How to Find a Quality Aircraft Engine Maintenance Company

An airplane is a complex and expensive machine. If you are fortunate enough to own your own aircraft, it’s essential to protect your prize-worthy investment, which requires regular and proper maintenance. Even more so than a car, you don’t want just anyone performing maintenance and repairs on your aircraft. However, unlike the car repair industry, it can be a lot tougher to find reliable, quality aircraft engine maintenance companies. Particularly if you have recently moved or bought an aircraft for the first time, you may be searching for an engine maintenance company. As you decide where to take your aircraft for inspections and maintenance, try these top 9 tips to help find a quality company.

When you are looking for an aircraft engine maintenance company, make sure you check the company’s location. The last thing you want is to find a good match for your aircraft’s needs, only to discover that the company is located several states away, or even in another country.

If you are using a database, which can be easily found online and are great resources for getting a lot of results quickly, make sure to use a location keyword, such as the name of a major city near you. This way, you can quickly and easily see what options are nearby, and work from there.

In Chicagoland, J.A. Air Center is an aircraft engine maintenance company with nearly 50 years of experience. For those of you who live near Chicago or are traveling through, we can provide expert aircraft repair and maintenance. Simply contact us for more information or to schedule an appointment.

Location isn’t the only important factor. It is also important that the company you choose has familiarity with your model of plane and its type of engine. Aircraft engines vary widely – including turboprops, turbojets, turboshafts, turbofans, and more – and so do the types of maintenance and repair procedures required for them. Many maintenance teams specialize in specific types of engines and aircraft. If you find the best-rated, most experienced company near you but they only service commercial jets whereas you own a small turboprop, you probably need to find a better fit.

Before you schedule an appointment to get your aircraft fixed or tuned-up, call ahead or research the company’s website to ensure they will be able to take care of your specific plane. This will save you time in the long run and is a vital step to making sure that the aircraft engine maintenance company is a good match.

You want to make sure that whoever works on your aircraft is qualified to repair it safely and effectively. When searching for an aircraft engine maintenance company, there are a few professional certifications you should look out for.

The first is authorization from the Federal Aviation Association (FAA). This is the bare minimum for licensure and is required for anyone working on aircraft engine maintenance. If someone has Inspection Authorization (IA) from the FAA, they can perform and sign off on your required yearly inspections and on any major repairs.

The FAA provides certifications for both airframe and powerplant mechanics, although most technicians are certified in both. Airframe and Power Plant (A & P) technicians inspect aircraft and diagnose, perform, and oversee basic and preventative maintenance. They also keep records of aircraft details—like total time in flight and time since the last inspection—for all aircraft they inspect and for all repairs they perform.

Additionally, you can look for affiliation with the Professional Aviation Maintenance Association (PAMA), which focuses on recognizing aircraft maintenance technicians and promoting ethical repair practices. PAMA provides additional courses that support the required certification from the FAA, which can give certification as an aircraft maintenance engineer.

Before deciding where to take your aircraft, go to the company in person to see it. Take a look around and talk with the owner and anyone else who would be doing maintenance on your aircraft. This is a good way to decide if the place is right for you, particularly if the company is newer and does not have extensive reviews on the internet.

When visiting, you should keep an eye out for the general organizational level and cleanliness of the space and see what other kinds of aircraft they work on regularly. In general, maintenance hangars should be on the larger side. Unless you’re working with a newer and smaller company, they should have space for at least two or three airplanes to be worked on at the same time.

Taking a walk through the company lets you see if they have experience regularly servicing aircrafts similar to yours, if the people who work there will take good care of your aircraft, and if you want to work with this size of the company.

The size of an aircraft maintenance company can offer different advantages, depending on your preferences. On one hand, smaller companies often offer a more personal experience—technically due to a smaller staff, but often also because of company values. If you want a personal relationship of trust with the people who work on your aircraft, this is often more achievable with a smaller company.

That being said, a larger company will most likely have more resources at its disposal. When working with a larger aircraft maintenance company, you are less likely to experience inconveniences such as waiting for an order of specialized parts to arrive. Additionally, a larger company may have the resources to hire a larger team of experienced staff who specialize in working on the exact type of aircraft you own.

Chances are, your fellow pilots know and frequent good aircraft engine maintenance companies in the area. Talk to someone else who stores their plane near yours or ask someone involved in a local flying group. Even if they don’t know a good engine maintenance company close to you, they probably know someone who does and will happily pass on the information.

Recommendations do not necessarily have to be from people you know personally. If you don’t have connections to the local pilot community, reach out to clubs or groups nearby to see if they are able to share recommendations with you. The members will have connections in the area and likely will be happy to help.

A simple Google or social media search will let you know whether the maintenance company has been reviewed, and whether their customers have positive or negative things to say. Although even the best company may run into the occasional disgruntled customer, be wary of a company that has numerous negative reviews or an apparent pattern of poor service. A strong record of satisfied customers means that you can feel more confident bringing your aircraft to the company.

If possible, chat with the maintenance technicians when you visit or drop your aircraft off. This helps both of you put a face to the name on the other end of this service. With aircraft repair, as with most other service industry jobs, the workers are more likely to remember you—or at the very least appreciate you—and go out of their way to help you if you are friendly and kind to them. In addition, you can have greater peace of mind in knowing that your aircraft is being maintained by people who you know and trust.

Before you take your aircraft in for more serious maintenance, repairs, or an inspection, try taking it to this aircraft engine maintenance company for a routine oil change. This will give you a good feel for the relationship between you and the maintenance technician or company owner. If you get along well and work well together, this is a good shop for you. However, you might discover that you have personality clashes or disagreement on timelines. While they are the professionals in this situation and you should go with their judgment on repairs in general, it’s helpful to have a feel for the working relationship you would have. If there are serious personality clashes or communication issues—which does happen occasionally, not everyone can get along with everyone else—you are probably better off looking for a different shop.

Quality aircraft engine maintenance and repair are essential to the proper care of your aircraft. If you are looking for an aircraft engine maintenance company in your area, please contact us. J.A. Air is a qualified FAA class IV Part 145 Repair Station and we would love to help you find the right fit for you. Or, if you’re in the Chicagoland area, schedule an appointment to see how we can help you.

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