From Grounded to Greatness: How Delta TechOps Reinvented Airline Maintenance Post-COVID
Imagine being in charge of keeping nearly 1,000 aircraft safe and ready for flight—then the world shuts down.
When COVID-19 struck, Delta Air Lines was forced to park much of its massive fleet. Mike McBride, Vice President of Maintenance Operations at Delta TechOps, one of the largest airline maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) operations in the world, faced the monumental task of stabilizing—and eventually transforming—a system in crisis.
In our inaugural episode of The Operations Science Podcast, Mike shared the gripping story of how Delta TechOps navigated the chaos of a global shutdown, rebuilt a decimated workforce, and became a global benchmark for operational excellence.
The Perfect Storm: Supply Chain Collapse and Workforce Exodus
As airlines halted flights, revenue disappeared overnight. Delta offered early retirement and buyout packages to reduce costs. The result? A loss of over 30% of the maintenance workforce—and nearly 50,000 years of collective experience gone in months. At the same time, supply chains fractured. Engine turnaround times skyrocketed from 75 days to over 300, while new engine models with unfamiliar demands came online. “Most engine lines in the industry… got up around 200-plus days, some of them even close to 300,” said McBride. “We used to… have a centennial day for any engine that went over 100 days because nobody… wanted an engine to go more than 100 days.”
Restarting the Fleet: Training at Scale
Grounded aircraft can’t just sit idle. Regulations require regular maintenance to ensure continued airworthiness. That meant crews were dispatched across the country to perform checks on stored planes—many of which weren’t expected to fly again. But as demand rebounded faster than expected, aircraft like the Boeing 717 were brought back into service despite initial plans to retire them permanently.
At the same time, TechOps faced the challenge of training hundreds of new technicians—something they had never done at this scale. “We used to onboard one or two new people a month. Suddenly every month we had 20 people to train,” Mike said. Traditional training paths broke down. The team had to restructure production processes into modular subfactories, training groups to specialize in specific sections of engine builds.
Amid the uncertainty, one principle guided the way: stability. Within six months of the recovery, McBride’s team committed to creating repeatable processes and restoring operational rhythm. This meant applying operations science concepts.
Rebuilding Culture with a Common Language
Stability wasn’t just about data and flow—it was about people. “Getting people this kind of common understanding of how you think about the operations and variation and stability and control, that’s just key because otherwise it just looks like chaos.” Mike noted.
To fix that, Delta TechOps partnered with the Operations Science Institute to roll out a structured training program using lean tools on a foundation of operations science. Around 500 employees have since been trained, creating a shared framework across roles and departments. Lean tools like gemba boards were introduced to visualize shop floor metrics and connect theory to daily reality. Mike related, “The stuff that they do in the [operations science] course they go right back down to the shop floor and it’s there, it’s on the gemba boards. It’s in the language. It’s already something that they’re hearing and using daily.”
The operations science training has been provided across multiple functional areas like Engineering and Finance. Finance liked it so much they have put one of their analysts in the MRO continuous improvement group to sharpen Finance’s understanding and leverage the powerful financial implications of operations science.
The result? A clear cultural shift. As one shop technician said after the operations science training, “We now realize we don’t have 30 problems [because there are 30 people in the shop] and many opinions of causes and solutions. We have four main problems, and we’re working together to solve them.”
A New Standard of Performance
The transformation has yielded astonishing results. Delta’s legacy engine shops are now 2–4 times faster than competitors, with significantly reduced inventory costs and improved reliability. And this isn’t just about Delta—plans are underway to extend these principles to MRO services for external airline customers.
TechOps has reduced hundreds of millions of dollars in inventory.
Looking Ahead: The AI Advantage
Delta shifted from fleet-level forecasting to serial-number-specific planning. They began channeling parts to individual engines months in advance. Artificial intelligence played a key role, particularly in predicting engine scrap rates with far greater accuracy—boosting forecast accuracy from 65–70% to over 85%.
However, as Mike has related in the past, it is dangerous to use AI without an understanding of the science of whatever it is you are addressing. The results can be disastrous as many people have found out.
Delta TechOps continues to push the frontier. From AI-driven forecasting and predictive maintenance to smarter supply chain management, they are demonstrating how operational excellence isn’t about buzzwords—it’s about applying technology and operations science to improve flow, reduce variability, and make smarter decisions.
Conclusion
Delta TechOps didn’t just survive the pandemic—it emerged stronger, smarter, and faster. McBride’s story is a powerful example of how operations science, combined with leadership and grit, can transform crisis into competitive advantage. As Mike concluded, “It’s really exciting to see operations science growing at the pace that it is and the value that’s created by the operations science team and all the really sharp minds that have spent most of their lives developing a lot of this stuff. It’s fun to be around. It’s great to have the resource for Delta and for me personally.”
If you’re a leader grappling with challenges in your operation—or just passionate about building better operations—Delta TechOps offers a compelling case study in resilience, reinvention, and the power of operations science.
See the full Operations Science Podcast episode below.
Your people, your technology can solve your problems. Encourage and inspire employees and sustain your operations success over the long term with a common language and operations management grounded in operations science. No software or consulting required. Contact us at the Operations Science Institute and get started on the road to long-term success.
