Austrian Citation Mustang operator GlobeAir has invested in a programme to dramatically improve its ability to resolve AOG situations for its aircraft around Europe.

Dubbed 'OneFourFive', the result is a maintenance solutions centre founded in conjunction with AAC Maintenance at Linz airport. "Having control of our maintenance, in particular for AOG events, we can ensure at any time a safe, reliable aircraft within a few hours," explains coo Claudio Bruno. "Unfortunately AOGs do happen and, even if our mobile repair team cannot get the aircraft flying in time, it does not mean a cancelled flight. We will simply send another aircraft."

Traditionally with the bigger maintenance facilities a slot must be booked well in advance, says GlobeAir, and if there is an AOG situation these centres often cannot respond immediately. With OneFourFive the objective is to treat every maintenance event as an AOG, therefore minimising down time and making the aircraft fully available.

Part of the OneFourFive structure is a few strategically located technicians who are able to respond instantly to AOG situations. GlobeAir aircraft often operate in and out of Nice, Geneva, Milan and Olbia, and a technician can be dispatched to these locations within a few hours. "Just recently we had an AOG in Nice and that same morning the technician was on site and able to get the aircraft back to service the same day. If we had to depend on traditional maintenance facilities we could have been waiting days to get assistance, resulting in having reduced capacity and therefore unable to meet our clients' needs," the company says. Lead technician Nicola Potenza is responsible for the service, and has over 25 years of aircraft technical experience in both commercial and business aviation. His immediate focus is on further improving fleet reliability, but mid-term this could be extended to providing an AOG support service to anyone needing a more efficient solution to unexpected technical problems.

"Initially AAC was responsible for all our maintenance but with our fleet expansion in 2011 we realised that we needed to add capacity and therefore we focused on creating OneFourFive," he says. "It took us about six months from initial application to getting our certificate."

The mobile repair team has already assisted aircraft throughout Europe, from as far north as Bergen in Norway, to Izmir in Turkey.

GlobeAir has also launched a new service for frequent flyers named Fix & Flex, which it says is a third alternative besides jet cards and fractional ownership.

Fix & Flex is designed for loyal brokers and frequent flyers, which ensures take-off from anywhere in Europe in less than eight hours of the request, plus an impressive array of benefits provided for those who have subscribed to the programme. The main concept is to pay a fixed quote up-front which entitles subscribers to get a fixed rate on all flights.

The programme, headed by Jonathan Berdoz, launched at the beginning of the year and already has eight members.

An eleventh Mustang has now joined the GlobeAir fleet.