The Future of Flight Depends on Mechanics, Not Machines: How Jets MRO is Solving the Aviation Maintenance Talent Gap

Welcome to another edition of the Kronos podcast presented by OPW Commercial Services. We're staying in the private aviation world today, but a little bit of a different side. We're gonna be on the maintenance side. I am joined by Suresh Narayanan, founder and CEO of Jets MRO. Suresh, thank you so much for joining. Yeah. Thanks for having me. This is awesome. This is a space that everybody's interested in. Everybody's a little bit confused by. There's a lot of or I should say, there's not a lot of transparency about how things really run. You have aviation in your blood. Talk a little bit about your background and how you got into it. I was born into it, so I I didn't have a choice, really, but I I'm glad I stayed into the family business. My dad was a Concord mechanic, and I grew up in South Florida. He actually started his own repair station. So he he kind of had the entrepreneurial bug and the aviation bug. And I grew up around repair stations and other pilots. My older brother, Raj, started a business here in Dallas, doing repairs and certification on aircraft and private jets and commercial. And I went and worked for him, you know, while I was in grad school here at SMU. And so I've just been around aviation all my life. And I didn't appreciate it till I got older and probably worked with my brother. And then I'm like, I love it, and now I can't leave. And I and I've learned so much that I wanna always disrupt and change the way things are done in an industry that I feel like doesn't change or stay progressive and just their mentality. So, definitely my family's fault, why I stayed in it. But as I get older, I appreciate it more, and I have young boys too that think what I do is super cool and being around planes is awesome. So, I've learned to embrace their appreciation and keep it going. A really interesting industry for a couple reasons. One, it seems out of reach for a lot of people, and we've talked a little bit on this show in in the past about some of the ways to actually make it a little more accessible. But a lot of the issues and I think a lot of people think about safety, obviously, number one when it comes to private aviation world. But a lot of people don't really know the ins and outs. You know? They know how their car needs to get maintained. But on the jet side specifically, what are some of the things that being an insider that you think would be helpful for people to know on just kinda how the sausage is made on maintaining those planes? I think the thing I love about aviation, especially the the highly technical side of aviation, especially being in maintenance, is the certification part, which is a big barrier to entry, and just the technical appreciation for how you keep an aircraft flying, whether it was the engineering behind how that beast, you know, got in the air and stayed flying at thirty five thousand feet or how it handles the pressures and people on aircraft from commercial and military, always fascinating. Right? But so much goes into it technically from all these different disciplines that it can overwhelm somebody. And so I love it because I'm not an expert at everything, but I learned a lot from my family, especially my older brother, about the the weight on our shoulders when we're touching an aircraft and what goes into it to make sure it flies safely and then the consequences in the air. You know, unlike the auto industry, there's no check engine light by the air. So there's a lot of those pressures, and how you manage them, are super important, right, and then emotionally or just execution wise. And so in our business, you have to be very careful not to step out of your lane and depth. And, you know, I get worried when I hear people in my industry not say I don't know. There's no way to know everything about everything, especially my industry. And so there are a lot of pressures there. We hear a lot recently, especially this year, with social media about aviation incidents. And so I I think really appreciating the the amount of weight on someone's shoulders when they fly a plane, maintain a plane, return to service, things like that. Probably only recently I really appreciated it. Starting my own business and and putting that weight on my shoulders versus sharing it with family or being in a business with other people, It definitely opened my eyes. And it should scare other people. And I like it because I understand it. I'm on the inside. But for folks on the outside looking in, I think they'd have that same seriousness and passion because that's what matters most is keeping planes in the air safely. Yeah. And you can't do that without the people Mhmm. That, you know, are actually doing we always hear about parts and delays and things like that. A lot of times people don't think about the actual people who are maintaining those aircraft, And that's an evergreen topic. Right? Labor is is always everyone's biggest challenge no matter what the industry is, and it feels like that was a big reason that you started JetsMRO. And so talk a little bit about what you saw on the recruiting side, the labor side, and and ultimately why you got started. Yeah. Our whole ethos at JetsonRO was is I don't wanna reinvent maintenance. I wanna elevate how we treat mechanics so that we reduce turnover rates. And so there's a mechanic labor shortage that is pretty prevalent and known. The next ten years, there's not enough mechanics to keep up with the amount of maintenance needed in any, aircraft segment. Beyond that, I realized the mechanics, the turnover rates were going up, and they were jumping around. And my opinion at the time was we don't treat them good enough. And they are the product. If you're in maintenance, they touch the aircraft. And so if you have folks touching aircraft that don't wanna be there or looking for their next job, what kind of quality product are you putting out? And is it on time? Or or are the folks looking for their next job? So when we started the company, literally, all I wanted to change was elevate how we treat mechanics. And the concept is if we can attract great experience and keep them in keep them in the organization, we can produce a better aircraft on time. That's it. Not reinventing how maintenance is done. It's totally a a people problem I wanted to fix. And so we actually went out and surveyed mechanics and said, what are they looking for? Why are they jumping? I'd be foolish to start a business and not go through that