Small MRO for business jets here. The bottom line for my shop is price compression. We are a small (15 mechs total) shop that works King Airs, PC-12’s, and small cabin private jets. The people flying these aircraft largely shop on price alone, everything else being mostly equal. We’ve had to fight tooth and nail to raise our hourly rates, and have even lost a few customers we really liked because our bottom-dollar shop rate has gone up to $115 this year. We net about 3-5% on labor at that rate depending on equipment R&M and other misc expenses, which means we frankly don’t have the budget to pay guys what I think we should be paying them ($24-37 depending on merit and experience). It drives me nuts in middle management and I don’t blame guys who job jump for money. I can’t speak for the major players like Duncan and Constant, but shit, until the whole industry hikes prices we don’t have much room left. It’s gotten so bad I and the DOM have foregone raises for three years now to try and keep more money in the pot for raises.

Generally speaking, most profit we make in a month is on parts but even that has been eroding as more OEMs push programs like Proparts and Smart Parts that act like an HSA for airplane parts. We see no profit on these at all and barely get away with charging $50 handling fees to pay for the time our parts person spends doing receiving and returning cores.

I can’t speak to the economics of these larger companies like Suncountry, I’ve never worked for them and don’t know what their financials look like.