With workforce gaps widening and supply chains under strain, MRO Management's Craig Waters explores how smarter pre-flight processes are enabling line maintenance teams to protect on-time performance.

In the line maintenance world, ‘pre-flight’ is often described as routine, yet it is anything but. It is the moment where operational pressure, human factors, regulatory discipline and real-time technical decision-making collide, usually on a stand with the clock running.

Regulators capture the essence neatly: the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) defines line maintenance as maintenance “carried out before flight to ensure that the aircraft is fit for the intended flight”, including troubleshooting, defect rectification and limited inspections accessible through quick-opening panels.

What has changed in the past 18‑24 months is not the importance of the pre-flight check, but the environment around it. Higher utilisation, tighter turnarounds, parts shortages and a stretched workforce have raised the value of every minute on the ramp.

The positive story is that the sector is responding with practical digitisation, smarter planning and better-connected information flows – all designed to make that pre-flight decision cycle more consistent, auditable and resilient.

No longer paper chasing

Pre-flight activity has always generated data: defects, servicing, flight hours/ cycles, MEL/CDL status, log entries, rectification actions and sign-offs. The difference now is where and how that data is captured – and how quickly it becomes usable beyond the aircraft.

British Airways’ (BA) deployment of MRO-PRO across its global customer line maintenance network is a clear example of this shift. Engineers use tablets at the aircraft to capture live technical data, feeding a cloud environment that imparts real-time visibility. In an industry where “end‑ofshift reports” can be too late, the operational value is obvious: faster approvals, clearer status and fewer transcription errors during the most time-critical phase of the turnaround.

As Gavin Shearer, head of operations – line maintenance at BA, puts it: “Since implementing MRO-PRO’s platform, we’ve achieved 100% engineer adoption. The system has enabled simplified aircraft workflows with enhanced performance visibility for managers, through improved data insights and delivered smarter work allocation using flight radar feeds to track any aircraft delays and reprioritise tasks.”

That ‘adoption’ point matters. Line maintenance tools only deliver if they work with ramp reality: gloves on, weather turning, radio crackling, pushback time looming. The best platforms are winning because they reduce friction at the exact point pre‑flight checks take place.

Pre-flight starts before the aircraft lands

Pre-flight checks are increasingly being ‘set up’ before arrival. The next optimisation frontier is not shaving seconds off the walk-around; it is ensuring the right person, parts and permissions are already in place when the aircraft parks.

In BA’s case, a key attraction was a resource-planning module that overlays inbound flight data with engineer rosters, qualifications and authorisations to support hour-byhour forecasting and allocation. This is a tangible change to the pre-flight experience: fewer last‑minute scrambles, fewer handoffs, and a better chance that a defect discovered during pre-flight has a clear path to disposition (rectify, defer or escalate) without delaying departure.

From the supplier side, MROPRO managing director Scott Wells frames the broader issue as system fragmentation: “Managing multiple disconnected IT systems is becoming unsustainable.” In the pre-flight context, disconnected systems translate directly into duplicated effort: re‑keying a defect from paper to tech log, chasing approvals in a separate tool, then reconciling work orders later. The opportunity is a single flow from observation to action to sign-off.

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eLTBs as a productivity lever

Electronic technical logbook (eTLB/ ELB/ETL) programmes are not new, but recent airline deployments underline how central they’ve become to pre-flight efficiency and collaboration.

Low-cost Middle East airline flydubai’s move to Ultramain’s digital solution is a case in point. In 2025, Aviation Business News reported the airline’s view that real-time access to information “will result in improved collaboration across the organisation”. The operational significance is straightforward: pre‑flight findings and rectifications are no longer trapped in paper pages that must be scanned, distributed and reinterpreted; they become immediately visible to the people who need them, namely line maintenance, MCC, pilots and operations.

Ultramain’s Tim Spears, vice president of onboard systems, also points to the scaling effect of these deployments with flydubai: “This relationship expands our growth and presence in Dubai and further underscores our ability to meet the diverse business needs in the aviation industry.”

The deeper trend is that digital logs are evolving from ‘paper replacement’ to ‘decision support’. Faster defect closure, clearer visibility of open items and better handovers across shifts all directly improve the quality and consistency of pre-flight decision-making – especially when disruptions hit.

Standardising line tasks on mobile devices

Swiss International Air Lines’ (SWISS) go-live of AMOS line maintenance manager shows another angle: the simplification of toolsets for frontline teams. Swiss AviationSoftware (Swiss‑AS) said the deployment reduces system complexity, with mechanics completing tasks using a single tool on iPads. It also notes SWISS had equipped more than 600 mechanics with smartphones in 2017 to enable digital viewing and acceptance of tasks, creating a foundation for deeper digital line maintenance workflows.

For pre-flight checks, the operational win is consistency. When task assignment, acknowledgement and execution sit in one environment, it is easier to ensure that what should happen before dispatch actually happens – and that it is recorded in a way that stands up to audit and investigation.

The hard constraints

Pre-flight checks are the point where systemic constraints become immediate operational problems. If the part isn’t available, if the certifying engineer is stretched across multiple stands, if a non-routine finding requires expertise that has just gone off shift – pre-flight is where the airline either absorbs a delay or makes a deferral decision. Two macro pressures stand out:

1. Workforce capacity

In its ‘Insight Report’, consulting firm Oliver Wyman has warned of persistent mechanic shortfalls, noting: “We anticipate a shortfall of somewhere between 12,000 and 18,000 aviation maintenance workers.” Bird Aviation’s chief personnel officer Julia Pavlou argues the response must be proactive: “I believe that by modernising recruitment practices and enhancing vocational training programmes, we can cultivate a more appealing image of the industry.”

2. Supply chain disruption

Parts and maintenance capacity constraints have real cost and reliability implications. In a Reuters report on engine maintenance market dynamics, IATA director general Willie Walsh said: “These pressures have become even more acute as limited maintenance capacity and aerospace supply chain constraints have driven up costs and grounded aircraft.”

For line maintenance leaders, the positive opportunity is that digital pre‑flight workflows can partially ‘offset’ these constraints – not by conjuring capacity that doesn’t exist, but by reducing wasted motion, preventing avoidable errors and accelerating decisions when a defect is found.

Fewer surprises, cleaner handovers

Across these examples, the direction of travel is clear and consistent. Data captured at the aircraft can be immediately made available to maintenance control, planning, quality and flight operations teams, removing duplication and delay. Resource allocation increasingly begins before the aircraft lands, with inbound flight data aligned to engineer authorisations to reduce ramp-time disruption.

At the same time, simplified frontline toolsets are cutting system complexity, allowing engineers to focus on inspection and rectification rather than navigation between platforms, while real-time digital logs are shrinking the gap between observation and action – a critical advantage during pre-flight.

The pre-flight check will always be human work – eyes, hands, judgement and accountability. But the line maintenance organisations that thrive will be those that treat pre-flight not as a fixed checklist, but as a high‑value operational process: structured, measurable, digitally enabled and continuously improved.

If there is a simple takeaway for MRO professionals, it is this: in an era of constrained labour and unpredictable parts availability, the quickest wins are often found in the ‘moments that repeat’ – and nothing repeats more relentlessly than pre-flight.

This feature was first published in MRO Management – March 2026. To read the magazine in full, click here.