Jeppesen not what it used to be?

[Captain Oveur]

This is partly a rant, and I'll confess, partly a whiney complaint, sorry.
Has anybody else noticed a marked decline in Jeppesen's quality of
service in the past year or two? Late revisions and missing pages, and
most annoying, the revisions where you have to sort through the pages
for the revision date What is the deal with that?
I'll admit, the fault could lie with the feds or NOAA, but seems to me
that that's a potential safely problem. I have to force myself to do
revisions, being a lazy bastard, but when two revisions come mixed
together, I'm inclined to procrastinate even more
Other opinions? and am I whining TOO much?

 

[Simon Says]

I have a stack of revisions in my flight case....can you do mine for me when you have time?

But to answer your question.....I cringe everytime I find Jepps in my mailbox.

 

[minitour]

I'll agree on the one with the "Effective Date" revisions.

I hate doing 2 revisions in one revision. Just send me two...how hard would that be?

Also the missing pages...and one more.

We've got NavSuite (Jeppview & FliteStar) that comes with paper LO charts. So I call to get us our paper subscription charts set up that we need until we go EFB... Why is it they couldn't give me the US terminal charts and HI enroutes instead of LO to go with 'em? I'm already getting the LO charts. So I have to order HI charts to go with it. I asked about getting a "special" subscription (that I know they do) and was told no...

I'd just think that for the price, I could get what I want and not have to send an e-mail every 2 weeks with the missing pages.

-mini

 

[SCT]

Didn't Boeing buy Jep?

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

Didn't Boeing buy Jep?

yep, ever since, prices up, quality down.

They gouge everywhere they can. Electronic Jepps should
be MUCH cheaper.

CE

 

[A Squared]

Didn't Boeing buy Jep?

Yep, and I think that is the key. Boeing bought Jeppesen in 2000. Since that happened I've noticed a number of changes which have made things cheaper to produce, but have made the product lower quality, and of course, the price has gone up significantly. My subscriptioon has gone from $89/year to 117/year, an increase of over 30%.

ONe of hte changes which really irritates me is the change to the table of contents. It used to be that each subscription has custom table of contents for that subscription. For example, my Alaska subscription would have a table of contents for each tab which would only list those pages whei were actually in the Alaska subscription. not long ago they issued new tables of contents for each tab section which list *all* the pages which could possibly be in that tab in any subscription, US or international. that's added about a half inch thickness of pages which are completely useless to my already over stuffed binder. Presumably the cost of mailing out all that extra paper is offset by the decreased overhead costs realized by not maintaining seperate table of contents for each subscription.

That's just one way in which they have lowered the quality of the product, while increasing the price

 

[Palomino]

where does that DC-6 call home?

 

[Amish RakeFight]

I recall several years ago, possibly before Boeing acquired them, I started to receive these really thick revison pages that were printed poorly. Along with the new packets came a memo from Jepp informing me that their paper supplier or printer (whoever) was on strike and apologized for the difference (read: quality) in the revisions and that thinghs would get back to normal soon.

 

[ableone]

I prefer NOS/DOD charts. I am not military but have used them at two previous employers. Though Jepp approach plates are marginally better than NOS the enroute high and low NOS charts are superior. IMO the JEPP enroute charts have so much crap on them that they are next to impossible to read. The NOS high and lows are much more readable.

 

[asipilot]

I used to work at Jeppesen in CO and from what my buddies that still work there are saying, it's been a horrible place to work since Boeing bought it. It used to be a fun place to work, a bunch of retired and furloughed pilots working in cubes together. Now, it's just like any other corporate america position....

 

[Darkhlmt]

yep, ever since, prices up, quality down.

They gouge everywhere they can. Electronic Jepps should
be MUCH cheaper.

CE

How else do you expect all those VIPs at Boeing to get their multi million dollar paychecks and their month long vacations paid for by the good people in GA?

 

[avbug]

Jepp products went down in quality a LONG time ago. So did their service. They've done a number of things to improve their products, but I've seen electronic charts go out with the entirely wrong database installed, to numerous occurences of corrupted data on their discs, to charts that are misprinted. I keep one to show students why they should really think over the approch from several years ago, in which Jepp put the proceedure turn on the wrong side of the approach. It's a mandatory turn, published as such, but they put it on the side of the course with the mountain. They caught it and published a new chart, but lucky for them it's a very low use airport.

If you're talking about charts with revision dates other than the revision, in which some charts in the revision have effective dates later than the bulk of the pack, this isn't an error or a disservice on the part of Jepp. It's been done that way for a long time, and it occurs not because of what Jepp does, but because of changes in the NAS and to proceedures. Rather than leave the user hanging during the period between chart issues and the chart NOTAM's being issued, Jepp does you the courtesy of sending the chart with a notice that it's not effective until XXXX date.

That's why you always include the chart date when briefing an approach. Remember?

 

[Luxor Two]

How else do you expect all those VIPs at Boeing to get their multi million dollar paychecks and their month long vacations paid for by the good people in GA?

You really think GA is what keeps Jeppesen in business? And do you really think Jep's profitability is what keeps those Boeing "VIPs" rich and on permanent vacation?

C'mon man, think a little longer before you speak.

 

[avbug]

Considering that general aviation encompasses the lions share of commercial aviation, including corporate, in a word, yes. Jepp markets to a lot more than 121 operations.

General aviation isn't merely Cessna's putting from A to B, though I submit that the quality of customer service and the accuracy of the charts is just as important for the pilot of a Cessna 172 as it is for a Citation X or a B777.

 

[Luxor Two]

Considering that general aviation encompasses the lions share of commercial aviation, including corporate, in a word, yes. Jepp markets to a lot more than 121 operations.

General aviation isn't merely Cessna's putting from A to B, though I submit that the quality of customer service and the accuracy of the charts is just as important for the pilot of a Cessna 172 as it is for a Citation X or a B777.

Well, I am "corporate", and yes most 91/135 flight dept's use jepps, but considering the amount of airline pilots that EACH have their own set of charts supplied in the US, then consider all the airlines around the world that do the same, I'd say thats where the Jep makes its bank.

My point is that Jep is an extremely small part of the Boeing family of companies (last I checked the aircraft and defense divisions were fairly large)
and the profits of Jeppesen don't line the pockets of Boeing VIPs.

 

[avbug]

There's a bigger world out there than the airlines...and much of that world uses Jepp charts. Particularly considering that most corporate, charter, private, and other users maintain full sets, whereas most airline users do not, the lions share of useage and sales is most likely external to the airlines in terms of numbers, certainly pages of charts, and most likely, in terms of dollars, too.

Regardless of whose pockets might be lined, it's certainly not the consumer, especially the small consumer who pays for his or her own charts. With the attendant costs that have accompanied renewals in years past, the quality of service has declined...especially for the user who actually deals with Jeppesen, rather than with their own company.

I actually called their service department once with a concern and a problem with a revision, and was assured by the young man on the phone that Jeppesen service was among the best, and the personnel there the most knowledgeable. The young man tried throwing some stupid concept at me such as this chart isn't really necessary so I shouldn't worry that it wasn't in my revision...something like that. When I called him on it, he told me he was sure becasue he had a private pilot certificate and his father had been an airline pilot. What had that to do with the price of tea in china? I've no idea, but he thought it did, and it didn't go on whit toward answering my concern with the revision. All I wanted to hear, and the only words that needed to come out of his mouth were "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will fix it immediately."