Airlines & Aviation

We work with airlines and aviation businesses to identify and deliver structural cost reduction across their operations, including resource planning, airport services, catering, general and administrative expenses (“G&A”) and vendor management. Our approach combines rigorous cost diagnostics with hands-on implementation support, ensuring that savings are real and lasting.

People are an airline’s most complex and most costly asset. Our team brings deep aviation expertise across HR transformation, workforce planning, labor management and union negotiations. We help clients build organizations that are the right size and shape, with labor cost structures that are competitive and sustainable over the long term.

We support clients through fleet strategy, aircraft sourcing and order negotiations, financing structures and asset disposal across some of the most complex transactions in the industry. We work to level the playing field with original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”), bringing rigorous analytics and independent judgment to decisions that will shape a carrier’s economics for decades.

We support airlines, MROs, consolidators and OEMs across maintenance strategy, program optimization, supply chain, contracted services and the airline-MRO interface. Our aviation work spans make-versus-buy decisions, contract renegotiations and inventory financing, helping clients reduce cost and build operational resilience.

We support clients across capital raises, aircraft financing, restructuring, debtor-in-possession financing and M&A transactions. Our investment banking capabilities are fully integrated with our operational and strategic expertise, meaning we can move seamlessly from diagnosing a business challenge to executing the financial solution.

We work with airlines on passenger and cargo network planning, route optimization, pricing and revenue management, ancillary revenue and loyalty programs. Our approach connects commercial strategy to operational and financial reality, ensuring that growth ambitions are grounded in what the business can support and sustain.

FTI Consulting helps aviation clients manage high-stakes communications when defining moments such as strikes, operational disruption, airport and regulatory pressures, or broader business transformation put stakeholder trust on the line. Our dedicated Strategic Communications experts provide the counsel needed to manage change, mitigate risk and protect what matters most, combining deep aviation sector expertise with global reach across labor, regulatory and crisis communications.

Aviation procurement spans fleet and engines, maintenance services, spare parts, ground handling and catering, often with fragmented vendor relationships and significant untapped value. We work with airlines to identify and capture savings across all spend categories while transforming the procurement function to sustain those gains over time.