the operating business on EBITDA and then add inventory at an agreed-upon value on top. The inventory negotiation is where 5-10% of total deal value frequently lives.

What Destroys MRO Value

Owner-dependent certifications. If the IA authorizations are held by the owner and nobody else, the business is personally tied to one person. Institutional buyers will not touch it. Cross-train and get IAs under at least three employees before going to market.

Customer concentration. One fleet operator representing 30%+ of revenue is a concentration risk. Fleet MRO contracts move every few years, and losing one customer can cut your EBITDA in half.

FAA enforcement history. Any open LOI (Letter of Investigation), a recent certificate action, or a pattern of Service Difficulty Reports and your multiple drops a full turn. Clean the file before you sell.

Deferred CapEx on tooling. Calibration-due tooling, outdated avionics test sets, and aging ground support equipment all get catalogued in diligence. Buyers deduct the catch-up cost.

No training records. Under Part 145, every mechanic needs documented training for every task. Messy or missing training records are a diligence disaster. Fix this before you engage a banker.

Preparing for Sale

The MROs that sell at 8-9x spend 18 months preparing. They get IA authorizations spread across multiple employees. They formalize their training records. They extend their hangar lease. They add at least one OEM authorization if they don't have one. They clean up the 1099 labor issue. And they get a proper market-comparable valuation done so they know what they're actually selling before they hire a banker.

The Bottom Line

MRO is a certification business disguised as a labor business. The shops that get premium multiples are the ones that treat their Part 145 certificate, their OEM authorizations, and their A&P workforce as the three core assets — and manage them accordingly. Everything else is operational detail. If you're running a real MRO with $2M+ of EBITDA, the right preparation over 18 months is frequently the difference between a 5.5x outcome and an 8x outcome. On a $3M EBITDA business, that's $7.5M of extra value for 18 months of work.