diligence. Right. And the feedback was was eye opening, but not too surprising, but it wasn't pay. It was culture, engaged leadership, benefits, and then schedule. And so because most teams are short on the mechanic population, they don't have enough mechanics because the demand is far exceeding capacity right now. They're forcing a lot of folks to work extra. So that's a schedule issue. And so we say, like, a Jet Summer, I go, okay. No forced overtime. No on call. It's staffed at seven days a week. If they wanna go home, let's let them go home, and we'll check that box. Next box was benefits. We pay for free family benefits. They could have thirty kids in their family or zero, and there's plans where we pay for a hundred percent of their benefits. So we check the second box. And then the harder ones to check, were the culture engaged leadership. So we set up a scenario where once a month, they do all team meetings. We share financials. We have all these feedback loops to make sure we're always listening to our team so that I don't learn through turnover that something was wrong or something culturally wasn't a fit. And, that helps us stay in front of that issue. And so that's how we check the four issues. But we asked the question. I think the biggest, easiest thing any business can do is we asked the team. We actually listened. And then we wanna, you know, always show continuous action to stay in front of the problems. And if we if we solve that problem, we can attract mechanics and keep them. We'll win in the industry. Yeah. I think a lot of people talk about the cost of having to hire a new you know, you lose an employee, that cost of having to go out, find somebody, usually, you have to pay more than just what you would pay retaining that employee. But what you're talking about, like, that's a high level of investment that you're making upfront, the benefits you mentioned. Like, that's tough. And and as you're growing and scaling, walk us through how you approach that as you're setting up the company knowing, alright. We're gonna have, you know, higher costs upfront versus, you know, a more mature company that's got a, you know, maybe a stronger balance sheet that's got those kinds of things. So just talk about that process. Yeah. I think in any business, I'd approach it the same, whether it's mechanics or any other type of employee. I'd I'd always focus on the people first, team before self. Like, those are important values for us. I think the biggest thing is understanding if you don't have a team that can execute, it's gonna cost you more and taking that leap of faith in a sense. But you can quantify it, like, like, in in minus drag, okay. If we don't have enough labor and we don't execute an aircraft on time, it cost us money and we have to give concessions, and so our revenue drops. Right? So if I look at investing more upfront, and then cost to replace someone is a different cost, but that that costs a lot too as well. But if I quantify that, it's definitely less than just investing more upfront, retaining the employee, and then focus on execution. And so it's it's kinda like a sports team. I love sports and business. Yeah. And so I look at, okay, if I play basketball, I need a great starting five, but I need that starting five of continuity. So if I keep switching out, no matter how awesome they are, these players, every so often, there's a less chance I'm gonna win the game. And so it's same in business. There's a lesser chance I'm gonna win the game if I can't keep a, you know, a good technical team on staff that works well together. And sure, some little things may change here. We may have to make decisions. Like, we we we fire when we have to. We fire fast, fire slow. But I really believe, and you gotta take that leap of faith and and show the company you're actually gonna show action behind this, is if we focus upfront and keep listening to our folks, keep them there, then our team's gonna win if I can keep continuity between them. What about at the more supervisor level? So that first layer of management is obviously a huge focus on the actual mechanics, but then there's and usually, there's a big focus on getting those c suite hires right. Mhmm. But the, yeah, kinda middle management level, for lack of a better term, I feel like doesn't get talked about enough about evaluating those people because those are the ones ultimately that are doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to the culture and driving the engagement and feeling like that. So how did you approach those hires specifically? And were those, you know, were those people that you wanted to get in place first? Or how did you think about that? I think in our industry or any industry, you'll see a resume and tons of people have a really good experience. This gets into the, the values part. And a lot of people talk about values, but I'm I'm I try to take values and say they're not just words on a wall or things we say. I wanna translate them into action and, like, actually live by them. And so it comes to value alignment, I think. Think. It's okay. Do they really believe and understand why Jetson Murrow was founded? Especially the initial hires, us being a younger company. Do you really believe in it? And there's a way to to to figure that out. We use surveys. We do, you know, predictive indexes, all these things. And going through that process, you gotta really commit and say, okay. This person we're bringing on to lead other people, you know, embodies the values, especially now that we have different locations and things like that. I have to trust my team to execute Right. And be the face of the business, not me. I think it's really buying into the values we put on the wall. Do they really get it? And can they execute around it? And then how do we show that? Because most folks will say, yeah. Sure. Great. But they just wanna go back to their job. That won't work in leadership. And so we put a big emphasis on culture checks. When I do interviews myself and I interview all our mechanics coming in because it's so important to keep up with our mechanic growth. And they're always usually freaked out when the founder calls them, and they're like, oh, you're doing the interview. You're not your HR department. I'm like, yeah. I ask weird questions and, you know, put them in in behavioral situations to see if they really believe that the team executing is gonna be better than them being successful on their own. And then some of it is a leap saying, okay. I believe it. I think they'll be a good fit. And then hopefully, you get it