Maintenance shop in Osijek (LDOS)

We discussed rating shops many times but people are usually reluctant of giving bad comments (because of various reasons) and on some forums policy discourages criticism in order to avoid possible legal consequences.

It can not be illegal to criticize a company? There are tons of sites on the internet where customers rate businesses?

Giving rating to a business can’t be illegal in itself.

I agree with you and I appreciate your honest review. IMHO rating businesses should be encouraged for the benefit of the customers. The example of rating accommodations or web sellers clearly shows its benefits.

The reviews of maintenance shops are very much based on customer expectations, there are customers at the bottom end of the market that simply want the aircraft certified for another year and are unwilling to pay for anything other than the very basic job. These people won’t pay for any sort of preventative maintenance and then moan that the aircraft has developed problems that had been foreseen. These people will badmouth a maintenance organisation at the drop of a hat and move on to the next maintenance provider and repeat the process. Eventually these people run out of people to maintain there aircraft as no one will sign off the fast deteriorating aircraft they own.

Reviews of maintenance companies should be seen in the light of the number of maintenance providers the customer has had in the last few years to be of any use to gauge the quality of that review of a maintenance company.

I’m not sure I agree with you there A_and _C. I think all good businesses including aircraft maintenance companies can benefit from being reviewed by their customers. There is no difference IMO from an aircraft maintenance company and an hotel. A customer expects a certain quality of service at a a price they expect to pay. If they do not get that, then they have a right to complain. There are admittedly some spurious reviews but often these are outweighed by reviews written by family and friends of the owners of a company. I think most sensible people can weed these out or will seek further information. A well managed company will make reading the reviews and communicating with unhappy clients a large part of their procedures.
Ensuring a satisfied customer can be a lot less expensive to a company in the long run than ignoring or shrugging off complaints.

I had occasion to twice perform certification testing on an airplane at the maintenance facility in Osijek. The maintenance staff there had to prepare the plane for my testing, and assist in the performance of the test. I have done a lot of certification testing, both ground and flight (this one was ground only), and I’ve worked with many maintenance organizations in a number of countries. The maintenance support for this project left me a little disappointed. I assigned one maintenance person one singular monitoring task to assure that the structure we were testing was not deformed during the test – it was slightly deforming, I noticed and stopped the test in time to not actually damage primary structure in the plane. I was supervising the assigned task, and glad I was, or expensive damage to the airplane would have resulted. The monitoring task was extremely basic, and well understood before the test begun.

Otherwise, there seemed to be little in the way of parts stores to support the testing (AN nuts and bolts), so we made do, but normally, I would have expected more basic resource at a maintenance shop. My first ans second impressions (six months apart) were the same, and my only impressions of this shop.

Gallois.

I do understand the points you make about acting on customers comments and keeping people happy but unfortunately there is a section of UK aviation who are flying old and fast deteriorating aircraft who seem to think that because the aircraft is their hobby it should be yours and that you are maintaining it for fun. As soon as you present these people with a bill that complain and try to pick the bill apart and in the process take up more of your time.

A friend of mine in the classic car business says MG owners have the same reputation in the motor industry.

I don’t see this from those who use aircraft for business, they are hard at negotiating on price But realise my business has to make a proffit for it to continue to support their business.

Aircraft maintenance is very hard to find now in the UK because people don’t want to pay a rate commensurate with the difficulties and responsibilities of providing services. We have no licenced maintenance staff under the age of 50 simply because the pay offered fails to reward people for the effort Obtaining and responsibility of holding a maintenance license.

@A_and_C I have every sympathy with what you are saying. Before I retired I too was in a business where people expected you to work all hours without pay because they equated the job with their hobby. As a freelance even my father wanted to know " when was I going to get a steady job?"
If I thought a customer had expectations above their budget I would be up front about it, even if that meant losing the job. I didn’t lose many jobs by being open and honest and some that I did lose I often got back later to put right with a “money no object” tag.
I always bore in mind a lesson which a friend accidentally taught me (he would have charged me if he knew he had taught me something:)
He used to take his Aston Martin to a small garage in a mews in West London. The owner of the garage only had one arm. Whenever my friend rang he would be greeted cheerfully. When he asked when he could bring his car in, the garage owner would always ask " When do you want to bring it in?" When he took the car in he was always greeted by the owner with a smile. He never saw another mechanic working there.
The car was always ready on time and always cleaned and the agreed work had always been done professionally. I once asked my friend “Was it expensive?” His answer surprised me as this was a very shrewd businessman and negotiator. He said “I don’t know, the bill is over there take a look”. He then went on to say “I trust this man implicitly so I don’t bother looking any more”.
I also started using that garage after that, with a much less a value car, I hasten to add
The garage owner was exactly the same with me as he was with my friend and the work was completed to the same high standard. I never bothered checking if I could have got the job cheaper elsewhere.