How the avionics overhaul cycle works

When will the planes flying over the US need an overhaul? At Instrumental Partners we did the homework, and we have a number and a date.

Flying is the safest way to travel, and that record rests on one thing: everything is regulated, and the rules are followed to the letter. Some of those rules set the clock. Airlines must overhaul engines every 15,000 to 20,000 flight hours, and avionics carry their own overhaul requirements that shift with the state of the industry. Together, these cycles keep the fleet renewing itself, and they create steady demand as planes age. Our focus here is avionics, the segment we work in at Instrumental Partners. It was worth 8.29 billion USD in 2025 (source), and it keeps growing as new FAA rules arrive. Reading past cycles, the pattern is clear: a plane needs an avionics overhaul roughly every ten years, sometimes sooner.

Demand is high, and it is climbing. New aircraft are not arriving fast enough to relieve it. Airlines are pushing to bring in cleaner, more efficient models like the Airbus A320neo and A321neo or the Boeing 737 MAX, but production capacity cannot keep pace with the orders. A report from Oliver Wyman (source) expects MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) to grow from $28 billion to $35 billion by 2035, with the world commercial fleet expanding 32% over the same stretch. Some of those newer jets already need avionics overhauls, and the longer the fresh fleet takes to land, the more overhauls the market will call for.

To pin down the timing, we went to the FAA registration database and read the build date of every plane in the country. Sorting by engine type, size and model, we kept the aircraft that fly as airliners in transport and passenger service, down to the smaller regional carriers. We chose this segment because it clusters around the big airports and ages fast. Privately owned light aircraft are far more numerous, but they scatter across the map and are harder to reach as clients. So we set our sights on commercial airliners, with the airlines as the customer. Beyond the FAA records, we pulled in outside sources to track the age and operator of nearly every plane flying in the US, and to work out when each one is due for its avionics overhaul. Here is how the main aging models line up:

The curves spike just past the ten-year mark, but the real signal sits in the area under each curve just before a decade closes, because those are the planes about to knock on the MRO industry's door. Operators will smooth that curve over time, since an overhaul takes a plane out of service and the fleet has to stay in the air. Even so, the totals are firm: 756 commercial planes come due for an overhaul in the next 12 months, and 2,414 within three years. Even the newer models are reaching that age, a telling sign that the younger fleet is already adding to the demand.

Look closer and the curves cross. Stack the volume of planes at those crossings and the demand piles up in certain months, echoes of the different dates when OEMs delivered planes years ago. Taking only the three biggest manufacturers, Boeing, Airbus and Embraer, the peak lands in December, which makes that month the one to watch for anyone racing to meet overhaul demand. Widen the view to every model flying in the market today, and we can answer the opening question: the next peak of commercial planes turning another decade old in the US arrives in June 2027.

At Instrumental Partners we follow the data, and we research it to hand our clients the sharpest insight. Even this one chart reveals the delivery peaks of every registered model, and with them the seasonality patterns that feed forecasting models. Repair stations and avionics manufacturers can use those forecasts to brace for demand and answer it faster, or simply to warm up their CRMs with market intelligence they will not find elsewhere. From this exercise we built a list of the planes about to need an overhaul and the operators that run them. Our clients are already turning that intelligence into sharper sales pitches and warmer calls.

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