Published On : September 2026
A buyer comparing landing gear providers purely by service list, who offers plating versus who offers precision machining, is skipping the constraint that actually determines cost predictability first.
Within the global landing gear market, business model is the decision made before service scope, since whether a contract is structured as Time and Material, fixed price or Power by the Hour determines who bears the financial risk of an unexpectedly extensive overhaul before any specific service is even discussed.
This page describes sixteen named services and seven business models strictly as market segments.
It describes cost structure only in terms of who bears financial risk under each business model, and makes no claim about turnaround-time effectiveness or reliability outcome for any provider or business model.
A landing gear shipset arriving for overhaul under a Time and Material contract carries open-ended cost exposure for the operator, since the final invoice depends on what the teardown inspection actually finds.
A Power by the Hour contract shifts that exposure to the provider in exchange for a fixed rate tied to flight hours, which is why operators increasingly prefer it despite typically paying a premium for the predictability.
That difference in who bears the risk, not the specific services listed in a contract, is why business model comes first in how experienced buyers actually structure a landing gear MRO relationship.
Established buyers typically negotiate business model before finalising which specific services a contract covers, since the model determines the incentive structure a provider works under for the full duration of the relationship.
Complete landing gear overhaul strips a shipset down to its individual components, inspects and refurbishes or replaces each part against OEM specifications, and reassembles the unit to like-new condition within its certified service life.
Landing gear component repair addresses a narrower scope, refurbishing or replacing specific components such as bushings or actuators without a full teardown, typically at lower cost and shorter turnaround than complete overhaul.
Inspection and testing services, including Non Destructive Testing, identify whether a shipset actually needs complete overhaul or can continue in service, functioning as the diagnostic step that determines which of the other services a given unit requires.
These three service categories interact directly: an inspection finding minor wear routes a shipset toward component repair, while a finding of extensive fatigue or corrosion routes it toward complete overhaul instead.
Operators managing older fleets typically see a higher share of complete overhaul relative to component repair, since accumulated flight cycles increase the likelihood that a teardown inspection finds issues across multiple components simultaneously rather than one isolated part.
A shipset entering complete overhaul typically spends considerably longer at a provider's facility than one entering component repair alone, since a full teardown, inspection, refurbishment and reassembly cycle involves more sequential steps than addressing a narrower, already-identified issue.
Providers offering all three service tiers under one roof can route a shipset between inspection, component repair and complete overhaul without the delay and cost of shipping it between separate facilities for each step.
This diagnostic role connects directly to aircraft platform and landing gear type, since the platform an inspected shipset belongs to shapes which specific repair or overhaul path is even available.
Plating services restore corrosion-resistant and wear-resistant coatings to landing gear components after the original coating has degraded through normal service, a step that recurs across nearly every complete overhaul regardless of which other services a shipset needs.
Precision machining addresses components requiring dimensional correction, restoring a part to OEM tolerance where wear has taken it outside acceptable limits, an alternative to outright component replacement that can meaningfully reduce overhaul cost when the underlying part is otherwise sound.
Surface treatment services beyond plating, including shot peening and other fatigue-resistance treatments, extend component service life and are typically specified by the OEM's own overhaul manual rather than left to provider discretion.
Bushing manufacturing sits adjacent to these services, producing replacement bushings to exact specification where an OEM-sourced part carries extended lead time, a capability that differentiates providers on turnaround time specifically.
Providers investing in in-house plating and machining capability typically offer shorter turnaround than providers outsourcing these steps, since eliminating a shipping leg between facilities removes several days from an already lengthy overhaul cycle.
Facilities lacking in-house plating capability must ship components to a certified external plating vendor, adding transit time and an additional handoff to the overall overhaul schedule.
Because these processes recur across nearly every overhaul regardless of aircraft platform, plating, machining and surface treatment capacity often becomes the practical bottleneck constraining how many shipsets a provider can process concurrently, more so than final assembly capacity itself.
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TECHNOLOGY WATCH Providers investing in additional in-house plating and precision machining lines are increasingly citing that investment specifically as a turnaround-time differentiator, since removing an external vendor handoff from the overhaul sequence shortens the schedule regardless of how efficient the plating step itself becomes. |
Hydraulic component repair addresses the actuation and shock-absorption systems integrated into a landing gear assembly, a specialised discipline distinct from the structural overhaul work covered above.
