Story ID: 
Solving AOGs One Part at a Time
By: lvalladares@ainonline.com
Caption: Rolls-Royce understands the failure of even the simplest engine parts can keep an aircraft grounded, and it relishes the challenge of minimizing downtime.
Word Count: 1407
“Customer experiences that eliminate confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety reap the rewards, generating a competitive advantage, loyalty, and a peerless brand image.”
—Matt Watkinson, author of The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experience
With over 8,000 engines in service around the world, Rolls-Royce Business Aviation is relying on its global stores of spare parts and components to help ensure that should an AOG occur, repairs can be made and aircraft can be flying again as quickly as possible.
If the post-pandemic world of business aviation has shown us anything, it’s that enterprises and entrepreneurs of all sizes have rediscovered the many advantages of private aircraft. In fact, according to FlightAware.com, business aircraft use in the United States is up over 45 percent compared with 2019 statistics. And, no doubt, global-use numbers are just as impressive.
With over 2,800 customers operating 4,000-plus jets around the world, Rolls-Royce Business Aviation’s family of engines is at the forefront of this resurgence. The company understands that the failure of even the simplest engine parts can keep an aircraft grounded, and it relishes the challenge of minimizing customers’ downtime.
“When you promise 100 percent aircraft availability as we do, then our system has to work perfectly to solve any issue when it occurs,” explained Barry Buckley, -Vice -President, Parts Availability, at Rolls-Royce Business Aviation. “Even the failure of a simple ‘O’ ring can ground a business jet. When that happens, our commitment is to get replacement parts to the aircraft as quickly as possible  to minimize the customer inconvenience.”
“Each year, we have around 3,000 engine-related AOG situations, and 70 percent of those require replacement parts or leased assets,” Buckley added. “We have a huge rotating supply chain matrix of over a half-million spare parts and components traveling all around the world to support all of those situations.”
Location, location, location...
With customer aircraft operating in every corner of the world, ensuring AOGs are solved quickly requires more than just having the right part in stock. You also have to get anything from a simple gasket to a complete engine to wherever it’s needed in the shortest time possible.
“Speed of response is everything in business aviation today,” Buckley said. “Our customers expect and deserve the best service from Rolls-Royce Business Aviation. Our goal is to ensure excellent support, and that requires us to be able to resolve engine issues whenever and wherever they occur. That’s why we have established a global network of spares stores in nine strategic locations. Parts are ready to go within hours of a need being identified.”
He explained that Rolls-Royce selected the spares stores locations in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia after in-depth analysis and statistical modeling. The company took into account things like the logistics of moving parts, repair times, reliability of components, historical AOGs, and where the majority of Rolls-Royce-powered business aircraft are positioned.
“That way, we know what parts are likely to be needed where,” Buckley added. “We also work closely with our C3 [Corporate Customer Council]. Hearing what customers need and expect from us helps make it all click. Their input has been invaluable in helping us put our stores’ network together.
“For example, at a recent C3 meeting, a multi-aircraft operator based in the western U.S. told us we need to increase the size of our spares store at our Los Angeles [LAX] location,” Buckley said. “We reviewed their feedback along with the support activities up and down the West Coast and decided to increase that location’s stock. Our parts footprint in LAX is now fourfold what it was.”
But, as Buckley stated earlier, when it comes to supporting business jets, speed is of the essence. Telling a customer with an AOG that “the part is in the mail” won’t get a very warm response.
“All of our spares locations are close to major transportation hubs, so we have multiple shipping options to ensure the parts get going as quickly as possible,” Buckley said. “Customers demand that rapid response, and our commitment is to resolve any AOG within 24 hours.”

Parts are just a piece of the AOG solution
Given the incredible complexity of Rolls-Royce Business Aviation engines, having the required replacement part is just one step in getting an aircraft repaired and back in the air. In many AOG situations, the solution also requires the expertise and experience of the technicians that make up the company’s On-Wing Service Team.
“The on-wing service team members are centrally located in the U.S. because that is where the majority of our customers and our highest volume of work are,” Buckley explained. “However, as the fleet continues to expand, we are building up our Worldwide team as well. No matter where customers are, the on-wing team is ready to travel there. Moving the right parts and people to the right place in the world is a gigantic logistics challenge for our Aircraft Availability Center’s [AAC] Operational Service Desk [OSD].”
Established in 2011 at the company’s headquarters in Dahelwitz, Germany, just outside Berlin, Rolls-Royce Business Aviation’s OSD operates 24/7/365 and is the heart of the company’s global efforts to keep customer aircraft flying.
With an average of 3,000 AOG situations annually, coordinating everything from spare-parts delivery to technician travel is a monumental task. And it all falls on the OSD.
“Rolls-Royce will ease our customers’ minds by managing all aspects of powerplant support for them,” Buckley said. “We have dedicated and experienced people overseeing our supply chains, vendors, authorized service MROs—all the help they need. The customer just needs to call the OSD and request AOG support.”
The wrong part can be worse than no part
Every once in a while, a customer’s maintenance provider will request the wrong replacement part. While that in itself is not a major issue, it can lead to added expense and aircraft downtime, which can turn an inconvenient situation into a serious problem.
“We recently had a customer in the eastern U.S. who called the OSD about a failure of the engine’s dedicated stator,” Buckley stated. “The aircraft’s DOM wanted to order a replacement unit. While the OSD was coordinating the shipment, our service engineer troubleshooting team talked with the DOM and determined that the problem was not the stator but was actually a gearbox failure.
“Gearboxes are difficult to replace on-wing and require a high level of expertise to do it correctly,” Buckley continued. “So, the OSD duty manager arranged to have the nearest on-wing service team, tooling, and replacement gearbox sent to the customer’s location. Their intervention saved the customer from spending time and money to replace an incorrect part.”
Spares support 100 years in the making
Buckley explained that when you see what it takes to put the right parts in the right place and develop a logistics plan that gets them to the AOG location as quickly as possible, you begin to understand the monumental effort behind Rolls-Royce Business Aviation’s commitment to 100 percent aircraft availability.
“Every day, our customers and their aircraft are traveling to more corners of the world,” he stated. “That means the challenge of delivering world-class support continues to grow. We are extremely proud that our customers continually rank us as the number-one support provider in business aviation.”
“That huge vote of confidence is important to us, because our customers are the reason we are in the position we are in,” Buckley continued. “However, we also recognize that no one can stand still in this industry and stay on top. We are consistently trying to maintain our industry-leading position by finding new ways to improve the services we provide to make our customers’ lives easier.”