more right than wrong at scale. How do you get through you know, when people are interviewing, obviously, they're putting their best foot forward. Somebody did their research. You know, they sometimes it always the fear of of making a hire is did this person sell me a bill of goods, you know, in the interview process, and they said all the right things. I think a lot of people are talented enough to do that, but then rubber meets the road and you realize, alright, they don't really live it. How many of those situations have you come across and what safeguards do you guys have in place to weed some of those people out? We will never know. There's you can put all these culture tests. You can have interview fifteen different people. At the end of the day, whoever's leading that team has to make a decision based off somewhat emotion subjectively to see if they are the right person. And and the higher the role, the more important that is. And then the more focused role, like, just a mechanic focused on an aircraft, you know, it's a different decision process. But the leadership is probably hard because they lead other people. And if they mess that up, it could really ruin continuity with the team. Right? And so there is no way to be sure, but the trick is take your time hiring, but then be ready to fire very fast, in my opinion, if it wasn't a fit. And and and hopefully, you get it more right than wrong, but you're gonna go through wrongs. And to think you're gonna get it all right and try to drag your feet if you know someone didn't hit the mark or make the right fit or they're not in the right seat at the company, will hurt your business far more than just saying, look. Maybe you don't have to fire them, but they're definitely in the wrong seat. Yeah. So it's kinda like right seat, right person. And we look at that all the time, especially a company doubling in size like we are, where we're going from zero to twenty five to fifty people. I put people in wrong seats all the time. And so now I have to go look at it and go, is there a place where I'm at the business? Hopefully, yes. I want everyone to do well and thrive with us. But, really, maybe it's moving moving their seat and being objective about why, you know, what happened, why what wasn't delivered so they could actually take that. And what you hope is, okay. You took a chance on this person. Didn't work in this seat, but it worked in in a different seat, and they were so much more beneficial to the business. And you look back at it, it's awesome to see that growth between people when you find the right role for them. That takes, you know, hire fast or, hire slow, fire fast. That takes a lot of especially in the business you're in, which everything is, you know, especially if if you've got fleet operators that when that plane's on the ground, it's losing money every day. And so you've gotta make sure that you get turnaround times going. And if you've got a need, there's a lot of pressure there. Like, how do you balance that of, you know, we don't wanna make the wrong hire, but we also you know, we do need that position filled. It's so hard. It's like right now, we have too much work. So it's easy for me to say, oh, let's get these mechanics on Yeah. Because we need help. We need bodies on aircraft. But the discipline kicks in and goes, make sure I at least check the culture box. Because if the culture fit and the values are there, we can teach maybe some inexperience or inexperience in a certain aircraft platform. But if the value or culture fit isn't there and they have all the experience in the world, I really believe they won't execute and they won't help us get our aircraft out on time at good quality. And so the big thing is it's a little bit of a gut, and I'm a process guy, so I hate saying it's subjective. But some of it is, alright, this person has the right attitude. They're willing to learn. They don't have experience on the exact platform we need, but they have the right licenses. That's teachable. We can teach the rest of the stuff. So the biggest thing is taking a leap of faith on the culture side and value side to make sure they're gonna fit with the team. And then really thinking about, okay. If I throw them into the team I have now, you know, it's my job as a leader to protect the current team and make sure they grow and they're successful. If I throw one bad person in a team, I could ruin it. And so I just think that process and go, how's this person gonna click with the team? If my gut tells me it's a good checkbox, we can figure out the rest. And I may make a wrong decision here and there. And so the key is, okay, we made a wrong decision, have an evaluation process, get them in a different seat or we have to make a tough decision. Is it I would assume and correct me if I'm wrong, the the team, you know, they need, obviously, another person there to help them out, help the workload, things like that. But my assumption is if if they they obviously believe in you and believe in the miss mission and everything. And so when you say, hey. We haven't found the right person. I would guess they're more receptive to that and understanding and and almost appreciative and that you're not gonna just put somebody in there that's gonna wind up jeopardizing the team. I hope so. But it's a tough balance, you know, when the folks have to work extra hours on an aircraft because we don't have the headcount we need to support the job that came in. Right? They're bearing the brunt of my slowness in hiring. And so I have to be very communicative and just, like, during our all teams, be open to listening to where the challenges are, but also not get pressured into just throwing bodies in the formula. So so it's kind of a balance of Yeah. I don't wanna be too short staffed where because we're a growing new company, the work comes in, and then my team, is paying for the issues if we're not hiring enough. So we look at why aren't we getting enough traction? Why aren't we hiring enough? What do we need to do? And recently, we've really used marketing as kind of a key way of getting our message out there, why we're here. And, of course, mechanics are resonating with our our mission. You know, we wanna treat mechanics better. So they're gonna listen, and they start seeing the stuff we're putting out there. Like, we posted our whole pay scale and growth scale about a week ago. Mhmm. And the response was was fundamentally amazing because people are like, this is awesome. I'm tired of hearing about competitive pay and vague, you know, vague growth patterns. I wanna