Falcon Means Service, Too

Dassault Aviation is promoting its service capabilities here at EBACE, talking up February's ISO 9001 certification and a new emphasis on customer satisfaction under Christian Sasso, the new president of Dassault Falcon Service, or DFS.

The parent company notes that it's probably still best known for such military craft as its Rafale and Mirage fighter jets, but says its Falcon activities now represent about half of total Dassault Aviation business. Dassault disclosed 90 Falcon orders last year. More than 1,400 Falcon business jets have been placed with customers since the first Falcon 20 delivery in 1965.

Business buyers of course demand service, and Paris-Le Bourget-based, 500-employee DFS is responding. It now has enough hangar space at Bourget to handle 22 Falcons at once, and under Sasso has reorganized with new special projects managers to give customers a single point of contact with the company.

"Falcons are the only business of Dassault Falcon Service," says the parent. DSF emphasizes "total customer support," which means advising customers, helping them make good technical and financial decisions to optimize operation of their aircraft while minimizing maintenance cost, "and above all ensuring that all work is carried out on time and with the proper quality."

Besides handling maintenance and repairs, DSF offers aircraft retrofits, with programs including Honeywell TFE731-5 engines and Rockwell Collins Pro Line IV avionics for the Falcon 20, and (recently certified) Honeywell TFE731-40 engines for the Falcon 50. "Here again," says Dassault, "service can be provided concurrently with avionics upgrade, using the Pro Line IV suite."
Other programs at DSF cover RVSM, B-RNAV, TCAS, 8.33 kHz channel spacing and other upgrades required by airworthiness authorities. The first RVSM-conformant Falcon 10, for example, rolled out late last month.

DFS has also been named a "Preferred Authorized Service Center" by NetJets Europe, and has charge of all scheduled and unscheduled maintenance for the fractional's Falcon 2000s and 900s operated in Europe. "This demands extreme flexibility, because of the high-density operations run by NetJets," DSF says.

DSF also performs interior work for existing Falcon flyers, though it notes that it ceased performing new aircraft completions last year "in order to refocus on its core business as a major service center." Special services remain available "on customer demand," the company says.

DFS operates a fleet of a dozen Falcon aircraft for public transport and to provide management service for other customers, too. The fleets comprises five Falcon 50s, three Falcon 900s, a Falcon 20, a Falcon 200, and a Falcon 2000.

"This business," says the company, provides "huge knowledge of Falcon operation, with a cumulated experience which stands now at more than 180,000 hours of flight. The company records extensive flight data which has proven useful to both the manufacturer and its service center colleagues.
"This also means that DFS is fully capable of advising and supporting new operators who open their own flight departments."

DFS also operates Dassault Aviation's Falcon demonstrators.

But while business aviation is of increasing importance to the world aerospace industry, with business aircraft now as important as military aircraft not only to Dassault but to the industry as a whole, Dassault may soon get a boost from the French military, which just this week was reported to be planning to shift its maintenance requirements from a state agency to the private sector. DFS would be an obvious answer for satisfying the support needs of the French Air Force for its Mirage and Rafale fighters.