September 2009

www.avtoday.com/am

Roundtable
Corporate Challenges
Sponsored by Dassault
 Special Report

Sponsored by Dassault
Roundtable:
This year’s roundtable took us to Teterboro, N. J., where and you’re right, the airplanes are so
sophisticated now. It’s all software.
a distinguished panel of aviation professionals gathered. I’ve had a lot of resumes come across
my desk lately because of all the lay-
Our topics included current challenges in the maintenance offs, but I think if you’re going to hire
somebody, the younger guys are better
world, the economic downturn and an in-depth look at because they have grown up with the
computers. So I think the issue will be
what excellent service really means for those people when [the economy] gets going.
FROST: I would agree that’s one of
tasked with keeping multi-million dollar aircraft safe and the biggest challenges I see. We’ve got
almost 70 percent of the current A&Ps
ready to fly, on demand. Dassault Falcon Jet generously that are within 10 years of retirement,
and there’s nothing coming in the other
hosted our roundtable in grand style at their Teterboro end of the pipe.
RUYLE: I guess I would like to look at
facility. Our panel included: Paul Anderson, vice president a couple of other things, too. Cost con-
trol in maintenance comes up often,
and general manager — UT Flight, United Technologies, especially around budget time. They
want to know how much it is going to
Inc.; Alan Cordel, chief pilot, Kansas City Life; Steven Rahn, cost. How much do I have to put in the
budget. We just got some bids on some
chief of maintenance, VF Corporation; John Ruyle, chief of major maintenance for our airplane
and what we’re seeing is, they’re quot-
maintenance/pilot, CRST International, Inc.; David Wingler, ing it about two-thirds of what it used
to be. So we’re seeing some economic
chief pilot, Lowe’s Companies, Inc.; John Miles, chief of benefit from the turndown. The model
is changing for maintenance, espe-
maintenance, Steelcase, Inc.; and Steve Frost, president cially the MROs, and there seems to be
the three or four companies that are in
and general manager, Corporate Air Technology. Cedar Rapids, Iowa that are doing a lot
more maintenance in-house.
On the cover, first row from left to right: Steven Rahn, Paul Anderson,
Steve Frost and Alan Cordel. Back row from left to right: John Ruyle, RAHN: Getting back to the A&P
John Miles and David Wingler. situation, the schools are shutting
down. The A&P curriculum needs to
AVIATION MAINTENANCE: What do area schools two years ago graduated be updated. Attracting young people
you think are the biggest challenges 12 or 15 kids. Every one of the A&P to the industry is tough. It just doesn’t
in aviation maintenance for business graduates ended up in wind farm tech- have sex appeal or the pay or the secu-
aircraft today? nology. More money. So we are losing rity. They’re looking to go into the tech
ANDERSON: Getting good quali- new graduates. jobs. Aircraft maintenance still has
fied technicians. The A&P schools are WINGLER: I see the transition from that grease monkey image, and we’re
either closing down or the number of the standard wrench-turning A&P trying to get away from that. We’re
graduates that are coming out of class- technician to more avionics-related technicians. We don’t have the greasy
es are almost in the single digits. work. So I’m not sure where the train- rag hanging out of our back pocket and
CORDEL: I agree. It would be the ing is in regards to that. the ball cap on sideways. You’ve got to
technicians. One of the Denver, Colo.- MILES: Yes, it is A&P technicians, look the part. If you want to be treated
2 Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009
In the conference room at Dassault’s offices, roundtable participants discuss the challenges of keeping their multi-million dollar assets safe, legal and dispatch-ready.
like a professional, start looking like
one. That’s step one. Another challenge
is the repair station is cutting back.
And we, as a department, are trying to
do more with less. I had a tech resign
back in October and I was told I can’t
replace him. There’s a hiring freeze, so
we’re now trying to maintain six jets
with five technicians. There’s a chal-
lenge. You get it done but some of the
attention to detail suffers like touch-up
and interior work gets pushed off in
favor of the block inspections.
AM: Do you think there’s hope for
updating the training regulations for
maintenance technicians?
CORDEL: I’d say that it’s probably
so far down on the list with what the
industry challenges are now.
RUYLE: The FAA certainly doesn’t see
it as a problem.
RAHN: The airplanes are more elec-
tronic. The A&P technician — I was
going to say the future — but the pres-
ent version is more of an electrician
than ever before.
MILES: One good thing we have
going for us is that the new airplanes
are so much more reliable than the
old airplanes. All digital. It’s like night
and day from the ‘70s when I started to
now. It’s so much better.
RAHN: Dispatch reliability has got-
ten so much better.
CORDEL: Diagnostically too, with
computers.
RAHN: They don’t necessarily tell
you what’s broken.
AM: Are you seeing any signs of a
shortage? In regards to training is the
current training system working?
MILES: I don’t think we, as a corpo-
rate operator, have the problem that
repair stations have because if we want
a mechanic —
RAHN: You just have to put the word
out that you need someone because
corporate aviation is the highest paid
sector for mechanics.
FROST: I have a 145 repair station.
My company has been in existence for
23 years. On the training issue, I’d cer-
tainly love to see somebody step up and
offer more online training or mobile
training, because as a 145 — maybe it’s
different for corporate where you can
spare the guys — but we’re paying rent
with our guys. So when I send a guy to
Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009 3
Falcon 7X school for five weeks, that’s
a big chunk of revenue out of my bal-
ance sheet. It would be great if there
was more online training.