just know what do I need to do to earn more for my family. And we said, here's the pay scale. Here's the numbers. We have retention, you know, pay increases. We have growth pay increases. Not not everyone may like it. People say it may be higher, but but ninety percent of the feedback overall was positive and that the word transparency gets used in business, but we actually delivered on that. Right. And so that was a neat to see. But that that's on us to fix that. And the main route was we're not getting enough candidates to meet the requirements, and then a current team has to pay for it. How do we fix that? So we gotta keep looking at how to make sure we're executing for the team. There's a lot of people again, anybody that's higher, you look job descriptions, and it's always, you know, dynamic, fast paced environment and competitive all all those buzzwords, and then you get into the actual nuts and bolts of it, and and it's all, you know, lip service. And and so people become jaded, I would assume. You know, mechanics, especially, they get you know, they've they've got leverage to be able to go around to different companies, and then they get there and, you know, they're sold on something. And then they get there and it's it's a terrible environment. And they've gotta be jaded in there somewhat. Have you guys seen that kind of feedback when mechanics come in an interview and there's almost a little pushback of, you know, I've heard this story before. You know, how do you how do you get that across in an interview setting to build that trust as a newer company? I think the big thing, and this is more recent, is the founders calling them. Yeah. So right off the bat, they're like, what the hell is this? This is this is the this is weird. Yeah. And and some of them don't realize it. I'm like, yeah. When I found out the company, I tell them the story and they're like, oh, like, like, someone have cursed going, oh my, it's you. And then I'm like, yeah. What questions do you have? Like, this is, like, now you know our vision and ethos direct for me. So I think that's the big difference, like, off the bat is that we're not just saying mechanics come first. And a lot of companies do this. They use words like transparency, people first. I'm always like, how do you deliver that? Right. And I'm like, I don't know how else to deliver it even better. By I'm calling you because one, we need to build a good team. And it's so important that I'm gonna take time to interview twenty, thirty people a week to make sure we build the best team. And you get to ask questions direct from the founder. There's no much there's no more attention or priority I can put on recruiting, especially talking to mechanics, than doing that. So that that's kind of step one. And then two, like, delivering on our transparency where we share with them when they're like, well, I wanna make this and we wanna make this. I go, here's our pay scale. Our team built it, and it's clear about years of experience and where you fit. Out of respect for them, that that's where we're gonna stick to. So it's not an interpretation of what you think you should make. And if you can make more somewhere else that's more important to you, great. But now when we talk about growth, it's not about, hey. Trust me. We're gonna grow. Part of it right now, I use this term a lot. I go, look. We're doubling in size. So I I can't tell you there what the opportunities are, but they're gonna be a lot of them. Right. But two, our pay scale tells you, hey. If you survive this long, you'll make this much just by surviving. If you wanna take the next step, do x y z and you can get a big bump. And then here's how you get into lead, you know, management, that type of thing. So I think having that clarity and so I'm not saying we're transparent. I'm not using the word competitive pay. I'm just saying, here are the cards. If you like them, you know, come come join the team, is how we do it differently. And it gives them the the data points so they're not taking a leap of faith. They're making an objective decision what's best for them. How do you scale that? Because it's, you know, culturally culture being so important and you're in two locations now as you continue to grow and and you guys are growing really rapidly, that's gotta be, you know, weighing on your mind and making sure how do we continue to replicate this process across such a wide geographic range. I don't have an answer for that. You know, I don't think, at least for this year, until we get to maybe a hundred people, I would change, like, the recruiting process, like, taking me out of it. But this is something we only started forty five days ago. Right. It kinda just came to me where I'm like, you know what? We need a certain amount of headcount every month to keep up with our growth. Great first world problem. But it's really hard in this environment where it's so competitive. I go, how do we make ourselves different? So we did the pay scale thing. And then I go, you know what? Let me just make my own phone calls and start understand making sure I understand what mechanics are looking for and never lose sight. You know, it's it's not enough for me at the time to say I started a business because I want to treat mechanics better. Here's me showing it. I'm gonna be calling everyone and having the conversations. And that hopefully ensures they get a feel of the priority they are in the organization, how important they are. And then they're also getting all the information they need straight from the founder to make the better decisions. So we're hoping that yields more longevity because you can't say they didn't know or they were promised a good that wasn't delivered. You know, my biggest fear and and probably where I'm most vulnerable is is am I delivering what I'm saying I want to do? So I'm always watching and making sure my intent is to do these things, but I gotta make sure every month or every two months or a year from now, we're actually delivering the environment, really putting mechanics first because it would be a huge fail if a year from now, it felt like any other, you know, employment situation for these mechanics. So that's probably my biggest fear, but I think we're delivering because we're doing it differently and delivering some things that objectively are different than anyone else is actually doing in the industry. Yeah. And just getting into the more industry specific, you guys are obviously doing a great job of of attracting mechanics over, but the industry overall shortage, you know, pretty massive