Through its Beechcraft, Cessna, and Hawker aircraft, Textron Aviation has been reinventing the way people fly for more than 85 years, designing aircraft that range from business jets to single-engine planes.
The company has 21 service centers around the world to support a fleet of more than 9,000 business jets and turboprops, but it’s not always possible for them to be brought in for service. And that’s where the company’s mobile service units — a.k.a. MSUs — enter the picture. Offering on-the-go aircraft maintenance, the fleet of more than 40 MSUs can perform nearly any task in the field that can be completed in a service center, from scheduled maintenance and repair to engine overhauls and troubleshooting. The fleet provides onsite technical expertise and support for Textron Aviation customers across the globe.
“We’ve added anywhere from seven to 10 trucks to the fleet for each of the last three years in a row, and we’re going to do it again this year,” says Tony Balestracci, Textron Aviation’s vice president of global customer service. The MSUs are stocked with all the equipment required for scheduled and unscheduled service.
Textron Aviation’s mobile service trucks vary in size and capability to meet the vastly different needs of its aircraft.
“From large 29,000-pound MSUs with hoists to hang engines to smaller 10,000-pound trucks used to carry jacks for all different types of aircraft, we bring the service center capability directly to the operator,” Balestracci says.
The fleet’s smaller vehicles are more nimble, and help mechanics get as close as possible to wherever they’re needed (for example, the smaller trucks allow operators to better maneuver through big cities like Los Angeles). In Europe, the company uses vans with ramps to help navigate the narrower streets.
To make sure the MSU team has the trucks and accessories needed to conduct service calls as efficiently as possible, technicians and tooling coordinators are asked to weigh in on service truck needs and equipment.
“We’ve identified the equipment we don’t use as often on a truck to minimize weight, and we modified the ability to load jacks into the bed of a smaller truck so one driver could do it by himself,” Balestracci says. “Then we sat down with a truck manufacturer, and they helped us design the back end of the truck.”
The newer MSUs in the fleet are just over two years old, with a different configuration than some of the older vehicles. Ergonomics and ease of use were big points of consideration when designing the new MSUs.
Beyond service centers
Thirty of Textron Aviation’s MSUs have home bases that are strategically located across the globe versus at a service center. This helps the company prepare for the general aviation population at particular airports.
“Owner-operators love this concept of an MSU truck being at their facility or in the field because they know the airplane doesn’t have to be repositioned for maintenance,” explains Mark Daniels, lead mechanic for mobile service at Textron Aviation.
This year, the company also added trucks to its network based on customer feedback regarding where they wanted the MSUs to be placed. “I compare it to having a mechanic sitting in your garage waiting for your vehicle to break,” says Balestracci. In fact, because of the level of service Textron Aviation provides with its MSUs, some customers prefer to use only the mobile service units instead of going to a service facility.
That the fleet is geographically dispersed means training and education can be a challenge. But Textron Aviation’s fleet operators and mechanics connect regularly to discuss issues, and also have a leader at their home base who can help with scheduling, coordinating, and troubleshooting. Even though the fleet is spread out, the company’s mechanics don’t have to troubleshoot every event alone, Balestracci says.
Treating customers right
“As a mechanic, when you’re onsite with the customer or the customer’s pilots, you’re the face of Textron Aviation,” Daniels explains. With 17 years of experience working for the MSU fleet, Daniels has learned that making customer visits as positive as possible is part of the job.
“You’re performing everything right in front of the customer, and he’s watching your every move,” Daniels says. “You’re there with him from start to finish, sometimes even eating meals together. When the customer sees that you’re trying to make the visit a positive and memorable experience, you will tie him back to the service center — whether it’s his first visit or whether they use us all the time.”
Daniels has encountered all types of service situations that require quick thinking while also keeping customers calm. “You work until the job is done, no matter how long it takes. I remember working late one night to get an aircraft up and running because it was being used for organ transport. There were two of us on the service truck; we pulled off a maintenance procedure that would usually take a day. But we worked diligently through the night to make sure they had the airplane at 7 a.m. the next morning for organ donations.”
In high-stress situations like these, Daniels involves the customer as much as possible, and explains what he’s doing (and why he’s doing it). “If you involve them from the start and explain why you’re doing certain things — and the procedures that go along with it — you make them feel like they’re part of the process,” Daniels says. “And that increases their trust.”
This level of customer satisfaction is what’s really most important to MSU team members. They gather performance feedback in a variety of ways, including through customer surveys and customer advisory panels. And not only does Textron Aviation ask for opinions on the work they’ve already completed, but they ask for feedback on what they’re considering for the future.
“We continue to look at ways to get better because downtime is no one’s friend,” says Balestracci says. His goal is to provide the same service quality that would be provided in any facility – or in the customer’s own hangar. Textron Aviation is currently working on new ways to better organize its MSUs and get them out to customers even faster.
“We strive to always make customers feel like they’re the only customer we’re working with that day,” Daniels says. “I’ve always told my team that we’re in it to win it for the next scheduled maintenance, and that has become our motto.”
Leah Grout Garris is a full-time freelance writer, editor, and marketing consultant based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.