For Southwest Airlines, there are no replacement plans—at least for now—for the electromechanical cockpits on the 130 Boeing 737-300s and -500s it still flies. “We are always evaluating the future of our 737-300s and -500s, which includes possible cockpit modifications as fleet planning warrants,” says Kent Horton, Southwest's director of engineering.

As more European airlines add Boeing 787s and more foreign carriers deploy them to European airports, small- and medium-sized maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) companies are seeking to profit by expanding their capabilities to include Dreamliner services.

Having flown more than 35,000 mi. in the past month between North America, South America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific—on aircraft including an Embraer 190 within Brazil to a Boeing 777-300ER from Dubai to Singapore—how could airline operations not have occupied my mind? As the world becomes more connected, and as airlines in regions such as Southeast Asia expand into sizes where aftermarket volumes support developing local services, partnerships flourish. I witnessed it on each continent.

A European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) draft rule tackles several ambiguities around aircraft technical records, including how long certain records should be kept, and how new technology—such as digitized records—should be accommodated.

MRO providers seek new revenue streams

1. Electronics for All Markets Company: Esterline CMC Electronics Services: Located in Montreal, Esterline CMC Electronics focuses equally on its business, commercial and military aviation markets, with a wide product line including FMS/GPS, enhanced vision system sensors, satellite communications antennas and cockpit systems integration. The company recently certified its CMA-9000 FMS for retrofit on the Airbus A310, offering operators a replacement for older FMS components with more limited memory capacity.

For successful young MRO providers, economy is essential and growth is a constant goal. “Effective energy- consumption management is one of our main priorities,” says CEO Zilvinas Lapinskas of FL Technics, based in Lithuania. All FL hangars and repair shops have integrated energy-control systems that monitor and automatically change electricity and heating.

30 years in, Pratt & Whitney's PW100s still move well