shortage. Yep. What are you seeing? You know, what's being done in the industry to get more people and so that the you know, not necessarily you guys, but just the industry overall are is filling that funnel. In the next ten years, there's no chance that aircraft maintenance demand, falls under our capacity. So demand's gonna far outweigh capacity. Everyone not everyone. The industry has started a lot of new schools. There's a lot of new entrants coming to industry, and that's great long term. But, again, my biggest focus is that doesn't help me if my average experience is getting diluted so much because people are leaving the industry. So if I'm if I'm losing ten, twenty, thirty year aircraft mechanics and replacing them with new mechanics, my overall experience is diluting. I'm worried about the technical implications of that. I think it's still very under talked about. And that's what worries me in the industry. It's great. You know, ten years ago, I had the average, you know, average experienced mechanic on the floor. It could have been ten years. Now it's half that or even less. That worries me. And so, again, I go back to let's retain the good talent we have. So one, they can mentor and train the next generation. But I think there's plenty of new schools popping up, but that's not our long term fix. Our long term fix is is just focus on the experience we do have. Because by the time all these new mechanics come to the workforce, we gotta make sure there's there's, you know, veterans and folks that have the knowledge to mentor them to make sure they get caught up through experience and not learn through growing pains, which is what's happening now way too much. Yeah. It seems like a lot of the fleet operators are going toward more fleet consolidation. They're going more towards say, we're going with the three a a phenom, and we're going with the Challenger. More and more of the big operators are going to that. Does that help you guys at all? Just that there's not quite as many I mean, there's obviously loads of of different aircraft out there, but is that consolidation helpful to you guys at all? It doesn't matter for us. Like, one of the the mistakes we made a year ago, right before we even opened, was we tried to do too many different types of aircraft. You know, this year, I really love our strategy and focus. We're trying to do two aircraft really well, Citation jets and Challenger jets. And even under that, there are a lot of variants. Right? But we wanna be experts at those aircraft, execute on those before we entertain bringing in any other aircraft models. But the they're all flying. And so the cool thing about the market, and and I just went through numbers for our shareholders to show them what the market's doing, is utilization of all aircraft are going up Yeah. Because new production aircraft aren't coming in fast enough to replace the older models. And then access to these private jets have gone up through all these jet cards and different companies. The amount of charter companies out there versus ten years ago, it's insane. So now you have all these aircraft flying a lot longer and a lot more often than intended. And so by default, there's maintenance requirements to keep them flying safely. And the challenge is not enough maintenance capacity. So I'm in a great market segments. Why we picked a business jet over military commercial to start with Mhmm. It's because I go, who's gonna solve this problem of, one, retaining the mechanics? And if we can check that box, we should win because we'll have the capacity. Right? But two, like, the industry trend is going up. People have more access to these jets through different products where you can buy one seat, buy one aircraft by one hour. But the maturity of the infrastructure hasn't changed the last twenty years to keep up up with that demand where I consider a lot of these charter companies airlines, but the maintenance space isn't scaling to support them like the airlines because they're flying every day just like them. And so the opportunity is, you know, mature professionally to keep up with that demand. So what they're flying isn't as important because the aircraft we support are flying in some segment in the US especially at a very high rate. So we're in a good space because we wanna be the experts of those aircraft. Yeah. That's an interesting point that a lot of business owners think about a lot of leaders should think about is we wanna make sure that we get really great at, you know, or perfect this one thing before we move on to the next thing. But then there's a struggle of, you know, how do we quantify that? Right? When do we know, okay. We have perfect this. Now let's move on to another one. Or you get to that point where you're close and then this new opportunity comes up and maybe you're not where you really need to be, but alright. Well, we can't pass that up. So how do you guys look at that of, you know, is it a is it a numerical goal? Is it what is it where you'll say, okay. We are we've nailed this. Now we can move on to a different aircraft. Make sure you have a really good leadership team. And that this is why it's important. You know, I look at my so one of my weaknesses is I wanna be everything to everyone. Yeah. And and when you open a new business, it's hard to say no when someone's like, can you fix this plan? I'm like, why? I don't have any revenue. Sure. We'll figure it out. Yeah. It's the worst thing you can do, actually. And I did a lot of it. I'd be like, you know what? It's got it's it's got two engines and some wings. I remember this aircraft from, you know, from a different operator I used to support. We'll figure it out. And I consider myself more of the visionary founder, right, who has a lot of ideas. But out of twenty ideas, maybe one's good. Yeah. I think this year, I love the leadership team, how they developed, and that's how we're gonna protect ourselves is they're gonna come to the table, and it's my job to create an environment where they can help focus us, whereas someone like me may be too unfocused. Mhmm. And so instead of being everything to everyone, you've got a bank in your leadership team saying, hey, let's focus on this one thing. And then when we do this thing great and let's quantify what great is, then let's go to this next vertical. If not, you end up getting too distracted and you try to do too many good there are too many different things at one time. They seem like good ideas. They help drive revenue or maybe you have a slow month, so you you make an emotional decision. And that's where