CORDEL: My experience with in-
house training is there are just too
many distractions for retention of
the material being presented. At least
in my personal experience, you have
to have an individual away from the
eight-to-five normal work day because
somebody’s going to come in and ask
him about another issue, that type of
situation.
FROST: We’ve had people come in
and do in-house training, but we set
them aside in a separate suite. We
had Falcon 2000 initial and with the
Global.
ANDERSON: I think it depends on
the composition of your flight depart-
ment. If you have all one type, then
you can continue to specialize along a
single path type. We’ve got six different
types so we send folks for training. It’s
more to broaden their experience on
all the different models rather than to
pursue something more unique for a
single product.
 John Miles
RAHN: That’s hard to manage. We
had a mixed fleet of Falcons, Citations
and Westwinds. How do you manage
that with parts and training? Getting
down to one airframe and one engine
manufacturer makes life so much easi-
er for training and stocking.
FROST: The theory of troubleshoot-
ing is one that FlightSafety has had
online for some time. But the unfor-
tunate part is it is now cheaper to
do the online course than to have an
instructor do it. I think you definitely
get more benefit with having it face-to-
face. But, I think there are areas where
they could expand online training.
MILES: When you send a technician
to training, they’re in a classroom with
five to 10 other guys, and they get a lot
from talking. It’s a big deal.
FROST: Yes, but we have found that
often with initial training, essentially
what you’re getting is a supervised
reading of the book.
AM: When you schedule mainte-
nance for your aircraft, what are your
biggest concerns as the scheduled date
approaches to bring your aircraft in?
RAHN: Getting out on time. As the
delivery date gets closer, what’s going
to go wrong last minute that’s going to
impact the delivery date.
CORDEL: Or what’s going to show up
on the inspection.
RAHN: What they’re going to find
that you didn’t expect — major corro-
sion or a crack that they discovered,
the surprises — because downtime is
an issue. When I block the airplane out
for a month, the pilot expects it back
in a month. When the last day of the
inspection comes and they say, “Hey,
4 Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009
look what we found.” Then I have to
go back and tell [the scheduler] the
airplane’s going to be late. It’s tough
towards the end of the job when they
hit you with a surprise.
RUYLE: Last winter we had a single
airplane, the Falcon 20, and we put
both an APU and a new interior in it
so the airplane was down for a long
time. Part of the contract stipulated the
completion date, as we had future trips
scheduled. We used StandardAero. I
have to tell you, they did a wonderful
job. Dave Prescott kept us informed
and sent us information as to the
progress, where the problems were,
where the potential pitfalls were, and
what they were doing to remedy these
problems. They missed their date by
one day. In the end, the MRO had to
get the STC holder of the APU and
Falcon Jet together at the last minute
to resolve some certification issues, but
they were able to resolve the problem
and made the delivery. Between the
crew at Standard Aero and Jim Perry,
the Falcon Jet tech rep, the airplane
was returned to service. They really did
a fantastic job of getting the airplane
out the door. As a result, we were very
happy with the experience.
CORDEL: Communication is prob-
ably one of the biggest issues. Making
sure that they understand that you have
to have the communication link and
keep you updated with items concern-
ing the airplane. It will definitely cut
down on your delivery delays. Because
usually, there’s a list of things they are
trying to get done and some of those
things could have been accomplished
two weeks earlier.
RAHN: You stated that you have a
guy on site. That’s key. You just can’t
drop your aircraft off.
RUYLE: Cell phones have
done a marvelous job of
increasing communication.
Saturday, Sunday, nighttime.
I was getting phone calls all
the time from different people
saying, we’ve got a problem,
how do you want to proceed?
We were able to resolve a lot
of the issues right then and
there.
ANDERSON: There are
opportunities for a lot of these ven-
dors. I do want to say that you have
got to leave a guy on site. But what
a waste of productivity that is. If you
have a vendor say, “you don’t have to
leave anyone here because we’re going
to communicate with you, we’re going
to meet your schedule, we’re going to
make you feel comfortable,” you gain
a person.
RUYLE: Well, StandardAero did that.
We didn’t have a guy there full-time, but
we were on the cell phone. Everybody,
the crew chiefs, all the people had my
telephone number and they were call-
ing. Instead of calling their people to
say, how do you want to proceed with
this or wait until the next morning,
they call me direct to say here’s what’s
going on, and here is what it’s going
to take to resolve this. Photographs
sent via the internet also increased
the velocity of the information and
improved and clarified the decision-
making process. We would go down
once a week or once every other week
to discuss schedules and cost face to
face. StandardAero has improved their
communication skills greatly over the
last several years.
AM: Same facility?
RUYLE: Same facility, different
ownership. But they had made huge
improvements in the way that their
communication system worked with
the customer, not that they’re perfect,
but what a huge improvement from
previous experiences.
RAHN: Just can’t drop off a multimil-
lion-dollar company asset and say I’ll
pick it up in two weeks.
MILES: We have a good scheduler,
but they want the airplane every day.
So you say if it’s going to be down a
month, well, he schedules the day it’s
supposed to be out of there, so it just
has to happen.
