Worldwide Customer Service & Service Center Network
Dassault Aviation
Our operator advisory board shares the bad and the good so we can improve.
This year’s OAB meeting, held in Paris, marked 20 years of providing feedback and driving change throughout Dassault. Attendance was high with 22 members. These flight department leaders find value in traveling long distances and devoting time to share their personal service experience.
They are advocates for change, and they are our radar identifying new technologies they want on their airplanes. Recent examples include Starlink, which has proved a popular upgrade, and EASy IV for the 2000-series, just announced at NBAA-BACE in October. I can tell you, on EASy IV, the group was relentless in telling us we needed to do this. We listened.
We’re also hearing increasingly about GPS spoofing and jamming. With more conflicts in more places, it’s a sad reality we have to consider. OAB members are requesting new procedures for quickly rebooting GPS systems after an encounter, and perhaps even incorporating new, emerging navigation technologies resistant to these types of interference. We will explore these requests.
Often at an OAB meeting we give operators a sneak peek at technologies in development—this year, an AI application aimed at improving runway safety. It generated real interest. Development is still in the very early stages, but the operators’ response encouraged us to keep exploring its potential.
The first thing we do at an OAB meeting is go around the table and take everybody’s comments about where they want improvement. We get an earful, but we also hear praise.
This year, we heard that MRO slots can take too long to schedule. That service downtime for C-checks takes longer than in the past. That return-to-service dates can be unpredictable. On the other hand, several members also operate aircraft from other manufacturers, and their feedback reflected experience across service networks. They repeatedly praised Dassault’s customer service teams for their personal attention and efforts to meet their needs.
We are always grateful for this kind of feedback because it helps us focus our efforts. The challenges raised can and are being addressed, and I think this is largely why you see Dassault rising through the rankings in independent surveys in recent years—number two now in AIN and aiming for number one—again.
My deepest thanks to this group, which always has one aim in mind—to make Falcon ownership and operation better for everyone.
Senior Vice President, Worldwide Falcon Customer Service & Service Center Network