the leadership team and their ability to keep the company focused really comes into play, at least for us. And and what I'm good at and what I need a leadership team to compliment me on was built to basically keep me focused. And so now we went from, like, five or six aircraft last year to, like, two that we're focused on. Yeah. And that was the right decision that I love, whereas my decision last year was, you know, admittedly not the right decision. Yeah. So it was just it was just learning, but it really falls in that leadership team you built. Yeah. It's pretty common. I mean, we I went through the same thing in my business, which is, hey, we're just gonna say yes. And then we'll It's easier to say. I'll I in my opinion, business in general, a lot of people use words and say things like, everyone knows what they should do, I feel like. Right. It's like working out. Yeah. I know how to be the healthiest version of myself. I can go to the gym and not eat what I eat, and I would be a lot healthier. Yeah. But I don't make the disciplined decisions consistently to do it Yeah. Or get where I wanna go. Yeah. And so in business, it's the same thing. It's not rocket science. Like, I know what to do, but the actual discipline to do it day in and day out Yeah. Is a lot harder. And that's where I think businesses lack where they say or they want to do something over here, but the actual execution's missing. That's where I think the biggest weaknesses for most businesses are. Yeah. Well, and it goes back to the leadership team that you have. And I think a lot of it too is and you mentioned it is is a leader, the ultimate the founder, CEO knowing and being confident about what their weaknesses are and driving that home to where you were able to say, hey. I know you know, like you said, I have twenty ideas and one of them are good. And we talked about some of the people you have around you that help filter through those kinds of things. But that's it's difficult to, a, for leaders to admit that and be honest with themselves, but then also it's difficult to find people underneath you that really do feel comfortable challenging what what you're saying? Because every again, everyone can say, hey. You know, I want feedback. Right? But then you get down to it. A lot of people don't really want feedback. So how do you get that with with your team underneath you? You know, how do you build that? Is it just time where people see what you say, what you do? I think it's be vulnerable. So I think aviation is unique. So I don't hear the words I don't know enough. That's what scares me. It too is everyone's so proud and strong. Everyone thinks they know the answer and has to be the biggest expert. And it's okay to be embarrassed. It's okay to be wrong. It's okay to say you don't know. And I embrace that. There's a lot of things I don't know. And that's why I look at my team sometimes and go, I don't know the answer to this question. And people call me like, you run the company. I'm like, you know, you can't know everything about everything Yeah. About an aircraft. So I think leaders what I try to focus on is opportunities to be vulnerable and let other people step up into areas I truly don't know things about. And aviation doesn't happen enough. And I get worried about that when I hear, other companies or competitors being absolute about certain decisions. I go, that guy can't know, like, that's going to happen. Yeah. And now they're they're coercing decisions or or, you know, perceptions on businesses or trying to get business away from us to another business, and it's not the right way to do it. So I think what we can do at any business is just be vulnerable and open. When you do leadership meetings, which everyone should be doing, are you building relationships? So I try to start doing dinners and lunches with some of my leadership team to step out of the office and actually be just a human for a second. And it's uncomfortable because you just wanna be professional. Sometimes someone like me, I'm used to like, okay. What's the business? How do we get better? And once we hit this goal, what's the next goal? And sometimes I gotta pause and and really take time to get to know somebody as a human and then be vulnerable professionally to get them to a better place to help then help the business. And so there's not, like, a perfect formula for it. Yeah. But I think the best advice I like to give is is think about the times you're actually vulnerable or you said you were wrong or say you didn't know something. And if you can't think of them, you should find an opportunity every week because that's gonna empower your team to step up into those weak spots. Yeah. It's great advice and great feedback, and it's it's it's something that requires, you know, like you said, it's it's almost like a diet and exercise kind of thing. Like you said, it's you know, we can we can make it sound more difficult than it is, but at the end of the day, it's we all know what we do, what we need to do. We just have to keep doing it. I wanna take a step back and just talk about industry overall. And I've talked about this with some other people, you know, private jet. When you when you see on social media a plane crash, whether it's a jet, whether it's a commercial airliner, it's just it's so visceral for people that it becomes a bigger problem or seems like a bigger problem than it really is. From your side, you know, you mentioned mechanic shortage, maintenance is an issue, then a lot of people will take that and think, alright. Well, are there shortcuts being done? And more and more people have access to planes nowadays, and they're on charters, and there's all these different things. What give us your take just holistically for the industry from a safety perspective. You know, are we are we better? Are we stagnant? Are we getting better? How how do you feel about the planes that are in the air? So by the numbers, we're better. Yeah. But we see a lot more events because it's just there's more exposure to it. But by the numbers, we are getting safer. Commercial is the safest, you know, by the numbers way to travel. There's no issues with it. Bizjet is still a very safe way to travel as as well. Where I do have concerns, though, are aircraft availability. So I don't think catastrophic events are escalating, but I think aircraft availability has gone down. So, you know, aircraft being ready to actually fly and not have a maintenance problem versus, oops, there's an urgent issue because it wasn't maintained right. I think that's gonna exacerbate because of