FROST: Communication is certainly
paramount and I’m coming from a
different perspective because we’ve got
the airplane torn apart. We seldom
have customers in our shop. They will
come in and check, they’re welcome
to, they’re encouraged to. But most of
our customers have faith in what we’re
doing. On our Falcon, we’re doing
most work in-house. C-checks I send
out. We’ll send somebody to check
once in a while, but the communica-
tion is paramount. I think it’s certainly
more productive, of course, to have
our DOM doing something else in-
house than babysitting or watching
somebody else turn a wrench. If we’ve
got confidence and there’s a good com-
munication line, I don’t see that as a
critical path, so obviously there's a dif-
ference of opinion here.
RAHN: There’s a lot of trust
involved.
FROST: We’ve had a relationship
with Western Aircraft. They’ve stood
real tall. They’ve normally been very
good at deadlines.
RUYLE: I think these larger facilities
are hurting right now. The one thing
that worries me is that they’re laying
off and as a result of that, total main-
tenance time starts getting longer and
longer in terms of real calendar days.
Before, when they were busy, they had
a night shift, a Saturday shift and a
Sunday shift. Things seemed to move
along very well. The time is definitely
stretching out because they don’t have
the manpower like they used to have.
That concerns me.
MILES: Manpower is a big issue.
AM: Have you seen layoffs across
the board at independent shops and
other facilities? Is it pretty pervasive
throughout the industry?
RAHN: Some have a shortened work-
week.
RUYLE: I have seen a thirty-hour
workweek at a few facilities. Those are
scary because not only do you lose the
real talents, because they leave and
go wherever they can find a whole
paycheck, but also schedules stretch
out in terms of real calendar days of
downtime.
AM: Has that impacted your aircraft
maintenance shop at all?
FROST: It has. We cut about 10
percent of our staff in January due to
economic conditions. It’s put a crunch
on our workload. Things have started
to pick up and now we’ve been work-
ing overtime for the last two months.
Other shops around have not started to
pick up the pace yet. We’re starting to
see that shift back the other way. The
ramp’s getting busier, activity is up.
We’ll hope it continues. A lot of these
people are just tired of sitting on their
hands or the economy is actually heal-
ing, but there’s activity out there.
AM: Compare customer service in
other industries to the aviation main-
tenance industry. What can we learn
about customer service from other
industries? Anybody want to tackle
that?
ANDERSON: I find it interesting how
you can go on Amazon and buy a
CD or book and
within 30 seconds
you’ve got an e-mail that says they’ve
accepted your order and then another
e-mail that says it’s been shipped and
here’s the tracking number. It seems
like in aviation maintenance, it’s still
well behind the times when you say,
“Where’s the part?” It’s all a very man-
ual process. It seems like in other
industries it’s a lot more automated
than maintenance.
RAHN: At Dassault you can do it
online. They have remote order entry,
ROE, and you get the confirmation
saying the part has been shipped. Some
OEMs are getting it.
MILES: Even though Dassault has
order entry, we still pick up the phone,
Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009 5
it’s nice to talk to the guy, but you do
get an e-mail confirmation on your
shipment. That’s nice late at night, if
you’re trying to get the parts in the
morning. You get a waybill number, so
it does help.
RUYLE: Customer service in the
industry is improving in the last three,
four years. I think everybody is try-
ing harder and they recognize there’s
a shortfall. These types of forums,
the customer service meetings that
Dassault and Honeywell are having
around the country, are a great start to
improve this problem. I think there’s
an effort on the part of the entire
aviation industry to improve customer
service and communication. I hope the
recession doesn’t curtail this effort.
FROST: This is the first time I’ve been
to this Dassault facility and it was eye-
opening and very beneficial. It was fun,
too. Dassault has done a fantastic job,
and I think it’s a culture that I don’t see
in all companies I deal with. There are
Alan Cordel
some other heavy metal manufacturers
that certainly don’t meet their level of
expectation. I think part of it is cultural.
At a major parts house I deal with a lot,
at 5:00, nobody’s picking up the call.
But when I call Dassault, and I always
get the feeling that they want to help
us — “What can we do to go the extra
step.” Even the architecture of this
place has been a benefit that I didn’t
understand until I looked at it here
yesterday — having the support people
next to the parts people. There have
been times when I have called in when
 I’ve needed a part and couldn’t identify
the part number. The person on the
phone says, let me check on this, I’ll
get back to you. Well, here obviously
they walk four cubicles over, they talk
to people in tech, they get back to me
and say there’s a service bulletin and
you need this part number and this
part number, and yes, they’ll get the
part shipped to you. It’s just a different
culture. It’s “we can make it happen.”
I’d like to see that throughout the
industry and at repair stations as well.
Going the extra step for the customer
because that’s what the Amazons are
doing. They’re doing everything they
Paul Anderson
can to make it as easy as possible to do
business with them and our industry
doesn’t always do that.
MILES: I think as maintenance tech-
nicians, we probably see customer ser-
vice more. I mean, we’re always talking
to parts, we’re talking to the tech rep.
If you establish a rapport with those
people, it really helps when you really
need something.
FROST: That is why I seldom shop
online. It’s too impersonal.
MILES: I will say Honeywell sent
some people to Steel Case, two manag-
ers went through our customer service
department to find out how we han-
dled customers. Hopefully they know
they have a problem.
RUYLE: Hopefully.
