loose amalgam of independent heavy maintenance shops and suppliers to
Operators of Fairchild Metro and Merlin-series turboprops have long relied on a
loose amalgam of independent heavy maintenance shops and suppliers to support their aging–or downright elderly–fleets of the regional workhorses. M7 Aerospace, the San Antonio-based successor to Fairchild Aircraft and Dornier Aviation North America, hopes to change all that with its “Metro Mania” program, meant to retrieve much of the business the company’s former owners shed as part of a strategy to outsource all of its Metro parts manufacturing.
Residing in a 40,000-sq-ft manufacturing plant on San Antonio International Airport, M7 has turned its attention to fabricating new parts for the airplanes, the last of which rolled off the Fairchild assembly line on March 28, 2001, roughly a year before the company’s last owners filed for bankruptcy. Although only about 20 Metros still fly in the U.S. in scheduled airline service, more than 700 remain quite active in charter, freight and military roles, particularly in Canada, Latin America, Africa and Australia.
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