Actuator repair specifically covers the components that extend and retract landing gear, components whose failure modes and repair procedures differ enough from structural landing gear work that many providers treat it as a separate capability rather than a default inclusion.
Engineering support services accompany both hydraulic and structural repair work, providing the technical documentation and airworthiness paperwork an operator needs to return a shipset to service under its certifying authority.
Technical documentation services extend this further, maintaining the traceability records an operator needs across the full service life of a landing gear shipset, a requirement that becomes more demanding as a shipset changes hands between multiple operators over its lifetime.
Because hydraulic and actuator systems fail differently from structural landing gear components, providers frequently maintain separate specialist teams for this work even when both capabilities sit within the same overall facility.
Exchange programmes let an operator receive a serviceable shipset immediately from a provider's existing inventory while their own unit is overhauled and returned to that same pool, shortening aircraft downtime from weeks to days.
Aircraft On Ground support addresses emergency situations where a landing gear issue has grounded an aircraft outside a scheduled maintenance event, prioritising speed over cost and typically commanding a premium over routine scheduled work.
Asset leasing extends the exchange concept further, letting an operator lease landing gear assets outright rather than own a spare shipset, a model that suits operators managing smaller fleets where owning spare inventory would tie up capital disproportionately.
Providers with the deepest exchange inventory generally serve the widest range of aircraft platforms and OEM types, since exchange programmes only work where a provider holds compatible spare shipsets across the specific platforms its customers actually operate.
That inventory depth, more than overhaul capability alone, is why exchange programme strength has become a differentiating factor among providers competing for airline and lessor business.
Exchange programme pricing structures typically differ from standard overhaul pricing, often built around a flat exchange fee plus a core charge that is refunded once the operator's own overhauled unit is returned to the pool.
Aircraft On Ground events, while less frequent than scheduled maintenance for any single operator, collectively represent a meaningful share of overall provider revenue given the premium typically commanded for expedited turnaround.
Exchange inventory depth is one of the clearest differentiators among leading landing gear MRO providers, since building that inventory requires sustained capital commitment few providers match evenly across every platform.
Time and Material remains the traditional business model, billing an operator for actual labour and parts consumed during an overhaul, an approach that keeps costs transparent but leaves the operator exposed to whatever a teardown inspection actually finds.
Fixed Price Overhaul quotes a single price for a defined scope of work upfront, shifting inspection-finding risk to the provider in exchange for a premium built into that fixed price.
Power by the Hour ties payment to flight hours flown rather than to a specific overhaul event, effectively converting landing gear maintenance from a capital expense into a predictable operating cost, which is why airlines managing large fleets increasingly favour it.
Leasing and Long Term Service Agreements extend the same predictability logic across an operator's full fleet relationship with a single provider, often bundling multiple aircraft systems beyond landing gear alone into one commercial arrangement.
Component Repair Contracts sit at a narrower scope than the fleet-wide models above, covering a defined set of repairable components under agreed pricing without extending to complete overhaul or exchange programme access.
Choosing among these seven models interacts directly with an operator's own procurement approach and customer type, since a large airline group's fleet-wide Power by the Hour relationship looks nothing like a regional operator's occasional Time and Material transaction.
Operators new to Power by the Hour contracting sometimes underestimate how much historical utilisation and reliability data a provider requires before quoting a workable hourly rate, since the provider is effectively pricing in the operator's own fleet-specific failure patterns.
Long Term Service Agreements often bundle multiple business model elements together, combining a Power by the Hour baseline with negotiated exceptions for unusually severe findings that fall outside the agreement's normal scope.
Complete overhaul strips a shipset down to its individual components, inspects and refurbishes or replaces each part against OEM specifications, and reassembles the unit to like-new condition within its certified service life.
Power by the Hour ties payment to flight hours flown rather than to a specific overhaul event, converting landing gear maintenance into a predictable operating cost rather than a variable capital expense.
An exchange programme lets an operator receive a serviceable shipset immediately from a provider's existing inventory while their own unit is overhauled, shortening aircraft downtime from weeks to days.
Business model determines who bears the financial risk of an unexpectedly extensive overhaul, a decision made before any specific service is even discussed, which is why experienced buyers structure the relationship around it first.
Component repair addresses specific components such as bushings or actuators without a full teardown, at lower cost and shorter turnaround, while complete overhaul strips down and refurbishes or replaces every component in the assembly.