FROST: There’s another major air-
framer, one of the best when it came
to parts and technical support, 24/7
you get somebody out of Wichita, they
don’t care if you’re a service center,
they will take care of you. Dassault has
6 Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009
really exceeded that.
RUYLE: I’ve got an interesting story.
We had a problem with a pitch servo on
our airplane, sending a fault message
during descent. It was an intermittent
problem that we found to be very diffi-
cult to remedy. After several reputable
MROs replaced all of the likely suspect
parts and spent thousands of dollars
on the problem, we got a Falcon tech
rep out of Wisconsin involved. Tony
said he would have to research the
problem. Two days later he showed up
in our hanger with his working clothes
on and climbed into the hellhole. He
spent the whole day looking to find this
problem.
He wasn’t
able to
resolve
the prob-
lem that
day, but
was able
to give us
an excel-
lent idea
on what
was caus-
ing the
problem and a direction to follow.
A day later we discovered a solder
joint in one of the canon plugs had
broken — problem solved. That’s the
kind of service that you want and it’s
hard to pin down and say how valu-
able it is. That’s the kind of stuff I wish
Honeywell would do, because we have
some issues with some of their equip-
ment. With them, we can’t even get
through to the right people.
MILES: I will say Honeywell Avionics,
at least with the new EZ airplanes,
they’re fantastic in my opinion. It’s the
other side.
RAHN: I was going to say just the
opposite. I have no problem with the
engine side but the avionics side. It’s
maddening. When I call Dassault, they
know who I am, they know my name,
they’re empowered. I know the person
I’m talking to is going to do whatever
it takes to help me solve my problem.
He’s going to share ownership of my
dilemma with me. That’s what I’m look-
ing for when I call, I want this person.
I don’t necessarily need the person that
has the wiring diagrams memorized,
I just want someone that cares, wants
to help me. He doesn’t have all the
answers, but he should know where
to get them and walk me through
my problem. I get that with Dassault.
You bring up Honeywell. When I call
them, and I’m talking spares, not tech
support, I feel I’m just a number with
them, they don’t know who I am. It’s
one finger pointing this way and the
other pointing the other way.
CORDEL: I want to know who navi-
gates their website.
MILES: Oh, it was improved. We had
their customer rep come up and give
us a demonstration on their new web-
site but it’s still quite complicated.
CORDEL: It’s the toughest industry
website I’ve ever seen.
MILES: It’s awful. Honeywell billing,
try dealing with that.
RAHN: The major OEMs have that.
When you call, you have a live person
who knows your name that will walk
you through your dilemma.
CORDEL: I’ve never had a bad expe-
rience when I call a Dassault service
center. We’ve always been pleased with
the quality of service.
ANDERSON: I think five, six years
ago there was a much more stratifica-
tion of OEMs in terms of who is at
the top and who’s at the bottom. And
I think most of the folks at the bot-
tom had moved it up. And so even the
ones that were at the bottom before,
I think are providing a much better
level of service today than they were,
you know, five, six years ago. I’ve seen
a big difference. And I think they’ve
realized that good customer service is
a pretty key ingredient in future sales.
So I think they’ve all got the message
customer service needs to play a dis-
criminating role in the overall success
of the company.
FROST: Somewhat related is techni-
cal publications. Some of the vendors
look at it as a profit center. It is becom-
ing a very large expense for the repair
facilities. I spend close to $200,000 in
libraries per year. It’s cumbersome. If
everybody had access to it online, it
would be far less cumbersome.
ANDERSON: To your point of pub-
lications, what I see is everyone’s got
a different format. It’s like I’ve got a
full-time computer technician and he
spends a lot of time, you know, tying
all this together. Let’s say GAMA came
out, maybe to work with them and say,
okay, here is the standard format that
works across the board.
FROST: Or just Internet accessible.
It’s current and up to date.
MILES: That’s one nice thing about
the Dassault website, it has all that
kind of stuff right now and it’s so much
easier to fill out a claim. It’s saved for
you. You don’t have to keep a copy. It’s
really a nice website. But it would be
nice to have a manual on there that
was updated for you all of the time. It
would be so much easier.
FROST: You were asking about learn-
ing from other industries. Dassault is
taking an interesting tack on logistics
that’s really worthwhile for us, and
that’s remote warehousing. It’s kind of
surprising that it worked very well for
us because they parked a warehouse
about five miles from my facility, being
able to drive over and pick up a part.
I’m told they’ve got about 20 percent of
the inventory they have in that facility.
But again, learning from other indus-
tries’ experience, they also figured out
that they could serve the East Coast
much better as well because of the
three-hour time change, you know,
they can ship parts out of the West
Coast three hours later and have them
on the doorstep FedEx in the morning
on the East Coast.
AM: We’ve talked a little bit about
engines today, and so I wanted to
ask what your expectations are of the
OEMs in relation to support of the
engines and other major components
that are not manufactured by them.
ANDERSON: Even though we
(UTC) own Pratt & Whitney, we also
have engines from Rolls-Royce and
Turbomeca products as well, just based
on the fleet mix. So even in that aspect,
we do get to see several different pro-
viders. In general, we’ve been happy.
Support from the engine manufactur-
ers has been good. What’s important
to us is that an OEM embrace a root
cause corrective action philosophy
because that’s what we’re driven by. I
think Pratt & Whitney does that well,
but I think our support overall from
the engine manufacturers has been
good.
