Ops Review??

[FalconPilot69]

To answer your last quesiton.

An MEL stands for Minimum Equipment List. It is the list that tells pilots, if something breaks, if they can legally fly or not. It does sound like a scheduling snafu though.

 

[GREAT LAKES]

NJA Owner

If this problem has happened several times before, and they call you 2 hrs prior, why not just ask what is causing the delay? They need to give a reason other than ops delay or whatever it is called! After all it is your plane, or share of.

 

[irapilot]

NJA owner - some of these guys are right - if you have a problem call your rep and get an answer. If it still does not sound right - take it upstairs - you are, after all, an "owner". I am not a fan of fractionals at all but NetJets is the best out there. I am sure that scheduling is hell and that things go wrong - but here is not where you will find truth and clarity.

 

[flexpilot]

Is there a chance that "NJA Owner" is actually a line guy going through the trash at the FBO? He finds an old brief sheet that says KXYZ airport is overdue for an ops review?

That is my guess!

 

[ScoobyDoo]

I was flying a charter trip for Netjets a few months back and it was requested that I position to TEB 3 hours early "in case of a possible 'Ops Review'". I called EJM dispatch and asked what that was...I thought I was going to get "ramped" or something.

Dispatch told me that an Ops Review is a term they (I don't know who They is) use if there is a maintenance issue. In other words, if I arrived into TEB and had a mx problem, they would have to find another aircraft, which I believe is the definition of an Ops Review.

It seems like it is a baffling "beat around the bush" term Netjets gives to customers because it sounds better than saying "Your plane is broke, we're scrambling to find you another one."

Fly Safe

 

[NJAowner]

Thanks Scooby

Thanks. You answer seems to make sense ... and at least I am not the only one who has heard this term from NJA.

 

[beytzim]

Scooby Doo has got it right. A lot of times, airplanes break. They usually break in the first flight of the day. This is due to several reasons:

1. New crew to the airplane, just finding something new wrong
2. Airplane sitting there for several days
3. The most thorough prefilght is done on the first flight. If there is something wrong, it will usually be found then.

Many times, we are on "hot-standby", where we just sit at the airport, perhaps with the APU on, waiting for a possible trip. This is most often done to back-up other trips. I was in SBA a few weeks ago with a 6:30 am show for a ferry to JAC and we met another crew that morning that was ASAP'd to the airport just to back up our ferry flight! This often happens when an owner has been hit with too many successive "ops reviews" and they are not very happy.

The point: Ops Review sounds a lot better than: Your airplane broke.

One more point. You mentioned MEL's. Airplanes breaking are not always black and white. For example: During the preflight, the pilot finds that one of his AC inverters is not turning on. First, he'll probably shut the airplane down, and restart it to see if it turns on. If not, he'll open the MEL book and consequently contact the PM about the problem. The PM with maintenance may try to troubleshoot the inverter problem on the phone with the pilot. If they can't get it to work, they'll MEL it. However, when an item is MEL'd, there are various limitations placed on the aircraft. The aircraft may not be able to fly at night, maybe it can't fly through icing, maybe it needs longer runways etc. So now the pilot and the PM must review the flight and see if the new limitations affect the flight. During this time, owner services may contact you and tell you an 'ops review' is happenning. Then delays, different aircraft take the trip, you get the picture...

Hope that helps,

beytzim