Worldwide Customer Service & Service Center Network
Dassault Aviation
Falcon Customer Service works 24 hours a day for our operators, but I’ll be the first to admit that when a call comes in to support the President of France, we scramble.
Among the flight departments we support is Escadron Transport 60 (ET 60) in Villacoublay, France. The unit is part of the French Air Force, operating six Falcons, an Airbus A330-200 and three Super Puma helicopters. Dassault Falcon Service with Sabena Technics, support the Falcons with a team of 15, which has members on duty 24/7. Missions can happen on short notice at any hour; dispatch must be within two to three hours. By the terms of our contract, dispatch availability must be above 90%.
Some of the most urgent missions are medevac flights. One of the six Falcons is always in a medevac configuration and ready to fly; others can be converted for this purpose. In recent years, ET 60 has conducted mostly medevac flights for soldiers serving in francophone African countries.
The Dassault team is part of the commandant’s daily briefing, along with the chief pilot and operations staff. It’s a tightknit team. ET 60 knows, like other Falcon operators, it has the larger Dassault support organization on call for parts, engineering, and AOG support.
The Falcon fleet comprises two 7Xs, two 900EX EASy aircraft, and two original 900s that have been well maintained and modernized. Those last two are notable examples of Falcon durability and longevity; they are serial numbers 002 and 004, with the latter having flown more than 20,000 hours, making it the Falcon 900 fleet leader. As a group, ET 60 Falcons fly about 2,500 hours a year.
All have encrypted SATCOM equipment for secure communications. And all can fly up with to 14 passengers and do so regularly. Often, they have the President or Prime Minister aboard and a large staff. Or a press contingent, or some combination of all the above.
We’re pleased to have ET 60 pilots and flight attendants, all Air Force members, participating in our regular forums, including having flight attendants as part of our cabin OAB working group. You can imagine they have valuable input on how to best support senior executives and teams.
ET 60 has a storied history dating back to 1945, when the VIP unit was formed under the acronym GLAM. It started with Beech 18s and then the Dassault Flamant when it entered service in 1949. The unit adopted the Falcon 20 in 1972 and has been flying Falcon jets ever since.
The unit recently held formal celebrations to mark its 80th birthday at its home base at Villacoublay, about 12 km southwest of the Elysée Palace.
Allow me a brief aside: as in any aspect of aviation, it’s the drive to the airport that’s the most dangerous. President Charles de Gaulle survived an assassination attempt (a hail of precisely 178 bullets, 14 of which struck his Citroën DS 19) on the way to Villacoublay in 1962. It was memorably depicted as the first failed assassination attempt in the 1973 film Day of the Jackal. In the film, de Gaulle calmly boards his Dassault Flamant afterward.
Many heads of state and governments use Falcons for VIP transport, including Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Australia. The UK’s No. 32 Squadron RAF with two 900LX aircraft is affectionately known as the Royal Squadron for flying the royal family, as well as government VIPs. As part of closer defense cooperation with the UK, a “twinning” partnership between the RAF’s Squadron and the ET 60 was also announced last June.
We are honored to serve each and every customer, including heads of state, other medevac operations, and our corporate customers. Let me assure you: when anyone of your calls come into our Falcon Command Center for an AOG, they immediately become our top priority…
Senior Vice President, Worldwide Falcon Customer Service & Service Center Network
Dassault Aviation
