Jet Aviation may have closed its U.S. maintenance facilities, but the company’s locations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia continue to offer support for customers around the world. The company currently operates seven MRO facilities, in Basel and Geneva, Switzerland; Vienna, Austria; Moscow/Vnukovo, Russia; Dubai; Singapore; and Hong Kong and Macau in China. With an increase in traffic to these locations, Jet Aviation is expanding some facilities and setting up a maintenance training program at its Basel facility for its sales team.
Jet Aviation (Chalet A11/A12) closed its St. Louis completions and MRO facility in August (sister company Gulfstream Aerospace took over the location), and shuttered its MRO facility at Boston-area Hanscom Field in September. However, this does not mean that the company stopped supporting U.S. customers. According to Jet Aviation’s head of global MRO marketing services Tommi Krell, the company’s worldwide facilities remain available for business jet operators based anywhere, including the U.S.
To spread the word with U.S. customers, Jet Aviation has dedicated two European sales directors to the U.S. market: Antonia Kerschbaum and Beatrice Ashe. Working with customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, the two also have plenty of experience dealing with the U.S. market on an almost daily basis.
To meet the needs of Jet Aviation’s international market, the company is expanding some facilities. The Basel facility will see the addition of a 94,000-sq-ft hangar in the second half of 2018 to meet the demand for completions, maintenance and refurbishment services. Jet Aviation’s Singapore facility will expand to accommodate an interior shop as well as a third 49,000-sq-ft hangar with humidity control and air-conditioning.
Another way Jet Aviation is preparing to meet the needs of its international market is a new sales-force training program in Basel. The program, which is still in its trial phase, would take place two to three days a year and allow sales directors to receive exposure to operations in the maintenance hangar. Suppliers would teach the directors about different avionics products or regulations and other technical subjects. The program would consist of 50 training events along with external and internal coaching sessions.
“The way forward, in my opinion, is training, training, training,” Kerschbaum told AIN. “Together with a colleague from the training department, we started a global sales training [program] for our sales force worldwide. This training program gives the sales director the opportunity to do hands-on training in the hangar, have our suppliers teach [them] about the different avionics products or learn about the challenges we face on a daily basis with aviation authorities…I believe that Jet Aviation will end up with the best trained and most up-to-date sales force worldwide, once this program is up and running.”
Jet Aviation’s MRO sales for this year are “satisfying,” according to Kerschbaum. Some delays arose for the company’s Macau facility because of Typhoon Hato in August, and the Basel facility could not take in as many aircraft as usual because of limited space caused by the construction of the additional hangar. However, the company is expected to meet its MRO sales levels from last year.