CORDEL: It’s been good. We haven’t
had any issues at all that haven’t been
taken care of in what I would consider
a timely fashion. They’ve done a good
job in meeting the demands we have
along with the other vendors. Rockwell
Collins has always been my favorite as
far as avionics, the way they take care
of problems. Two or three years ago
when everybody had to upgrade their
transponders, it was usually a three,
four, five, six-day turnaround. We said,
we just can’t live with that. We came
back from a trip where we pulled the
transponders out of the Falcon and
drove the units to Wichita and they
did it overnight. I mean, they dealt
with the issue overnight and we were
headed back home by 7:00 the next
morning. Collins has always treated us
well. We’ve been able to contact their
techs day or night. Richard White, one
of their engineers, he’s been on top of
everything. We’ve asked him to investi-
gate problems and always had timely
returns on the phone calls.
WINGLER: We’ve had a little bit
different experience with Honeywell
and engine issues. I think John here
was echoing that sometimes customer
service is not what you’d expect. It’s
usually recurring issues with field
control units, wiring harnesses and
things like that. So I think that they
have a ways to go.
MILES: My problem with Honeywell
is they don’t have parts. When you go
in for a hot section or a major over-
all, you don’t know when the engine
is going to get out of there. It’s really
quite frustrating when you’re trying to
Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009 7
fly a heavy schedule especially with a
hot section. You shouldn’t have to wait
a long time when you do a hot section.
But I will say on Honeywell’s behalf
that when we first got our original
John Ruyle
900EX, we had to hot section all the
engines early and they stepped up to
the plate and chartered our flights for
us and flew some of the flights for us.
FROST: I’ve had a long history with
Pratt and we’ve done lots of work with
15Ds and now getting into the 300
series. Now, the parts support needs
help there. I’ve talked to Maria Della
Posta about the Muskegon facility and
e-mailed her several times. When we’re
grounded on the West Coast and call
up Muskegon to find they can not ship
past 1:00 pm pacific time, that does
not work for West Coast operators.
They need to get other lines of distri-
bution or remote warehouses so they
can service the West Coast. Muskegon
might work well enough for the East
Coast, but it doesn’t work for us. But
other than that we’ve got high regard
for Pratt & Whitney.
RAHN: I can only speak to Honeywell.
It’s hit and miss. Sometimes there are
parts issues and sometimes you can’t
get a rental. Sometimes you can.
MILES: Yes, really nerve-racking.
AM: Why do you think that the avia-
tion maintenance business is so rela-
tionship oriented? Can we talk about
that a little bit?
RAHN: The relationship aspect is big
because of the trust involved, because
of the safety factor and because of
 the dollar amounts involved as well.
A&P mechanics are opening up your
airplane. There has to be a lot of trust
there. If you’re not on site all the time,
you’re trusting that they’re doing the
work per the published procedures
and doing it right. Also, there’s lots of
money changing hands for these big
inspections.
AM: Do you think the OEMs are
doing a good job of nurturing those
relationships?
RAHN: Yes, I think they are. They’re
good about visiting us from time to
time and keeping the face-to-face con-
tact going, staying in tune with what
our needs are coming up, they know
sometimes when my next inspection
is before I do. They know what’s com-
ing and they’re quick to bid on it
because it’s competitive. They know,
StandardAero and Duncan are going to
be knocking. Falcon Jet is going to be
knocking. They’re all competing for the
business out there.
RUYLE: I think they’re getting better
at it. I think there was a time that a lot
of things were taken for granted, and
I don’t think that’s happening today. I
think they know it’s very competitive
now.
FROST: Some of the new products
David Wingler
out there, it’s a challenge for them to
get spooled up. When you’ve got a new
product, you’re not sure what’s going
to break. OEMs can take very different
views on how they take care of their
customers. Dassault has been excel-
lent. They have a rental pool where you
can rent equipment. For a repair sta-
tion like myself where you have a task
8 Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009
that you’re only going to do one service
in six months, you’re not going to get a
$40,000 piece of equipment to do it, it
just doesn’t pay back. Gulfstream has
taken a totally different tack on that.
We had a G100 stuck on our ramp with
a slat flap problem, a very well-known
problem on that model aircraft. We
needed to break out the box to repair
it. Gulfstream has a policy now, if you
want the box, it comes with the techni-
cian; two if it requires a sign-off, and
we can get to you next week. Well, I’m
not sure if this is a really good support
for the end user. They want everything
in-house, and I think they’re alienating
some people by doing it that way. We
went to another vendor.
AM: Some companies use a single
point of contact person to keep cus-
tomers informed about their aircraft
when it’s in for maintenance. Is this
helpful? What makes a good single
point customer service representative?
Can they be this better?
RAHN: The project leader will meet
day one and decide how we’re going to
work communication, one phone call
a day, two, e-mails, how we’re going to
communicate and if I can have a guy
on site. I want constant flow of info.
E-mails are preferred because it’s in
writing. One guy is usually the project
leader. Sometimes I’ll go around him
and talk to the crew chief because
he knows the ins and outs, he’s more
intimately familiar with the airplane.
That’s rare. If you have a good project
leader, he should know what the crew
chief knows.
