Background & Opportunity
Air Support is a French independent maintenance, repair and overhaul provider serving engine manufacturers, airlines, aircraft manufacturers and major maintenance centers. Its principal revenue comes from repairing aircraft engines and onboard components, while it also provides on-site technical support for customers’ cabin equipment. The business is highly international: approximately 65% of revenue came from exports in 2020, and its 2025 CSR report said the company served more than 200 customers across 40 countries. For a B2B maintenance provider of this kind, customers are not simply buying repair labor. They also depend on airworthiness certifications, dedicated test benches, technical repair expertise, turnaround time and reliable on-time delivery. These capabilities require equipment, processes, experienced people and accumulated organizational knowledge, so they cannot be created immediately after demand appears. The COVID-19 pandemic caused demand across the aviation supply chain to collapse in 2020. Air Support generated about €26 million in revenue that year and employed 120 people. In the fiscal year ending in March 2022, revenue was €22 million and headcount was approximately 150, demonstrating the real operating pressure created by the industry downturn. At the same time, a new maintenance cycle was emerging as next-generation LEAP engines gradually moved toward aftermarket service requirements. Air Support still needed to expand its existing test equipment, facility space and relevant maintenance capabilities. Certification and the development of skilled technicians both require long lead times. If the company had stopped investing or made extensive layoffs in response to the short-term downturn, it might have lacked the equipment, expertise and people required to accept orders when aviation maintenance demand recovered. The downturn therefore also created a window in which Air Support could prepare for its next growth phase before demand returned. A project announced under the French recovery plan in 2021 included new test benches, LEAP-related capabilities and the digitalization of maintenance workflows. Total investment in the technical and digital projects was approximately €1.75 million, with an expected grant of about €1 million. Air Support subsequently completed an LBO in 2022. After the transaction, Sabine Tertre held close to 70%, while iXO and BNP Paribas Développement each held approximately 15%. The company also obtained bank financing, adding capital support for further investment in equipment and space. The external market was also changing. Recovering global air traffic, the scale of the narrow-body aircraft fleet and rising engine maintenance requirements all expanded the opportunity available to MRO providers. Air Support was therefore not facing a simple choice between growth and contraction. It had to balance short-term demand and cash pressure against the need to build long-term capabilities. Broad retrenchment could have reduced spending during the downturn, but it also risked losing an established technical team and accumulated repair knowledge. Continued investment, by contrast, exposed the company to uncertainty over the speed of demand recovery, equipment utilization and the timing of facility expansion. Management ultimately defined the opportunity as using the industry downturn to preserve core capabilities and prepare next-generation engine maintenance, testing and digital processes before the market recovered. The subsequent increases in revenue and annual repair volume are consistent with that capability strategy. They do not, however, prove that every part of the growth resulted from a single decision. Management’s statement that continued investment brought important contracts represents the company’s own attribution, while market recovery and broader growth in MRO demand were also material drivers.
Original Problem / Model
The original model relied on certifications, test benches, technical staff and delivery performance to serve international customers. The pandemic sharply reduced demand while LEAP maintenance capabilities, testing equipment and facility space still needed development. Suspending investment or laying off large numbers of employees could have left Air Support without sufficient people, knowledge or capacity when demand recovered.
Turning Point
The turning point came when management declined to retrench broadly during the crisis. The French recovery plan supported testing and digitalization projects in 2021, while the 2022 LBO and accompanying bank financing supplied capital for the next phase of equipment and facility expansion.
Core Decision
Air Support decided to retain its core technical team, continue developing LEAP and other engine-component repair capabilities, install dedicated test benches and digitalize maintenance workflows. It also directed new capital toward production space and capacity expansion.
Execution / Model / Acquisition Changes
Air Support implemented approximately €1.75 million in technical and digital projects. In 2024, it launched an expansion of about €4.5 million, adding a 1,800-square-meter positive-energy building and refurbishing approximately 1,000 square meters of existing space. Its business model remained international independent B2B MRO, differentiated through turnaround time and on-time delivery.
Measurable Results
Revenue rose from about €26 million in 2020 to approximately €47 million for the fiscal year ending in March 2024, then to about €61.5 million for the year ending in March 2025. In 2025, Air Support had about 200 employees, repaired approximately 10,000 items annually, achieved a 20-day turnaround time and delivered 99% on time. A later announcement reported revenue above €96 million.
Lessons
The case suggests that companies in industries with long certification, specialized-equipment and talent-development cycles can prepare for recovering demand by retaining organizational knowledge and building capabilities during a downturn. However, recovering air traffic and rising MRO demand also supported growth, so the results cannot be attributed entirely to countercyclical investment.