UAE MRO Needs Alignment More Than New Build, White Paper Says

The UAE does not need to build an aircraft maintenance industry from scratch. It needs to make better use of the one it already has. That is the central argument of a new white paper unveiled in Dubai on 23 September.

Titled Advancing Strategic Alignment Across the UAE MRO Ecosystem, the paper was produced by Aviation Business Middle East, with GE Aerospace contributing industry perspective. GE published the announcement through its Middle East newsroom.

The market behind the argument

The paper cites an Oliver Wyman forecast that global maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) spending will approach US$193 billion by the end of the decade. The drivers listed are ageing fleets, late aircraft deliveries, engine durability problems and limited shop capacity.

All four are familiar themes for Gulf operators, whose widebody fleets are among the largest in the world and whose order books depend on on-time deliveries from Airbus and Boeing.

Engines are a large slice of that spending, but the paper takes a wider view. It looks at airframe heavy maintenance, component repair, specialist engineering and the wider aftermarket as well as engine services.

Who contributed

The study draws on input from Emirates Engineering, Sanad, GE Aerospace, Boeing, Airbus, AMMROC and ExecuJet, among others, plus lessons from established MRO markets abroad. It models three possible paths for the UAE MRO sector to 2035, based on different levels of industry alignment and capability development.

Aziz Koleilat, GE Aerospace’s President and CEO for the METCIS region, said the region’s collective strength grows faster when operators, OEMs and MRO providers agree on shared technical standards and long-term investment is backed by the right regulatory and policy environment.

GE noted that the paper reflects the views of Aviation Business Middle East, and that GE does not endorse all of its conclusions.

Context: the investment is already flowing

The paper’s starting point matches what is happening on the ground. In May 2026, Emirates broke ground on a US$5.1 billion engineering complex at Dubai South, covering 1.1 million square metres with hangar space for 28 widebody aircraft at once and completion due by mid-2030. Also in May, Mubadala-owned Sanad announced an AED480 million (US$130 million) engine repair centre in Al Ain, expected to process up to 65,000 parts a year by 2030.

In September, IER MRO Industries began construction of the first phase of a 1.4 million sq ft narrowbody engine complex at Dubai South.

These projects are large on their own. The white paper’s point is that the next step for the UAE is to link them: more visibility of the capabilities that already exist, closer partnerships between complementary players, and a push to win a bigger share of complex, high-value MRO work.

Why it matters for engineers

The paper frames the task as “development, not construction”. For the technical workforce, its emphasis on shared technical standards is a practical matter, because common standards make it easier for skills, approvals and work to move between airline, OEM and independent shops. The full paper is available from GE Aerospace’s Middle East white papers page.