MILES: We did our last hot section at
Duncan’s Lincoln facility. They have a
system there, whenever they wrote up
a squawk, you got an e-mail, and you
could approve it, disapprove it or say
you wanted to talk about it, which was
quite nice. Because you didn’t have to
go down and try to find the squawk list
to go over it, your Blackberry went on,
there it was. It was really nice.
CORDEL: Plus you can put com-
ments at the bottom if you want, for
follow-up and get pictures, whatever
the case might be. It’s very good. One
thing, the project leaders at that time
were real busy, they had a number of
airplanes assigned to them. They end
up being stretched too thin. You go to
look for him, and he is dealing with
this airplane or that airplane and you
end up going to the crew chief to get
updated on the items on your own
aircraft.
MILES: Exactly.
CORDEL: That took a little more time
than what I liked at that point, but you
have to have that contact point in those
facilities, at least you know who to ask
for, where he or she may be, so at least
you can touch base with them.
ANDERSON: If you’re doing a major
inspection or completion, yes, you
need one person who knows what’s
going on. On parts, if we call up at
7:00 at night and we need a part, we
don’t necessarily have to talk
to a parts guy. We just want to
know that they've got the part,
it’s being pulled, it’s being car-
ried up and it will be here by
a certain time. So having that
single point of contact at a
company isn’t as important as
having the right information.
WINGLER: I would say sin-
gle point of contact is a great
tool. You know who to call
when there’s a problem rather
than having to track down
two or three different levels before
finding out what issues are going on.
RUYLE: Sometimes single-point
people filter information. I think it’s
important that you have that single
point, but I also believe very strongly
that you need to have meetings where
you have a lot of people around the
table so you can discuss problems or
work through those issues. A single-
point person sometimes doesn’t have
the horsepower to get some issues
resolved. So many single-point people
are just messengers and glad handlers.
AM: Do you find that person actually
has the authority to get the job done?
RAHN: That’s the key, being empow-
ered from above to do whatever it takes
to help me out and I feel that [ours]
does. It gets done.
MILES: Back when we had Citation
IIIs, you needed all the support you
could get. Cessna was very good. We
went through a lot of parts in the ear-
lier airplanes, and if they didn’t have it,
they would go to the line and take her
off an airplane and send her out.
AM: How long ago was that?
MILES: Citations came in ‘84, Citation
IIIs. We had very early serial numbers.
They had very good tech reps.
FROST: It has changed just recently,
unfortunately, because of cutbacks. I
had a situation here in the last couple
of weeks where we had issue with
corrosion on the leading edge of a
Citation 550. That’s been an ongoing
problem and it exceeded the level that
could be repaired. They have a repair
scheme for this but it exceeded the
limits of that repair and we were work-
ing with engineering. I’ve had a really
good relationship with engineering in
Wichita for many years and developed
relationships with some of the senior
staff. Well, the senior staff got golden
parachutes, and now they’ve got a
bunch of young pups that were a little
challenging to deal with. They had to
replace the whole leading edge skin of
the plane. I finally called the vice presi-
dent of Cessna who got me the service
center in San Antonio who says, “Oh,
yeah, we’ve got a program for that.
Bring it down and we’ll replace it for
free.”
AM: What is loyalty in this business?
Is it important? Do you feel like you
need to be loyal to a service provider?
What drives your loyalty?
CORDEL: In this business, if some-
body says something, they better stand
behind it. I think integrity and your
word mean a lot.
FROST: I think, absolutely, integrity
is paramount. On my side of the fence,
it works for us as well because we have
a comfort level with the customer, we
Steven Rahn
realize that they want the airplane
fixed, they’re willing to pay the price.
Conversely, they get a comfort level with
us that we’re going to do everything we
can to be on time, on budget, and pro-
tect their interest. The communication
is especially important when you first
start developing those relationships.
After a period of time, you guys talk
about having somebody planted in the
repair facility, after you’ve dealt with
a facility for several years, you get a
comfort level and realize, you probably
don’t need somebody sitting there. My
customers know we’re going to protect
their interests and do our utmost. It
makes the relationship work better for
both parties being absolutely up front
and standing by your word.
CORDEL: On the positive side, dur-
ing a C-check, we upgraded our GPS
antennas and GPS sensors. We had
what we thought were 4000A GPS sen-
sors and wanted to upgrade to 4000S.
We had sent Duncan the equipment
list on the airplane, they read the part
numbers and everything, we get the
airplane up there and they pull the
units out and they’re 4000. You can’t
upgrade the 4000 to the 4000S. You
have to outright purchase the 4000S
when you make that kind of upgrade.
Duncan ended up putting the 4000S
in the airplane at the original agreed
price. They kept their word. They made
it right. So you do have people in this
business that stand behind their word
and they did. I’m indebted because
I didn’t have to go back to manage-
ment for more money to complete the
upgrade. If people stand on their word,
you’re going to deal with them in the
Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009 9
future because of it.
RUYLE: I also think qual-
ity is a major issue. During the boom
time we requested a specific schedule
to have some maintenance done. We
received the time slot we requested, but
so did everybody else, without regard
to their ability to man the schedules.