the labor shortage and maybe not not enough of appreciation for what maintenance can do for an operation. So if you invest well, just like an auto or or or any classic car or anything like that, if you invest well in maintenance, your aircraft should be more available during a year. But if you objectively track it, and you're mature enough to actually see it, then you should see your aircraft available days go up every single year, if you do it right. And it depends on age of the aircraft and there's variables there. In this day and age, I think people are too short sighted. And so they're moving their aircraft around to different maintenance events, trying to patch a lot of things. They're not looking long term enough. That's probably my biggest worry. I'm like, aircraft utilization is gonna go up the next couple of years. What are we doing to prepare us for more green days, I call them, than red days? And what I'm seeing now is a lot of late fines and reasons the airplane can't fly the day it needs to. Reliability is going down. And so I think the industry would do well to focus on objectively measuring that like an airline. That's kind of one of the professional metrics we're bringing to the industry because it's not measured enough. When I ask operators, I'm like, okay. What's your your dispatch liability? When you turn your aircraft on, when is it ready to go without any issues? And they're like, we don't know. I'm like, well, how do you know then you're getting increased technical production from your asset throughout a year? A lot of folks, especially the smaller charter operators, are kinda like, it's great. Wish we could measure that. But there's all these asterisks and reasons. And so Right. We haven't done a good job of KPI ing that as an industry. So I'm hoping through customer education, we bring that to the table a little bit because we do it to ourselves. Like, are we on time or not when we do when we wanna deliver the aircraft? And then thirty days later, how do the aircraft perform? We do follow ups. I would say there's a lack of that professional objective measurement happening in my industry, especially in BizJet. But that's why I'm in that industry because that's the opportunity at the same time. I think the commercial space is very mature. They track all these things. And that's the space we're bringing a lot of best practices in from. But I think BizJet has a ways to go. Are you safe flying? One hundred percent. I think people need to ask questions more when they do fly about, you know, is this a legal charter? Mhmm. Is this, you know, you know, when was the aircraft maintained? Who maintained it? How do you know it's okay? Because there's such there's so many small maintenance shops out there. There's a lot of degrees of variability of what quality is and what the standard is. Whereas in the commercial space, it's it's degrees of excellence. So I think there's a lot more room to grow, but I'm not fearful of this overall safety mechanism. I'm more fearful of the reliability of the aircraft. Yeah. And and we've talked about on this show before with some people that are in the industry, You know? There really are no barriers to entry to be a air you know, a charter operator. For the most, anybody with a phone and a laptop can go find inventory and sell it to somebody. What should people be looking for in the actual planes themselves? What questions should they be asking when they're thinking about chartering or just maybe they're looking at buying a plane or something like that? Some some key areas to focus on. I would I would ask the question, do you manage the aircraft? So there's a lot of intermediaries. Mhmm. And and and that's just how the industry is run. So a lot of them are my friends. So Yeah. But I think, I would love to book direct with the person managing the asset, the aircraft. So the aircraft under their management. Right now, there's a lot of travel brokers in between the process. And I look at commercial. I mean, I don't call a Southwest agent to book my Southwest flight. I book it with Southwest to go on their aircraft. And and that makes me feel comfortable. In BizJet, there's so many people in between. At the end of the day, I'm like, do you actually manage the aircraft? Does your company manage the aircraft? Half the time, it's a no. We use a set of fleet operators. Well, my next question is, I want to ask a couple questions of how they maintain their fleet, what's the age of the aircraft, who maintained it, is it from the manufacturer or was it hopping around to a bunch of shops? And I asked a question. I tell folks, who aren't in my industry, I go ask them what the dispatch liability of the aircraft was you're about to fly on because they're putting their family on it. And half the time, if they can't answer it, I say you like, I say I'd be nervous. Yeah. And a lot of the times, some of the ones they do pick, and this happened recently about four or five friends, they go, okay. They answered it. And I was like, ninety eight percent. I'm like, perfect. If they're able to measure that and they have the asset, that would be my comfort blanket Mhmm. Is to ask that question and get an objective answer. And then you know they they have their stuff in order. Yeah. But the industry right now, it's it's very spread out. It's very vague. Yeah. What about is there anything you look at from the plane itself? Is there you hey. Anything older than x years, you know, be careful on. I think a lot of people don't realize how old, you know, commercial a lot of planes are. And as long as they're kept up properly, there's usually no issues. But is there any of those guidelines that you look at that you'd recommend? For a consumer, they probably assume the older it is, the less reliable it is, things like that. But the reality is is it shouldn't be like that. If you actually maintain the aircraft right, it should be very reliable if it's a nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties, or a new aircraft. But there are probably more gaps with an older aircraft or more chance of issues happening. Yes. Not catastrophic, but just having little, you know, technology issues happen here or there. So the question is, yeah, how was it maintained? But a consumer is not gonna be able to to ask that and understand it. And so, like, at Jetson Murrow, I'm trying to tell folks, operators, I'm like, you guys gotta find, you know, maintenance shops you guys align with and get into the contract mode with them where they maintain the aircraft for a long period of time. And because it's the