News Release

CSE Citation Centre coming of age

It is 21 years since our appointment as an authorised Cessna Citation Service Centre said Philip Lammiman Managing Director of CSE Citation Centre. We already had 14 years of experience with Citations, before our appointment as a Cessna Citation Service Centre, having operated the first UK registered Citation 500 Fan Jet in 1974, that's 35 years of maintenance experience on Citation aircraft. 

What makes us unique outside of Cessna is our exclusive focus on Citations, you will not find another manufacturers type at our facility. We made the decision to exclusively support Cessna Citations when we were appointed by Cessna. It was a good decision that has stood the test of time. We knew if we aimed to be specialist on the aircraft we could supply the best service and support in the industry, We wanted to do a good job and provide a better service both on time and on budget, you can't do that when you do not have depth of knowledge and skill sets on your aircraft type. 

Lammiman said, success is attributed to people, the staff within our business makes us what we are today. Carefully selecting individuals with skill sets that match our requirements, training and retaining them ensures we produce excellent service and performance everyday to meet our customer expectations. 

Attaching ourselves to Cessna has not been without it's challenges. There was the Citation I and II in the UK in 1988, both aircraft were the same but with a bit of extra metal between the wing tips, nose and tail. The development of the Cessna Citation family of aircraft, technology and popular acceptance of the Citation product world wide has swept us along at an alarming pace, particularly over the last 10 years. Add to that the emergence of EASA who broke the fleet down into 11 different certification types and the ever growing physical size of the product, keeping up has been a major task. 

To ensure excellent Citation support Cessna require us to hold specific stock, equipment and engineer training for all the types under our Citation authorisation. Investment is substantial in all these elements of the operation. We have added to the standard requirements over the years, based on our experience. Increasing stock levels to meet our own demands has ensured we are able to deal with your parts demands from the shelf avoiding delays. We have developed excellent shipping services enabling us to ship parts from Wichita to Bournemouth in 24 hours. 

Investing in tooling and equipment is often overlooked by maintenance companies, our philosophy is to ensure our engineers have the tools to do the job, this makes a huge difference to the service we provide, when the engineer can deal with the problem having the correct tool, the job is achieve quickly and efficiently as opposed to struggling and improvising which extends the time to do the job and adds to your cost of maintenance. 

The highest priority on our list is our people, you can give them the practical tools to do the job, but you have to train them both in the technical skills in relation to the aircraft type but in customer skills and a safe culture. Our guys are a team working together supporting and providing the service our customer expects. Ideally when you come in with a problem one of them will have seen it before and the fix is quick, this is the benefit of a company who specialises, retains it's employees for many years and uses the experience built up in our people to the best advantage. Get it right first time and the customer becomes loyal and trusting and comes back. Our business has grown on this strategy in the last 21 years building up to our current customer base of 75 aircraft or 50% of the UK Cessna Citations. 

Even in these tough times our business has remained resilient and we remain ever confident of further growth. Our strategy is to reach out to Europe in the future, the evolving cheap airline systems have made it easier for European operators to reach us at our local airports. There are direct flights from many European destinations to Bournemouth and Southampton airports, enabling you to drop of the aircraft and go back to Europe the same day. Most European destinations being around a 1 hour flight time from Bournemouth. 

Something we believe European operators have not yet taken onboard is the cost saving to be made from the Euro /GBP exchange rates. Our current labour rate for all trades is £59 per hour or 65 Euro with no overtime charges. 

We understand that positioning cost play a great part in the decision to move aircraft for maintenance, however when you have a major input with high labour hour content the cost saving for European operators can be significant. Our 7 day operation shortens the down time on the aircraft which is always the contentious issue for operators. We understand you earn your money by keeping the aircraft available and in the air. 

We used to work a 5 day week but demand required a more flexible service. Our Maintenance Manger Andy Wilkinson said, we live in a beautiful part of the country on the South coast of England by the sea. When the sun shines, getting the guys off the beach and out of their fishing boats became a major task. Our customers needed us to be there when they had a problem, AOG's in particular, but also to service their aircraft over a weekend when their aircraft is not in use. implementing a shift system last year has been in valuable to our business, we now operate 7 days a week 12 hours a day between the hours of 07-00 to 19-00, only closing Christmas Day and Boxing Day (25/26 Dec). The decision was well received by our customers and gave us more flexibility. 

We have a good example of this when a European operator called at 16-30 on a Friday night wanting an engine change on a Mustang over the weekend, we said "Yes We Can " the guy thought we were joking, The rental engine was with P&W at Luton who pulled out the stops to get it to us next day. The aircraft turned up Saturday morning and left on Monday morning, engine changed, job done. The comment received was "outstanding service". Comments like that motivate us and are appreciated right through the company.

We try to be proactive with our customers anticipating there current and future needs, planning maintenance with them ensuring we can meet their requirements and not being surprised by unplanned inputs. LEA is a long standing customer, where we have strong relationships and have grown with them as their fleet of aircraft have grown, adapting to new requirements and for today's economies. We are developing new relationships with Blink, new entrants to the operational field. We are able to offer new entrants our guidance and advice based on our engineering experience gained over the years. 

LEA and Blink were early entrants for the Citation Mustang.  We identified the Mustang as being popular aircraft for the future with private and transport operators. We were pro active prior to delivery, gaining maintenance approval early, ensuring our customers had the support they needed when their aircraft arrived. The result of our proactive approach has been acquisition of 18 Mustangs in the last 18 months and a wealth of experience gathered already on type.

Networking with all our customers, sharing our experiences on a social level helps them and us to understand each others needs to work together. 

Our customers success is our success.

A new element of the business for 2009 has been acquisition of EASA Part M. This has required the expansion of our Technical Service Department to accommodate the new regulation and to improve what was already an excellent service from this area of our business. Our CAMM Mike Simmons said getting to grips with the new regulation that is continually changing and maturing has been challenging. CSE was an early entrant into Part M approval which has opened up doors for us through out Europe to deal with ARC renewals and extensions for European operators who are behind the approval power curve on compliance and find themselves requiring assistance at the ARC time of renewal.