TransDigm

A Boeing seven thirty-seven has roughly six hundred thousand individual parts. Most are commodity items any manufacturer can supply. But scattered among them are parts made by only one company on earth. A specific actuator. A particular latch mechanism. A cockpit lighting assembly. Nick Howley spent thirty years buying the companies that made those parts — and only those parts. TransDigm's acquisition model was surgical. Find a small aerospace parts maker with sole-source contracts. Buy it. A family-owned machine shop making latches for military helicopters generated steady revenue but modest margins. Howley bought it and raised prices. Ten percent the first year. Fifteen the next. Twenty the year after. The customers paid because they had no choice. An airline cannot substitute a non-certified part into a commercial aircraft. Recertifying an alternative takes years and costs millions. The defence department faces the same constraint — switching suppliers on a fighter jet program requires congressional oversight and testing that lasts longer than the price increase takes to absorb.