Selling an aircraft: prepare the maintenance records

Before selling an aircraft, prepare the records that let the buyer verify what has been maintained, repaired or replaced. An incomplete history may lead to additional checks: start by listing the available documents and reviewing the gaps with the organisation managing your aircraft.

These records include logbooks, certificates of release to service and maintenance status information. Their quality helps you answer a buyer’s questions. It guarantees neither a price nor financing nor a quicker sale.

What the market figures actually say

Global Jet Capital’s Q2 2026 Market Brief, checked on 12 September 2026, reports 7.5% fewer pre-owned transactions in the first half, but 7% more aggregate dollar volume, compared with the first half of 2025. It labels 2026 data preliminary and attributes the divergence in part to demand for heavy jets.

This does not mean “my aircraft gained 7%”. The aggregate also depends on the number and type of aircraft sold. The brief separately follows a basket of reference values and warns that movements do not necessarily apply to a particular model.

Global Jet Capital is a business-aircraft finance provider. Its analysis offers market context, not a measurement of the return from digitising records. It does not establish a price premium caused by records quality.

What the buyer needs to understand

A pre-purchase inspection has physical and documentary components, as Welsch Aviation explains. Records must be reconcilable with the aircraft presented. The purchase agreement defines inspection scope and treatment of discrepancies: a missing document does not automatically have the same consequence in every sale.

If a CAMO, a continuing airworthiness management organisation, manages the aircraft, prepare the following information with it. This list organises the review; it does not replace the technical and legal assessment specific to the transaction.

• Identity and ownership. Identify the aircraft and gather sale and registration documents. Have the appropriate specialists check title and any encumbrances separately.
• Completed and upcoming maintenance. Reconcile logbooks, release certificates and the maintenance programme. A reader should find evidence of the last work and understand the next due item.
• Airworthiness directives, or ADs. These are mandatory measures when applicable. Document applicability, accomplishment and any repetitive requirements. A service bulletin, or SB, is a manufacturer publication: whether it is mandatory depends on the applicable framework, not its abbreviation alone.
• Life-limited parts. These must be removed at the specified service-life limit. The records need to establish accumulated service and current status with the necessary supporting documents.
• Damage, repairs and modifications. Connect work to the data used and the present configuration. Equipment changes can also change future maintenance tasks.
• Airworthiness reviews. Under the relevant European regime, locate the ARC, the airworthiness review certificate, and the applicable review reports. That certificate does not replace other supporting evidence.

In commercial discussions, back-to-birth means a part history traced to its origin. EASA explains that European regulations do not use that term. Retention duties depend on the information and components concerned; a contract may ask for more. Do not indiscriminately demand every internal work card from every shop since manufacture.

The review report: a specific date and scope

Since 7 August 2026, point M.A.903(h), introduced by Regulation (EU) 2026/100, requires a report recording the details and outcome of a Part-M airworthiness review. Organisations’ retention rules are specified elsewhere, including CAMO.A.220 and CAO.A.090. M.A.903(h) does not itself define a contractual sale package.

Ask where the report for the review is held and how authorised people can access it. Its absence from a shared package may result from an incomplete export. It requires checking; it does not alone prove that the ARC is invalid. Do not assess an earlier review as though the new provision already applied to it.

Start with a real gap

First gather the archives and their contents list. For each missing document, record what it should verify, who can supply it and who owns the request. With the responsible organisation, prioritise gaps that prevent a technical status or maintenance deadline from being established.

Fictional example. A logbook refers to a work order missing from the delivered package. The seller requests it from the issuing shop. On receipt, the team checks aircraft identity, the work reference and the listed attachments, then retains the document with its source. If the response cannot confirm the work, the question remains open. No price or resolution time follows automatically.

Scan and index available records while those searches continue. Retain required originals, the source of copies and correction history. Finally, ask a qualified person who did not prepare the package to open it: can they find the evidence and the list of unresolved items?

That is a useful result to aim for before listing the aircraft. Set the budget and schedule after the inventory, based on the searches actually needed, without promising a universal avoided discount.