GE Aerospace Turns to Robots and AI to Unclog Aviation’s Biggest Bottleneck
Singapore — At GE Aerospace’s sprawling repair hub here, a veteran technician named Suresh Sinnaiyan is doing something counterintuitive: training a machine to take over the job he’s spent more than a decade mastering.
Sinnaiyan’s specialty is blending — the painstaking process of reshaping deformed compressor blade tips back to within a few thousandths of an inch of their required tolerances. It’s work that has always demanded human eyes, steady hands, and years of experience. Now, at GE’s new automation lab in Singapore, he’s coaching a robotic arm to replicate the same motions on a sanding belt, translating muscle memory into programmable precision.
The initiative sits at the center of a much larger $300 million, five-year investment GE Aerospace announced earlier this month. Backed by Singapore’s Economic Development Board, the plan aims to overhaul the company’s largest component repair site — a facility that handles more than 60% of GE’s global repair volume — with automation, digital inspection tools, and artificial intelligence.
Why Singapore, Why Now
The timing isn’t coincidental. Aviation’s MRO sector is under enormous strain. Unexpected durability issues across the latest generation of jet engines have created repair backlogs stretching into months. Airlines are keeping older aircraft flying well past their expected retirement dates because replacement engines and spare parts simply aren’t available fast enough. Consulting firm Bain & Company has found that repair turnaround times for new-generation engines have ballooned by more than 150% since the pandemic, with some carriers waiting three months just to secure a shop slot.
GE’s own CFM LEAP engines — the workhorses powering most new Airbus A320neo-family jets and every Boeing 737 MAX — haven’t been immune. Operators have reported earlier-than-expected wear on high-pressure turbine components, fuel nozzle coking, and bearing issues on driveshafts. Southwest Airlines recently flagged concerns about the availability of improved HPT stage-one disks for its LEAP-1B fleet after CFM capped the original part’s life limit at 10,000 cycles. CFM is rolling out durability kits and redesigned turbine blades, but those fixes take time to proliferate through a global fleet of more than 3,500 LEAP-powered aircraft — a number expected to double by 2030.
Meanwhile, rival Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan recall has grounded hundreds of A320neo-family jets, pushing even more demand toward LEAP-powered alternatives and, in turn, toward LEAP repair shops.
The result? A pressure cooker for MRO providers worldwide.
Doing More Without Building More
GE’s approach in Singapore is notably restrained in one respect: the company isn’t expanding its physical footprint. Instead, CEO Larry Culp’s strategy relies on squeezing dramatically more throughput from existing space by reorganizing workflows, automating where feasible, and applying the “Flight Deck” lean manufacturing philosophy he’s championed since taking the helm.
The target is a 33% increase in repair volume from the Singapore facility. One reorganized area, focused on overhauling scorched CFM56 turbine nozzles — components that endure extreme heat inside one of the most widely used engines in commercial aviation history — has already compressed turnaround times significantly from 40 days in 2021, with a goal of reaching 21 days by 2028.
And it’s giving up roughly a third of its floor space to prepare for the next wave: developing approved repair procedures for LEAP engine components now entering their first overhaul cycles. That handoff matters. Without certified repair processes, airlines must replace worn parts with brand-new ones — components that are more expensive and, crucially, in limited supply.
“Repair can really improve turnaround time,” said Iain Rodger, Managing Director of GE Aerospace Component Repair Singapore. “The less time the engine is off the wing, the better.”
The Secret Sauce Problem
Here’s where things get commercially interesting. Engine makers earn some of their fattest margins from servicing used parts and licensing specific repair procedures to third-party shops in exchange for lucrative royalties. That means every repair process GE develops is proprietary intellectual property — the secret sauce of an increasingly valuable slice of the business.
Automating those processes doesn’t just reduce labor dependency. It locks in consistency, enables faster scaling, and potentially strengthens GE’s competitive position against third-party MRO providers who can only perform repairs they’ve been authorized to do.
GE also recently opened a new module repair facility at Singapore’s Seletar Aerospace Park dedicated to CFM LEAP-1A and LEAP-1B high-pressure turbine work. The facility, part of the broader $300 million plan, is designed to support customers across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East — regions where LEAP durability issues have been particularly acute due to hot and harsh operating environments.
Tensions Between Makers and Operators
The MRO crunch has fueled a very public spat between airlines and engine manufacturers. Carriers argue that OEMs are profiting from scarcity — raising prices while airlines absorb the cost of grounded aircraft and extended maintenance queues. Engine makers counter that they’ve poured billions into development and are now investing heavily to expand support capacity.
AirAsia co-founder Tony Fernandes didn’t mince words in a recent interview, telling Reuters that engine makers “have got to remember airlines are their future and treat us as partners.” Ascend Airways, a UK-based LEAP-1B operator, has been similarly blunt, with executives describing repair costs as “extremely high” and communication from CFM as inadequate.
GE’s investment in Singapore is, in part, an answer to that criticism. The company reported full-year 2025 revenue of $45.86 billion, with its Commercial Engine Services division growing 31% year over year. It can afford the capital outlay. Whether it can move fast enough to meaningfully ease the bottleneck is another question.
An Industry at an Inflection Point
Analyst Nick Cunningham of Agency Partners has noted that the slowdown in new aircraft production — which boosted demand for older jets and their engines — is gradually coming to an end. As Boeing and Airbus ramp deliveries, some of the extraordinary pressure on repair shops should ease.
But airline executives and industry watchers caution that the underlying supply squeeze won’t vanish overnight. Over 3,500 LEAP-powered jets are already flying, and that installed base is expanding rapidly. Every one of those engines will eventually need shop visits, and the infrastructure to service them is still catching up.
So, in a hangar on the northern edge of Singapore, a robot is learning to feel the curve of a compressor blade. It doesn’t get tired, it doesn’t retire, and it doesn’t need a decade of training. Whether it can truly replicate the intuition that’s kept jet engines running safely for generations — that’s the question GE is betting $300 million it can answer.
Photo Credit: GE Aerospace
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