Textron Aviation is here (Static Display, and Booth V029) promoting its strengthened customer support in Europe. The region is second after North America for the deliveries of Cessna and Beechcraft turbine aircraft, as 20 percent of these took place in Europe last year (Hawkers, although supported, are no longer produced). “We are happy to see Europe waking up,” Kriya Shortt, senior v-p, sales and marketing, said during a press visit in April.

Moving to a direct factory service model has been a continuous process, according to v-p sales Europe Tom Perry. He referred to the creation of the Paris Le Bourget service center back in the late 1990s as the point where the process really started. “Through this model, customers have direct access to the experts who designed and built their aircraft,” the company said.

At Düsseldorf Airport, Textron has upgraded a Jet Aviation maintenance facility that Cessna bought in late 2012. The largest of the two hangars can accommodate six to 12 aircraft, depending on their size, while the roof has been moved up for higher-tail aircraft such as the Citation Latitude. A movable paint shelter gives flexibility, removing the need to transfer assemblies from a hangar to a paint shop.

Düsseldorf is a distribution depot and ranks second after the primary hub in Wichita, Kansas (where Textron has its headquarters and factories). In the latter warehouse, the expected availability rate for parts is 99.8 percent. In the German facility, is is 90 percent, according to Brad Thress, Textron Aviation’s senior v-p for customer service. He wants to have Düsseldorf on a par with Wichita, eventually.

The facility shares tools that are expensive but seldom used with other Cessna service centers around Europe. The tool is delivered within 24 hours. Similarly, technicians can spend a few days at another facility that is experiencing a spike in workload.

Engineering data is made available to every inspector’s laptop. It is no longer necessary for an employee in Düsseldorf to wait for Wichita experts (a seven-hour timeshift) to be in the office. Thanks to a virtual private network, the employee may hook onto a server in Kansas. “This is faster than it could be for any third-party repair station,” Perry pointed out.

The air response team uses a Cessna Citation CJ3 based at Düsseldorf airport. It can deliver parts and accompanying experts throughout Europe in case of an AOG situation. And it is free of charge, Thress pointed out.

“We have close to 1,700 Citations, King Airs and Hawkers in Europe and we have to support them,” he said. Company-owned service centers can be found in Paris, Düsseldorf, Valencia, Doncaster (UK) and Prague. Textron’s aftermarket workforce in Europe totals 400.

A fifth line service station opened late April in Bremen, in cooperation with Lufthansa. This is to thwart Atlas Air Service’s Cessna maintenance activity, a source familiar with German business aviation told AIN. Atlas Air Service, formerly a sales representative for Cessna, has recently switched to Embraer but wanted to keep offering maintenance on Cessna aircraft, the source explained.

Line maintenance stations provide on-the-ground support and can perform a variety of services, including troubleshooting, minor repairs, component replacement and compliance with some service bulletins. Other Textron Aviation line service stations are located in Luton (UK), Stuttgart, Cannes, Nice and Geneva (the latter two being seasonal, from June to August). “From the addition of a dedicated support aircraft to the expansion of our service center authorizations, the level of factory-direct support solutions we offer is unmatched in the industry,” Thress said.

Textron's improved online documentation, 1View, includes 200 flight manuals and 600 maintenance manuals, Thress said. The interface now allows users to zoom in and out of drawings, and rotate them under certain formats. A particular wire path can be highlighted, and the text can be supplemented with notes, for example “remember to remove left screw first.”

A feature in Textron’s by-the-hour maintenance programs is the possibility to receive a partial refund. This happens if the operator uses fewer services than planned, Thress explained. About half of Textron’s fleet is now on such programs–the airframer’s sales force now has a particular focus on increasing the proportion the King Air fleet that is signed up.

Textron’s strategy to bring factory service close to European customers also can be seen in pre-purchase inspections. “When the inspection takes place at a Textron facility, we add six months of extended protection,” Thress emphasized. The coverage is said to be similar to a warranty.

Breaking Textron Aviation’s European turbine (jet plus turboprop) fleet down by country, Germany, the UK and France come out on top.

The fleet includes approximately 1,700 aircraft, with more than 1,000 jets (including 800 Citations) and more than 650 turboprops (including 400+ King Airs), according to v-p sales Europe Tom Perry. Of the jets, the Citation Mustang and the Citation Excel/XLS/XLS+ are the most numerous, at 100+ and 70+, respectively. The Citation CJ3+ is among the most popular types on the charter market, Perry went on.

Germany is the single largest market for Textron’s jets in Europe; the UK and France again completing the list of the top three countries. Perry mentioned the Eastern part of ‘greater’ Europe–especially Turkey and Poland–as an area of growth. Asked for a breakdown between customer categories (governments, corporations and owner-pilots), he replied, “the mixture is a pretty reasonable balance between the three.”

As for options, European customers increasingly ask for a wireless Internet network on board. Such a network is now standard on the Citation Latitude. “They like to make their aircraft future-proof, choosing options such as CPDLC and ADS-B out,” Perry went on. In retrofits, avionics upgrades and Tamarack’s Atlas active winglets are popular add-ons.