AAR Corp. expands in Rockford, employs hundreds for airline repair services

Yahoo

04-04-2025

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — A company that continues to grow in Rockford has reached a workforce in the hundreds as they continue cementing their status as a global leader in airline repairs, many of which are made in the Stateline.
AAR CORP runs the Airframe MRO Rockford facility. MRO stands for Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul.
Troy Primus is general manager of AAR Airframe MRO in Rockford. There they provide maintenance, repairs, and overhaul services to aircraft for companies like major airliners. He says it's a joy working for a company that is growing in the Stateline.
'It's a joy to come here and work at AAR,' Primus said. 'A great company to work for, great leaders. It's coming to work doing something different every day, right. It's never the same manufacturing type environment, which we kind of do that in a sense, but not. We do more the repair side, but having a different challenge, a different dynamic, and working with different people every day has always been a joy for me to work here.'
AAR is the largest independent MRO provider in north America. They fix and maintain things in or on the wings, the landing gear, luggage bay and inside the fuselage. Something needs fixing in the cockpit, AAR can get it done. They work on the entire aircraft, even painting.
AAR CORP has roughly 6,000 team members across the globe. Headquartered in the northwest Chicago suburb of Wood Dale, AAR maintained, repaired, and overhauled 778 aircraft in the fiscal year 2024.
Rockford is one of six Airframe MRO facilities the company runs.
'Rockford is a unique one because we kind of built this facility from the ground up from scratch,' Primus said. 'We started off with 35 to 40 people. Now we have grown to 400. The workforce, people from different locations, people are local. People from Rock Valley College that we brought in from students locally as well.'
One of those Rock Valley College graduates is Kyle Cooper. These days he's a production supervisor. He says he's glad to have grown with AAR.
'It's pretty cool,' Cooper said. 'It helped me go to school. I was able to support my family while doing it and here I am moving up the ranks.'
Cooper says the company continues to adjust to new technology. What was a paper heavy industry is turning more digital friendly. In 2023, the company acquired Trax, an aviation software company.
Aviation, by nature, it's very documentation heavy,' Cooper said. 'We have individual cards for every job that we complete on these aircraft. But our company has been working on a proprietary tool to digitize this entire process. We've been working to streamline this process through a paperless approach. We piloted it here in Rockford, and it's now used across many of our facilities in our network.'
The work in Rockford is meticulous. Everything in the hangers is done with precision.
'We're like surgeons,' Primus said. 'We're the guys that may be the last line of defense and making sure the aircraft are airworthy, making sure things are done right. So, our job is rather critical. We take it very seriously.'
Sydney Adkisson is program manager at AAR. She says her tea, doesn't rush their work. They take all the time needed to get things perfect.
'C checks are typically around 30 days and D checks are around 62 days, currently,' Adkisson said. 'They'll pull everything apart and they do certain inspections to see if there's any corrosion or damage like dents. And when that happens, they'll go to engineering, and we'll come up with repairs in order to correct it. I would say that it's super vital for everyone to work in unison for everyone's safety, ensuring that everything's done properly, and everyone has to work as a team so that we can get the checks done on time.'
Primus says the team is proud of what AAR has built in Rockford. They look forward to continued growth as the years go on.
'In 2025, we're celebrating our 70 years of service as a company and that goes into our continued growth. We're looking to continue to grow well internationally and nationwide,' Primus said. 'That's great to be a part of the company and continue to grow and you know present a lot of opportunities for growth internally and hopefully for me too, in the future.'
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