As a result, the crews were thin and
had more work than they could han-
dle. We saw the quality slip and their
normal excellent service was not up
to par. Problems were not remedied
and we went home feeling less than
satisfied. Within a week after we left
that facility we landed with no brakes
and no steering because a cannon plug
was not secured in the nose and parted
in flight. As a result, we haven’t been
back. MROs have to deliver a consis-
tent, quality product on a timely basis
and customer loyalty continues. When
shortcuts and poor quality enter the
picture the customer soon will look
elsewhere. It’s hard for an MRO to say
no to business, especially today. Maybe
that is part of the integrity issue of
being able to say no to a customer’s
scheduling request. I would feel a lot
better if an MRO would say we can’t
help you at the time you requested
because we can’t give you 100 percent
of our attention during that period. I
would be much more inclined to do
business with a company who is hon-
est and gives a quality product.
ANDERSON: I think on the quality
side, in addition to the actual work
itself, is the paperwork that goes with
it. I think our standard of paperwork
goes above and beyond what the FAA
requires in terms of the level of details,
so we can go back five years from now
and look at some of the paperwork

and understand, in
more detail, what
was done. So making
sure that you’re on
the same wavelength
in terms of the expectation of paper-
work and so forth as required. We have
some service centers where we’ve had
some paperwork problems. That’s been
a factor in our loyalty in determining
whether or not we’re going to go back
to that provider or not.
CORDEL: When you’re affecting the
resale of an airplane, if you do accept
the paperwork and it doesn’t meet the
standard of the industry or that of a
buyer, you are either not going to be
able to sell the aircraft or you’re going
to sell it at a reduced price.
ANDERSON: Sometimes we were
waiting a couple of days to get the air-
plane out of the service center because
the paperwork wasn’t right. They even
acknowledged it. They were going back
and forth with their quality assurance
people to get it all sorted out and ended
up delaying the airplane by a day or
two.
RAHN: That’s something that needs
to be laid out up front as well as how
you want the log entries made, the for-
mat you expect them to be in, what you
expect to be in there, whether or not
you want them do the Camp updates
or not. I’ve been loyal to StandardAero
for a better part of a decade. We’ve
had our ups and down and they make
mistakes once in a while, but you stick
with whatever works as long as there’s
consistency on the quality.
CORDEL: And they own up to it.
Everybody makes mistakes.
FROST: You’ve had excellent luck with
StandardAero, but that doesn’t neces-
sarily mean that all the StandardAero
10 Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009
Steve Frost
facilities operate at that level. With
most multi-station facilities I find qual-
ity and experience can vary greatly
from one facility to the next.
RUYLE: We took our Falcon 10 in
and at the completion of the work,
supposedly it was test-flown by one
of their senior management people
and returned to service. We took off
normally, but soon discovered several
problems, including an autopilot that
wanted to go only straight down. We
turned around and came back to the
field to be greeted by our maintenance
rep. We explained the problems and
asked if the airplane had been test
flown, and he said yes. When we asked
the individual who had test flown the
airplane about the problems, he said
he didn’t experience any of issues we
had. Within an hour, the airplane was
opened up to find several test clamps
still attached to the autopilot system,
computer, and statics. It simply was
not possible that this person had test
flown that airplane.
AM: Do you think if the guy had
been honest it would have changed the
outcome? If he had said, hey, you’re
right, I didn’t —
RUYLE: I happen to believe they’re
one of the best facilities in the coun-
try. I just think he got caught and it
just changed our perception of their
image.
RAHN: It only takes one time to be
lied to and it’s a black mark on their
reputation forever.
CORDEL: All of us know when it hap-
pens. That’s why I’ve never understood
this when people try to get away with
it in this or any business.
RAHN: We made the mistake once
of dropping off a Westwind and we
didn’t keep anybody with the airplane.
They said, it will be ready this date.
That date rolled around, they called
up and said it’s ready, come on down. I
gather up the director of aviation and
the chief pilot, my two bosses, and
we went down to pick it up. Lo and
behold, there are pieces of the inte-
rior strewn all about the hangar floor.
Obviously, at least six hours of work
left to go, easy. My two bosses are look-
ing at me, I had egg on my face, and I
never forgave that guy. We never went
back. So it only takes once.
FROST: It happens. Schedules get
slipped because of parts delays or
newfound discrepancies. You do your
absolute best to keep the customer
informed, but just being absolutely,
totally honest with them has always
been, I have found, very disarming. It’s
pretty hard to argue with honesty.
CORDEL: I think you’re going to
respect the individual for being honest
with you. How many times have you
been in a hangar and there’s hangar
rash and you can’t find out who did
it. Nobody owns up to it, you’re at
a loss. But if somebody said, look, I
just damaged your airplane, you’re
probably going to have an emotional
surge, you’re going to be upset, but
then you’re going to at least respect the
individual after that. It’s too bad there
isn’t more of that in this business. The
good people stay, the ones that have
treated the customers the way we want
to be treated.
AM: Can you crystallize what the
most important factor is when you’re
choosing where to take your aircraft
for service?
ANDERSON: I’d say performance.
All the different things mentioned,
cost, schedule, quality. You take those
three elements and that’s what we base
our decision on.
CORDEL: I’d put those there in and
a personal relationship. I’ve taken air-
planes to facilities that have cost me
more money, but the relationship was
there. I knew I could trust the work
there. I usually get three, four or five
bids. But you usually end up taking
it to someone where you’re going to
be the most comfortable with the
airplane.
WINGLER: I would echo everything
everyone said. Price does eventually
come into the equation, but it’s far
down the list.
RAHN: If I see stray hardware on
the floor, safety wire snippings and
puddles of oil, hydraulic fluid.
