Some two and a half years since its establishment, Buffalo-based Private Jet Maintenance (PJM) has turned its attention to applying its newly acquired Part 145 repair station certificate to opportunities for expansion. Now largely engaged in supporting out-of-production business jets, the corporate operates out of a modestly sized hangar at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, whose lease expires in November 2024. By that point, a proposal from Signature Flight Support to lease a bigger hangar could allow it to take care of larger jets resembling Bombardier Globals and Challenger 650s.
In a recent interview with AIN, PJM director of maintenance Ben Chieffo explained that profit margins on maintenance of large-cabin jets can exceed those on small aircraft resembling Learjets by an element of three.
“To be honest, numerous facilities like Bombardier don’t need to see the Learjets anymore; they need to work on Challengers; they need to work on Globals,” he noted. “You may’t blame them because they’re making so much more cash on those.”
Although Chieffo agreed that the trend means more opportunities for small MRO providers to work on what he called legacy types, he stressed that PJM’s business does see work on latest aircraft as well.
“A customer from Canada…just bought a brand latest [Citation] CJ4 and wanted us to administer it for them,” he said. “So it’s not off the table that we’d work latest airplanes, because we do.”
Addressing a broader need for maintenance management, PJM also has begun offering the service as a core a part of its business. On the time Chieffo spoke with AIN late last 12 months, PJM had signed three customers for the service and “hopefully soon one other two,” he revealed.
PJM’s maintenance management offering involves tracking and updating databases and performing post-flight support. This system also includes discounts on parts and labor, a welcome feature given recent cost increases because of inflationary pressures. Actually, PJM’s hourly labor rate has risen from $125 to $155 over the past 12 months and a half.
“[Many] of those operators can have their pilot tracking their maintenance and taking good care of all that stuff,” explained Chieffo. “A variety of these pilots aren’t going to say no because they need the job. But they’re really not fascinated about doing it, and so they don’t do it well.
“We’ve had pilots miss key events,” he continued. “We’ve had them miss warranty work that would have been done but now it’s costing the owner money because that period of ‘free’ is gone.”
Some operators have hired their very own directors of maintenance but at a steep cost compared with PJM’s management plan, which runs about $2,500 a month for a King Air or $3,500 a month for a Learjet 60, added Chieffo.
Employing eight A&P mechanics, three of which work in its avionics department, PJM covers the gamut of maintenance needs other than major engine work. In cases resembling a recent incident involving a bird strike on a Citation, it’s going to remove an engine for shipment to an overhaul facility, typically StandardAero, said Chieffo.
Notwithstanding its relatively small size, PJM has embraced latest technology resembling maintenance software from Tronair called EBIS, which allows mechanics to open work orders on a Microsoft Surface tablet and see any discrepancies. “They will work a job and clock their time out and in, so we’re more accurate with labor hours and what to charge the client,” explained Chieffo. “Our parts people order parts and assign them to work orders so, as the blokes are signing off on discrepancies, the software is definitely making a logbook sticker and at the identical time, it’s creating an invoice.
“We’re much faster in getting paperwork done in the long run…and we may give the client a bill so much quicker,” he added. “A variety of times, our chief inspector will spend almost a day just getting all of the paperwork together. But with this software, we’re scanning in all of the 8130 [FAA parts identification and origin identification forms] and all of the pack lists.”
Although timely parts availability because of supply chain constraints stays an issue, Chieffo said lead times have improved recently. He added that PJM hasn’t seen cases of months-long turnaround times recounted in horror stories by some maintenance directors.
“We haven’t experienced that,” he said. “Generally for the stuff we’re doing up to now, we are able to kick airplanes out the door in a few weeks.”