Chicago-based JSSI (Stand 455), an independent provider of hourly cost maintenance programs for aircraft engines, airframes and APUs, convened its second European customer advisory board here in Geneva this week and came away with better knowledge of what it can do to help them contain their costs.

For example, Susan Marr, JSSI chief administrative officer, offered the following takeaway from Monday’s meeting. JSSI was asked: what about someone who doesn’t use his APU as much? Is there a lesser coverage; is there a lesser price; are there different levels of coverage? “What a great idea. Instead of just one-size-fits-all APU coverage, maybe we can provide a different smorgasbord of coverage.”

It’s another idea JSSI can bring to the European marketplace, which it has been involved in since 1992. “We like to think we’ve learned a whole lot about providing hourly cost maintenance programs here in Europe,” Marr said. “We know our clients have good ideas. They come up with things that we would never think of.”

Louis Seno, JSSI chairman, president and CEO, told AIN that the business relationships in Europe differ from those in the U.S., where maintenance programs are driven predominantly by flight departments. In Europe, JSSI interfaces more with management companies, which are keenly focused on hourly costs versus overall budgets. “With these management companies, we’ve really become a strategic partner,” he said. “A client signs on [and asks] how much is it a month for you to manage my airplane and what are the costs? We’re a very critical element in controlling the cost for that operator to their client.”

JSSI opened an office in Farnborough, UK, in April 2010. It is now staffed by six people. The maintenance management group also has been expanding its European footprint, appointing technical services personnel in Paris, Cologne, Vienna, Basel and Zurich, as well as in Johannesburg, South Africa. The company plans to open an office in Dubai focused on the Middle East market.