MRO Profile: Desert Jet Maintenance

Desert Jet has been an evolving company since its founding in 2006 as an aircraft management and acquisition business in Palm Springs, California.

In 2009, it entered the aircraft charter arena, with its Part 135 charter certificate offering Cessna Citations, Bombardier Challengers, Beechcraft King Airs, and even a Gulfstream or two. But with those aircraft came maintenance needs, and in an effort to gain better control over the scheduling and availability of its fleet, the company in 2013 launched Desert Jet Maintenance (DJM), its FAA Part 145-certificated repair station.

Based out of an FBO’s hangar, it offered service not just to the Desert Jet fleet, but to the entire KTRM community.

In 2016, the company—with a lease on a large vacant hangar on the field—launched its own FBO with temporary hospitality facilities as it prepared for its eventual permanent home. Three years later, it opened the doors of its $7 million Desert Jet FBO.

The first part of the complex to be occupied was the 23,000-sq-ft climate-controlled hangar, which became the home of DJM’s technician staff. Last year, the company came full circle as it sold off its charter certificate, devoting itself strictly to aviation support services.

“Previously, a lot of our MRO focus was specifically on our [Part] 135,” said Desert Jet CEO Jared Fox. “With the sale of that, it’s created significant bandwidth for us to be able to focus on others.” He added that the company’s long-term experience as a former aircraft operator gives it valuable insight into that arena. “Because we’ve been there, we know that sometimes it might be working at night, it might be doing all-hands-on-deck maintenance to get something out for a trip the next morning. We come from that world, we know it very well.”

Currently, the company has a crew of six aircraft maintenance technicians with Textron factory OEM training. “Our expertise comes from our [Part] 135 days where our [Part] 145 heavily supported that, so everything in the Textron family we are very familiar with, and capable of doing,” Fox told AIN. “Doc inspections, regular scheduled maintenance, you name it.”

As such, DJM specializes in Cessna Citations and Beechcraft King Airs. Also on the company’s list of approved aircraft are Embraer Phenoms and the Beechcraft Premier. “We’ve taken CJ3s all the way down to their frames, we’ve done all the inspections, essentially anything you can do on an aircraft, we’ve done it at one point," Fox noted, but in terms of capabilities, DJM draws the line at engine work. “We will remove the engine, we will crate it up to send to the OEM, but we’re not going to do the hot section.”

At peak capacity, the company can have as many as six aircraft projects going at once at its facility. “We are able to work closely with owner operators of [Part] 91 aircraft, and we become their turnkey maintenance division for them,” Fox explained. “We will work hand in glove with them, whether that be going through their to-do list, or helping put a plan in place for the next two years.”

For floating fleet operators without a base in the area, DJM can act as an extension of their maintenance operation. “If there’s an operator that operates a large amount of an aircraft type, we can build a program, send our tech specifically to OEM training for that specific type, and build out a—call it a West Coast base, for them,” said Fox, adding that it is working on several such deals and is hiring more AMTs in preparation.

As an incentive for repeat customers, DJM recently introduced a maintenance loyalty program with points awarded based on aircraft labor. Those points can be redeemed for prizes ranging from gift certificates to luxury travel and, at the top end of the scale, even a motorcycle.

Next summer, the company expects to break ground on a new $20 million expansion, which will add an additional 7 acres to its leasehold and will feature a new 60,000-sq-ft hangar to be used for additional maintenance space and aircraft storage.

The company also offers 24/7 AOG support, not just at KTRM but anywhere within a 250-nm radius that encompasses much of Southern California. “We take it as a key part of our responsibility being here at the airport to help anybody who is flying in,” said Fox. “We’ve done and can do AOG on anything and everything, really.” He mentioned a recent example when a historic Ford Tri-motor operating under an experimental certificate landed at the airport during a tour of the region. The pilot mentioned that it had a vibration he couldn’t identify. “Obviously, that’s not an airplane we work on regularly. I don’t know anybody that does,” Fox stated, "but we were able and willing to get out there and troubleshoot it with them.” They eventually narrowed the problem down to one of the Tin Goose’s propeller blades. “The team got to work on an airplane that was nearly 100 years old, on something that they don’t see every day.”

With an eye toward the future, in partnership with a local high school, the company participates in a shadowing program where students interested in aviation can get firsthand exposure to the industry. It is about to hire its first former student, who became a line technician at the FBO while he earned his A&P license.