same person looking at your aircraft or same company, you're gonna get more reliability. Right now, the industry hops around. It's like, who's the cheapest for this next event? And they could see four different maintenance shops in a year. And I'm like, think about our our cars, especially if you have a classic car or something. You're taking it to the person you trust to maintain it who knows, like, the story behind the car. And the older the car is, the more important that is. In the aircraft industry, I'm trying to get folks to understand that you should approach that same same kinda same approach. You should look at not jumping around because something's cheaper or there's a deal over here, is try to find a good partner. And then the longer they maintain your aircraft, the better it should be. If they don't perform, go somewhere else. But right now, it's just it's it's jumping around to whatever's convenient and most cost effective. Yeah. What about new aircrafts, new models? Is there anything that getting new advancements that are being made that are either really cool or or great from a safety and reliability standpoint or things that are making your lives easier that, hey, we don't need to, you know, we don't need as much on the maintenance side for them. They're getting more reliable whereas but there's a lot of manufacturers that still built these aircraft for personal use, whereas people are taking those personal use aircraft and flying them like an airline. And so I'm hoping and I'm slowly seeing manufacturers go, okay. These aircraft need to be built for more hours a year. Mhmm. Whereas before, kinda just built for, like, you and me to fly a couple times a month. Right. Some are doing better than others or taking commercial platforms and reengineering them for private jet use, which is brilliant because those were built originally to fly every single day. Right? And so it makes me excited to see people take the commercial platforms, the biz jet, but they're not it's still a long way to go. So I think there's still a big emphasis on investment required on maintenance to keep them flying if you wanna charter them every single day, which is where most industry is going towards. Yeah. Last thing, and I'll I'll let you get out of here. The industry overall, we talked about the mechanics, but getting people into aircraft maintenance. You know, it's not generally you know, it was in your family. And so, you know, you were almost predetermined to get in there, but it's not necessarily an industry that a lot of people grow up thinking about wanting to get into. How are you looking at, you know, leadership development and and getting more people into the industry? You know, what what does the industry need to do? A big big investment personally in in STEM and trying to talk to younger kids about how cold it is to be around aircraft. And we try to invite people and groups over to our hangar. I'm on the board of the Forteres of Flight Museum locally, and they have a ton of STEM programs. So really supporting them. Because I think people that step into aviation gotta want to be there. I always ask folks during interview. I go, why aviation? And most of them, if they have a good secondary story, serve in the military, or love to be around aircraft, they're usually good fits. You gotta you gotta love it to be around it because it it's a hard job. And I have a lot of respect for what my my my dad and brother did on aircraft. But it's up to us to, like, try to share that excitement. And so knowing that, like, in Dallas, there's a commemorative air force museum that flies aircraft at our airport, Frontier's a flight museum, all these resources to take young kids to. And if it clicks, it clicks. If it doesn't Yeah. Great. I think that is the opportunity I see to share it and then be more transparent, especially with, like, high schoolers going to college. I talked to a group. They had no idea how much mechanics make. They thought it wasn't a lot. Right. And I go, here's the current pay. Here's where I start you year one. They're like, oh, snap. Let's skip college and go there. I'm like, a lot of it's they don't know. Yeah. They don't get exposed to it. So I think exposure is number one, and then letting it be a natural part of their decision making to see if they really think it's cool to get into the aerospace aviation world in any different discipline, engineering, pilot, or mechanic. Yeah. It's my favorite industry. I have nothing to do with it, but I just I love it. And it really is cool, and I think you're right that the exposure and getting and whether it's it's, you know, aircraft mechanics or anything trade related right now, I wish there that was more prevalent, you know, in terms of national discourse when it comes to hiring and and the job market and everything. It's just we are in desperate need or need in in my business as well. And, you know, we're it's it's it's a little scary and, you know, looking five, ten years down the road on how we're gonna backfill all these people that have been in the industries for a long time, and and we're gonna need to fill them. And so things like you're talking about, you know, and and we're looking at some, you know, putting together some scholarships and things for for trade schools is is gonna be huge. But, if anybody wants to reach out and find more, where can they find you guys? Jet summer o dot com, or they can they can look up my email should be on there. You can shoot me a note or on LinkedIn. You know, look me up. I try to respond to everything. So when people ask questions or if I can help in any way, we try to be very value add. You know, helping folks when when we expect nothing in return is a big part of our ethos as well. So So I get a lot of folks asking me questions and, you know, new mechanics and and that we may not be have openings for. I try to shoot them straight. I try to refer them to other, you know, companies. We try to help the industry as much as possible without expecting anything in return, and that's really helped us build our brand, and helped us get good traction in the industry. Yeah. I've learned a lot just from from following you on LinkedIn, and and it's really cool to learn more about an industry a lot of people just don't know much about. So thank you so much for your time today. This was awesome, and I think a lot of people learned a lot and, hopefully, have him back on soon. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you. That's another episode of Crow Nose sponsored by OPW Commercial Services. We'll see you next time.