Aviation · MRO · Airlines
AOG — aircraft on ground
An aircraft is grounded and a part, tool or document has to reach it before it can return to service.
What is at stake
Why this cannot wait for a normal process.
Every hour on the ground carries crew, slot, passenger and contractual cost. The part is normally under your control — the question is which courier and which routing the deadline allows.
By the time AAT Forwarding is called, the standard process has usually already failed or cannot commit. What is needed is not another booking — it is someone taking the situation over.
What can make an AOG situation time-critical
An aircraft on ground consumes cost from the moment it stops. Crew duty limits keep running, a departure slot may lapse, passengers may need rebooking, and the maintenance facility holding the aircraft has its own schedule. The part itself is often small; the constraint is almost never its size.
What usually needs to be established first
- The exact part and serial, and whether it is physically available now or still being released from stores.
- Whether its release documentation is complete — an aeronautical part is generally not usable at the receiving station until the accompanying paperwork is in order.
- Whether the item is restricted for carriage, which can apply to batteries and certain assemblies.
- Which airport the aircraft is actually at, which is not always the nearest one served by a suitable flight.
Where the operational constraint usually sits
The governing fact is normally the last departure that still allows the part to reach the aircraft before the next planned movement — and whether the maintenance facility can receive and fit it once it arrives. An earlier flight into the wrong airport, or an arrival after the facility closes, does not serve the deadline. What matters is the arrival that the aircraft can actually use.
Something stops.
A component is missing, a document has not moved, or an asset is no longer where your business controls it.
One owner is assigned.
From your first call a single person owns the situation and its outcome — and stays reachable until it closes.
Barriers are cleared.
Where authorisation, release or coordination with a third party is required, we deal directly with the named party holding it.
Custody is taken and held.
Responsibility is documented from the moment we take the item, and does not leave us until handover.
It moves under supervision.
By dedicated on-board courier where the situation requires personal custody, on the routing the deadline genuinely allows.
It arrives, and you are told.
Handover is confirmed to a named recipient. The case closes on evidence, not on assumption.
Which route this usually takes
If the item is in your hands, this is normally handled as a dedicated courier movement — On-Board Courier, or Next Flight Out OBC if it is ready now and the next suitable flight is the constraint. If it is being held by someone else — a hotel, a venue, a third party, a custodian — it is a Critical Asset Return.
Either way, you do not have to decide. Describe the situation and we determine the route.
Next step
Is this your situation right now?
Call and describe it in plain words. We will tell you what is possible.