“Customers now are rarely located down the street, and so we must disperse our talent more rapidly or suffer a steep increase in lost opportunities. In this ‘next economy,’ mobility will be important for our very survival.” —NBAA Business Aviation, Enterprise Value Perspective
With a global team of engine and systems experts at the ready, Rolls-Royce’s Business Aviation Aircraft Availability Center gives its customers the confidence of knowing that no matter where their Rolls-Royce-powered business aircraft lands, support is close at hand.
To paraphrase a line from a popular science fiction TV show, “Today’s business aircraft are boldly going where no other business aircraft have gone before.” And while that untethered flexibility is a boon for global companies, it puts great strain on those charged with providing timely solutions for Aircraft on Ground (AOG) situations.
Knowing that on any given day, any one of its customers can be anywhere on the planet, Rolls-Royce Business Aviation has taken an extremely proactive approach to delivering answers quickly to engine-related mechanical issues, whenever and, more importantly, wherever they occur.
At the heart of this commitment is Rolls-Royce Business Aviation’s state-of-the-art Aircraft Availability Center (AAC), whose Dahlewitz, Germany, headquarters is just outside Berlin.
“We established the AAC in 2011, and over the years we have grown and evolved our capabilities into what we have today—a group totally dedicated to meeting the specific needs of our business aviation customers,” explained Robert Werner, Rolls-Royce’s VP, Aircraft Availability, Business Aviation. “The AAC’s primary goal is to help get our customers back in the air as quickly as possible, no matter where they are.”
Of course, fulfilling that promise is a lot easier said than done. But with experience based on supporting over 8,000 business jet engines, the team at Rolls-Royce Business Aviation has learned a few tricks of the trade.
For example, unlike commercial airlines, business aircraft users don’t have large stores of spare parts and trained technicians waiting at their destinations. So, each situation is unique.
To best meet the wide variety of needs of business aircraft operators, Rolls-Royce Business Aviation has established its own service infrastructure, consisting of a global network of strategically located authorized service centers, spares and lease engine locations, all complemented by a highly-skilled and experienced team of On-Wing Service technicians.
“As the AAC serves as the front line of our service efforts, we ensure that the necessary engineers and specialists we need are immediately available to solve a problem,” Werner said. “Our service engineering team consists of specialists for every component and sub-system on the engine, including the nacelles—basically everything needed to ensure we can have the airplane ready to fly when the customer wants to fly.”
The AAC Has a Heart
The AAC has over 80 Rolls-Royce Business Aviation engine experts on-site, but that’s just one element of what it takes to solve an AOG situation. And putting it all together takes monumental coordination, which the team manning the AAC’s Operational Service Desk (OSD) provides.
“The OSD operates 24/7/365 and is the heart of all that we do here,” Werner stated. “It enables close coordination and connections to all of the surrounding work streams. “There’s a lot going on and the specific AOG’s duty manager supervises everything. The duty manager is fully empowered to use all of our capabilities to get that aircraft flying again.”
With an annual average of 3,000 AOG situations - ranging from the need for simple replacement parts to a full-on engine change - keeping it all on schedule is a huge task. Along with coordinating the team at the AAC headquarters, solutions require integrating all the logistics surrounding spare parts, tooling, remote technicians, and the like. It’s a rapidly evolving puzzle. To help keep it going in the right direction, Rolls-Royce Business Aviation developed its own proprietary Digital task-management tool.
“It allows us to connect all the sub-work streams together digitally, setting timelines against the project, recording progress, and making visible the status of all the required actions related to specific AOGs,” Werner explained. “In addition, it provides situational awareness via a customized map display for the team to visualize the circumstances, including the local day, time, and weather, at the aircraft’s location.”
Some Remote Repairs Are Really Remote
While the Rolls-Royce Business Aviation Aircraft Availability Center solves the vast majority of AOG situations by shipping a replacement part, the team’s goal is to make solving even the most unusual solution seem routine.
One example that Werner shared involved a recent AOG that occurred in the Maldives.
As he explained it, a Rolls-Royce Business Aviation CorporateCare customer was visiting the islands of the Maldives - the smallest country in Asia - and, when preparing to depart, discovered an issue with an engine. After trying everything, the AAC and OSD teams decided that the only solution was to change the engine. Not an easy task under the best of conditions.
“The Maldives has limited connectivity, particularly when it comes to shipping something as big as an engine, so we had to charter a civilian C-130 to fly a replacement engine - along with the technical team and all of their tools and equipment - to the location,” Werner said. “This was all done in record time and at no cost to the customer.”
Werner said that the team were also able to share their remote repair experience with colleagues from Rolls-Royce’s Power Systems unit. Coincidentally, that division encountered a similar situation with an engine on a private yacht in the area. They were able to use the lessons learned from the previous AOG situation to speed their repairs.
For business aviation customers, the availability of their aircraft is vital. And while each single operator of a Rolls-Royce powered aircraft can rely on this world-class team to solve their problem, Werner stressed, that all cost for the remote repair on the Maldives have been covered by Rolls-Royce’s CorporateCare Enhanced service.
AOGs, KPIs, and ROIs.
He added that for Rolls-Royce Business Aviation, the end of an AOG is just the beginning.
“Averted Missed Trips is the industry-recognized key performance Indicator (KPI) for business aviation,” he said. “It measures our ability to ensure that customers can make their next planned trip after an AOG. Our goal is to achieve this 100 percent of the time but - recognizing that is very difficult to do and is very dependent on a lot of variables - we have established that 98 percent or better is considered world-class.
“With 98 percent, we have set ourselves a pretty tight target, but as our key goal is to keep our customers’ aircraft flying, it is an important measure of our success,” Werner added. “If we can stay ahead of what the industry is doing, we feel good about what we deliver to our customers.
“No matter which of our engines the customers have on their aircraft, they have invested a lot in their ability to travel when and where they want to go,” Werner concluded. “By staying focused on meeting their needs, we are enabling them to fly on their schedule and helping them to maximize that investment.”