Safety and Service
There is a lot that goes into what matters most in business aviation. As a business aviation leader, I’m always amazed at how simple and seamless we make flight operations for our guests, aircraft owners, and stakeholders. I’ve recently returned from the annual National Business Aviation Association convention (NBAA-BACE) in Orlando FL where I’m always amazed at the breadth of services and complexity of our industry. Nearly 25,000 service providers, vendors, friends of aviation, private jet consumers, and aviation professionals attend this massive convention each year. Business Aviation is an incredibly diverse field with thousands of experts in their respective subject fields. It’s easy to get overwhelmed as a consumer or aviation professional. Where do you start and what really matters when acquiring a business aircraft, setting up or managing a flight department, or selecting a vendor to manage and operate your aviation assets? The devil is always in the details but at the end of the day, the only two things that truly matter are SAFETY and SERVICE.
Safety
Nothing will ever be more important than SAFETY in business aviation. Safety-centric flight operations start long before your aircraft is pulled from the hangar and fueled. Recruiting and retaining experienced and safety focused flight crew, maintenance staff, and support personal is where it all starts. Aviation professionals with a deep understanding of evolving regulations and compliance are the foundation of safety. Setting expectations, utilizing every resource available including regularly scheduled outside audits, and staying abreast of constantly evolving “best practices” is essential. No matter how small or large your flight department is you need a well-thought-out, fully implemented Safety Management System (SMS) and a safety-centric flight department culture to support your SMS. This is a lengthy topic with a quick introduction found in my previous article on LinkedIn “Safety in Business Aviation – How Do I Know My Operator Has a Robust Safety System in Place?” Keep in mind safe flight operations begin on the ground. Aircraft maintenance and well-thought-out ground operations are often overlooked. Does your maintenance team regularly attend industry events such as “safety stand downs” and aircraft manufacturer-approved airframe, powerplant, and avionics training courses? Annual training should not just be reserved for flight crews! Every discussion in your flight department should start and end with SAFETY.
Service
A close second to SAFETY is SERVICE. Often overlooked in my opinion, but almost as important is the service we provide as aviation professionals. The efficiency, time, and convenience that comes with business aviation is expensive. As those of us who’ve used and delivered business aviation services know, high-quality flight operations are not a luxury but essential to the modern and highly competitive business landscape our stakeholders operate in. Business jets are widely used because of the significant return on investment they provide but to realize this the service has to be impeccable. As aviation professionals, we often forget that we are delivering a high-end service, not just transportation. Any high-end service is built around perfection. Is the aircraft spotless, are the requested or anticipated items on board (catering, newspapers, passenger preferred amenities, are the cabin amenities like Wi-Fi working), do we understand the mission objectives and have we provided an itinerary that puts guests where they need to be when they need to be there while communicating operational limitations? It’s key to not just go where we are told but to understand if there are opportunities for greater efficiencies – can we get our guests closer to their meetings or if we use a different FBO can we offer reduced operating costs through lower fuel and FBO service fees? Service is about anticipating our guests’ needs while exceeding their expectations.
Conclusion
As a new user of business aviation, a business or individual contemplating the acquisition of a private jet or turbo-prop aircraft, or even a seasoned aviation professional, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the complexity and body of information necessary to conduct high-quality flight operations. When wading through data, and gathering information to make the best decisions possible, always keep in mind that when it comes to business aviation the two most important aspects will always be SAFETY and SERVICE, in that order!
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