Worldwide Customer Service & Service Center Network
Dassault Aviation
Grant Ingall walked through the door at Sydney’s Pacific Aviation at 18 years old. It was 1985. He didn’t know much about aviation, but he proved himself on the shop floor through a four-year apprenticeship. Later, as a top technician for Australia Jet Charter, he traveled the world to repair just about every business jet model under the sun. He loved those wanderlust days but isn’t unhappy at all to concentrate on just his home corner of the globe, running ExecuJet MRO Australasia with locations throughout Australia and New Zealand.
South Africa’s ExecuJet bought Australia Jet Charter in 2000. Graeme Duckworth, president of ExecuJet MRO, thought he had a good model to take worldwide. He was right. After acquiring and growing the Sydney operation, the company methodically expanded to Melbourne, Brisbane, Wellington, Perth and Kuala Lumpur, where Ivan Lim is Grant’s counterpart for the Asia Pacific region.
It’s been pretty much constant growth through a quarter century of economic twists and turns, with an extra boost since Dassault acquired ExecuJet MRO in 2019. From the beginning, ExecuJet MRO has offered service to most business jet brands. The region is growing, but it requires multi-brand service to justify the investment in substantial MRO capability.
Grant notes how well integrated ExecuJet MRO has become with the global Dassault support organization, especially with constant access to the Falcon Command Center and with more parts in the region, as Singapore is an important parts hub for Australasia (and where parts can often be obtained overnight).
“For our first C-checks, we worked really closely with France to ensure smooth execution, and that helped build our confidence as a Falcon factory support organization,” he says. He’s also pleased to see a growing Falcon presence in the region and notes that his organization is trained and ready to provide line support for the 6X. “The 10X,” he says, “ will be a game changer for us, given range requirements from our part of the world.”
Grant also says it’s meaningful to him that Dassault is a family-owned business with stable leadership, very much like ExecuJet under the steady hand of Duckworth. Their management styles are compatible. “As close as we are with our Dassault counterparts, the Dassault team recognizes that we know our customers and our region and gives us latitude to run our business without micromanagement.”
For history buffs, you might enjoy knowing about the long and close relationship between Dassault and Australia. The country was one of the first export customers for the Mirage III in the 1960s and operated the Falcon 20 for government VIP flights. Today, three 7X aircraft serve officials in Canberra.
The entire ExecuJet MRO network has played a central role in helping us become a global support organization and is staffed by truly the best in the industry, from Graeme, Grant, and Ivan all the way to the folks you see on the shop floor.
I’d like to personally congratulate them all on 25 years of superb service.
Senior Vice President, Worldwide Falcon Customer Service & Service Center Network
Dassault Aviation