CORDEL: How the mechanics take
care of their tools and toolboxes, that
makes a lot of difference.
RAHN: Can’t replace the face-to-face
meetings.
RUYLE: There’s a pricing game that
goes on. When you go into a C-check
They have remote order entry, ROE, and you
get the confirmation saying the part has been
shipped. Some OEMs are getting it.
or whatever. MROs approach you with
their flat rate. They, of course, always
throw you the discrepancies clause.
The bottom line is, they know a C-check
is worth so much money. The airplanes
average a certain amount over what-
ever the basic fee is. They don’t care
what they quote you going in because
they know they’re going to make their
money on the discrepancies.
RAHN: Take the quote they gave you
and multiply it times three and that’s
your out the door number.
RUYLE: That’s a lot of money.
CORDEL: I had a CSR tell me years
ago we lost money on your inspections.
I said if you use me as a reference,
you’ll probably get the next three that
called me. So you didn’t lose money on
me. You’ll make it up down the line.
AM: Are service providers utiliz-
ing technology well? Are they using
it properly? Is technology enhancing
customer service, and if so, how?
CORDEL: Duncan has an interactive
website, too. I gave it to our CEO so he
could check the status of the airplane
daily if he wanted to. Just click on it
and go to it. It was fantastic. He loved
it. That’s probably as advanced as I’ve
seen.
ANDERSON: I think in Sikorsky’s
defense, one of the things they have
done well is they have, at least on the
SI-2 and now they’re doing it on the
SM-6, is they have a weekly customer
web conference where you can log in
and they cover a bunch of different
subjects, more maintenance and opera-
tions-related as opposed to completion
stuff. I think that’s kind of neat. You get
some real time updates on what’s going
on with that particular model.
RAHN: I agree the OEMs are doing
more with the webinars. That’s a good
way to keep us informed in between
the Boca Raton seminar, the regionals.
— Steven Rahn
FROST: At the M&O, the Dassault
people put a lot of info on a zip drive
memory stick. That was really cool.
AM: What’s on there?
FROST: This is a synopsis of what
happened at the M&O, which is great
because I didn’t send all my 15 employ-
ees. So I take this back and plug it
in, and say, this is what we learned.
Really, it’s a neat format.
AM: Are you willing to pay a pre-
mium to achieve a higher level of cus-
tomer service?
FROST: I got some feedback from
a customer while I was here. We had
been competing with Cessna on a
major inspection. He called and he
says, “You were a 10-plus. The commu-
nication was wonderful. All my interior
pieces were covered up, it was on time,
and you came out $15,000 less than the
Cessna bid on the project.” I think he’ll
come back.
AM: So you don’t always have to pay
a premium then?
RAHN: It is the little things like that,
covering up the seats, protecting the
carpets and the woodwork. Getting the
finger marks off the cowlings. Could
Aviation Maintenance | www.avtoday.com/am | September 2009 11
be an excellent visit, but if they push it
outside and somebody’s grimy finger-
prints are all over it or footprints on the
pylons, I’m going to be bummed out.
AM: Do you ever feel that service
providers go beyond your expectations
and can you give me examples? Has
that ever happened to anybody?
FROST: I called Dassault when we
were not able to identify a part number
I was requesting. Somebody did take
that extra effort. They took the initia-
tive. I do see that with other vendors.
It does happen and it’s always appreci-
ated. I try to express that appreciation
when I see it.
WINGLER: We’ve experienced it with
Dassault, being AOG in a different part
of the world. We had an issue, made
a phone call to our tech rep. We got
his voice mail, didn’t realize he was on
vacation, but within probably an hour
he was calling us back on his off time.
So to me, that speaks volumes. He got
involved. He helped with the trouble-
shooting of trying to, specifically, fig-
ure out what the problem was before
just doing a shotgun approach. He
spent a lot of time helping us trouble-
shoot. But that was excellent customer
service on their part.
RAHN: There’s been occasion where
I called Dassault for a part and they
didn’t have it. I didn’t have to say it,
but the message from my end was find
one. And they did. They went out and
located it and got it to me.
FROST: There are some vendors that
do a very good job with that. And there
are some vendors that just drive me
up the wall. Honeywell engine being
one. For a part on one of their engines,
you call and — well, this is from our
hardware products division ... It’s your
engine. It’s got your name on it. Your
part number is on it. You’re responsi-
ble. Why do I have to call four different
places for these parts?
RAHN: AOG is when the OEM needs
to step up. The one category that car-
ries the most weight with me is AOG
response. When I call, whether it be for
spares or tech support, I need someone
to share ownership of that problem
with me, walk me through it and do
what’s necessary. That’s when I’m stuck
— especially international. AM
 COMMAND CENTER WITH A HUMAN VOICE.
AT YOUR SERVICE 24/7.

he professionals at our new
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have one of the world’s most
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details. And even more important,
full access to the very engineers that
built the plane.
Our aim is to help you solve the
most difficult problems in-person or over thirty service centers, nine
online as quickly as humanly pos- parts centers and three tech
sible. Whether it means sending a centers waiting to serve you.
team of Falcon trained service tech-
nicians across the globe. Or shipping falconjet.com/service
one of the hundreds of thousands of
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We stand ready with the people,
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whatever it takes” to keep you fly-
ing. In all, Dassault Falcon has