For MRO specialist Yingling there’s no place like home

The company has been based in Wichita for 80 years. And, while it has grown massively, it has no plans to spread its wings beyond Kansas.

Wichita is famously the birthplace of Beechcraft, Cessna, and Learjet – names that helped put it on the map as the USA’s general aviation capital. But alongside them, another venerable GA brand has called the Kansan city home for 80 years.

Maintenance, repair and overhaul firm Yingling Aviation is celebrating its landmark birthday at NBAA-BACE. And while it now occupies some 46,000sq m (500,000sq ft), it still sits on the same site it moved to in 1954 at what is now Dwight D Eisenhower National Airport.

The company is a full-service provider catering for aircraft types from Cessna 182s to ultra-large-cabin Bombardier Globals and Gulfstreams, although around half its business comes from Textron customers, explains chief executive Gregg Fahrenbruch.

The firm specialises in avionics and connectivity, and is an authorised service location for brands such as Collins, Honeywell/Bendix-King, Avidyne, Garmin, and Gogo. Additionally, it supports McCauley Propeller and is one of the industry’s largest Textron parts suppliers.

Defence work including for Textron’s special missions arm is another facet of the business. “There are a lot of opportunities in the government space,” says Fahrenbruch. “We are very adept at special mission work, including on [Cessna] Caravans and [Beechcraft] King Airs.”

Yingling also runs the airport’s fixed-base operation, where the clientele includes crews taking aircraft in for maintenance or making a technical stop, business travellers flying to and from the city, and aircraft brokers who come to Yingling to close deals, Fahrenbruch says.

The company – which was controlled by the Yingling family until 1982 – is today majority owned by Boca Raton, Florida-based AE Industrial Partners, a private equity (PE) firm specialising in aerospace, defence and government services.

AE – which also has investments in the likes of leasing company Global Jet Capital, parts supplier Kellstrom, and rocket engine specialist Rocketdyn – is unlike many PE houses in that “they are aviation people”, insists Fahrenbruch, who was recruited to the job in April.

“PE often gets a bad name in this industry, but we couldn’t ask for a better partner,” he says. “They are not coming in and squeezing the customer by driving prices up. Instead, they are introducing business processes that allow us to scale and really deliver for the customer.”

Founding father

Yingling was founded by Vic Yingling just after the Second World War as a shop to look after his own single aircraft. Based for its first eight years at Wichita’s original municipal airport, it began to attract third-party customers.

The company was bought by Salina-based businessman Jerry Vanier in 1982 and in 2000 changed hands again when it was purchased by Lynn Nichols. He, in turn, sold a majority stake to AE in 2023, while remaining as an investor. All opted to retain the family name.

The period running up to and after the latest change in ownership saw Yingling make significant investments in its facilities, completing a top-to-bottom renovation in 2020 and opening its 14th hangar in early 2024, its ninth in three years.

There were also acquisitions of local MRO firms: Bevan Aviation and Mid-Continent Aviation Services (MCAS), as well as large-cabin interiors specialist Global Engineering & Technology or GETI, Yingling’s first expansion into that segment.

Fahrenbruch suggests that not everyone is aware of the extent of Yingling’s capabilities, partly because it does not have a presence beyond Wichita. “People don’t know the scale here with 19 hangars and 23 buildings across half a million square feet,” he says.

However, Fahrenbruch, previously an executive vice-president with Wheels Up and chief executive of Mountain Aviation, believes the company’s “everything in one facility” set-up is a strength. “It is hard to scale what we do across the country,” he says.

While Yingling will look at “opportunities if the time is right”, that is unlikely to be soon. “We are in transition as an industry and every MRO is going to have to reinvent itself,” he says. “We are focused on how we build the best-performing MRO before we look at scaling up.”

Five years after Covid-19, aftermarket parts supply remains a major headache for the sector. “Windshields, brakes, wheels, are all still really challenging,” he says, noting that MROs acquiring aircraft to tear down for parts and USM [used serviceable material] is a likely trend.

Positive developments for the MRO community include growing demand for in-flight connectivity retrofits as high-speed wifi in flight becomes a “core requirement” rather than a luxury for passengers, says Fahrenbruch.

Another boost for Yingling, including for its newly acquired interiors operation, is that business jets are getting bigger. “There is a lot of new wealth around,” he says. “First-time buyers who would have traditionally gone into light jets are now going straight into a Global or Gulfstream.”

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