Why British Airways chose UK SME MRO-PRO to digitise global line maintenance
November 12, 2025
When a flag carrier like British Airways decides to overhaul its digital backbone for global line maintenance, the safe choice might seem to be one of the big, established aviation software names. Instead, the airline has turned to MRO-PRO, a relatively small UK-based company whose platform was purpose-built for the realities of modern maintenance, repair and overhaul.
The decision marks one of the most significant endorsements yet of the industry’s new generation of cloud-based, engineer-designed software, as MRO-PRO prepares to deploy across more than 30 international BA stations by early 2026.
How MRO-PRO digitises British Airways’ line maintenance data
Under the new system, BA engineers working on third-party customer aircraft will use tablets at the aircraft to capture live technical data. That information feeds instantly into MRO-PRO’s cloud environment, giving both BA and its customers real-time visibility of work progress, component usage, and operational status.
The benefits go beyond convenience. By digitising the full workflow at source, BA’s line maintenance teams gain a continuous, validated data stream instead of static, end-of-shift reports. This supports faster decision-making, fewer delays in approvals, and more transparent communication with client airlines.
“Since implementing MRO-PRO’s platform, we’ve achieved 100% engineer adoption,” said Gavin Shearer, Head of Operations – Line Maintenance at British Airways. “The system has simplified aircraft workflows, delivered enhanced performance visibility for managers, and improved our customer invoicing process with transparent, itemised breakdowns.”
Dynamic MRO workflows tailored for each British Airways customer
According to Scott Wells, Managing Director of MRO-PRO, the system’s greatest strength lies in its flexibility. Unlike legacy MRO suites built around rigid work orders, MRO-PRO treats every job as a dynamic contract-driven process.
“Most legacy systems treat work orders as static, but MRO-PRO was built to be dynamic and customer-specific,” Wells explained. “Each work order can reflect the individual client’s agreements and charging structures. Invoicing isn’t an afterthought—it’s an automated outcome of how the system is designed.”
That architecture delivers immediate commercial benefits: faster billing cycles, cleaner audit trails, and a sharp reduction in manual data reconciliation. It also makes the platform inherently adaptable to the varied aircraft types and maintenance terms BA handles in its customer line maintenance network.
Smarter line-maintenance planning with live flight-data integration
One of the features that drew BA’s attention is MRO-PRO’s resource-planning module, which links live flight-radar feeds with engineer rosters, qualifications, and authorisations. The result is hour-by-hour forecasting that helps managers allocate the right engineers to the right aircraft before it even lands.
By integrating these data sources, the platform can react to flight delays, reassign work automatically, and minimise idle time—all key performance drivers in line maintenance. The tool also supports spares management, tooling allocation, and logistics coordination in the same environment.
MRO-PRO at a glance
| Category | Highlights |
|---|---|
| Solution type | Cloud-based, multi-platform MRO management system built specifically for third-party maintenance providers, integrating every operational and compliance function in one place. |
| Core modules | Line and base maintenance • Workshop operations • Stores & tooling • Procurement & finance • Quality, safety & compliance • Resource planning dashboards. |
| Key features | Dynamic contract-driven work orders, automated invoicing, mobile-first data capture at the aircraft, live flight-radar integration, hour-by-hour resource planning and engineer authorisation tracking. |
| Business value | Improves data accuracy and visibility, reduces administrative workload, accelerates billing cycles, enhances compliance traceability and optimises engineer utilisation across global networks. |
| Innovation | Version MP7 introduced built-in messaging and “Read & Sign” functionality for communication and compliance; upcoming AI-based base-maintenance module under development. |
| Adoption | Implemented by British Airways for global customer line maintenance, and used by Storm Aviation, Global Aerotech and Mecawings to digitalise maintenance and compliance operations. |
Built by engineers, for engineers
A key advantage of MRO-PRO is its usability. The interface was developed by practising engineers rather than software consultants, which means the platform avoids the clutter and over-engineering typical of enterprise systems.
Its mobile-first design ensures data can be captured directly at the aircraft, with each user seeing only the information relevant to their task. This streamlines entry, eliminates transcription errors, and ensures that the data quality needed for analytics is built in from the start.
“MRO-PRO was built by engineers, for engineers,” Wells said. “The interface is highly intuitive—vital in a workforce spanning different age ranges and technical backgrounds.”
Beyond efficiency, MRO-PRO’s single-system approach provides a solution to growing regulatory pressure. Under the new EASA Part-IS information-security regulation, MROs must demonstrate control and traceability across their digital environment.
“Managing multiple disconnected IT systems is becoming unsustainable,” Wells noted. “Each extra application introduces compliance risk, data fragmentation, and duplicated effort. By bringing quality, compliance, safety, procurement, finance, and information security under one roof, MRO-PRO helps operators meet these obligations confidently.”
UK innovation powering global MRO transformation
For British Airways, the partnership shows that digital credibility no longer depends on scale. MRO-PRO combines deep operational understanding with agility, offering a platform that can evolve as fast as airline maintenance demands do.
Wells called the collaboration “a significant milestone” in the company’s mission to deliver digital and AI-enhanced solutions to airlines and MROs worldwide. The system is already in use with a number of customers, including Global Aerotech in Croatia, Mecawings in France, and, quite recently, Consolidated Aerospace Industries in Slovakia.
But securing a high-profile client like BA is an enormous vote of confidence and proof that, when the product is solid, sometimes the little guy can win.
