FAA Administrator Rumors; Supply Chain May Not Improve

Jessie Naor (00:00)

Good morning and welcome to the VIP seat. Today is January 2nd. Happy New Year to all of our listeners. We hope you all enjoyed the holidays and hopefully it wasn't too stressful. We know this is our busy season for flying. This week's top stories in aviation. We're taking a look at 2025 supply chain and

what impacts it might be having on the industry. Hopefully we're hoping for some improvements that we've had over the last couple years. And we have another eVTOL company that's announced bankruptcy, that and some more stories.

Your hosts today include yours truly, Jessie Naor, and our co-host today is Suresh Narayanan. Suresh, welcome to the show.

Suresh Narayanan (00:34)

Yep, Happy New Year. Thanks for having me.

Jessie Naor (00:37)

Awesome. All right, folks, sit back, buckle up, and let's take off.

All right, so fortunately for the commercial aviation industry, 2024 has come to a close because it's been quite a year, a tragic year, not in the US so much, but for global accidents. I think we're all reeling after seeing the video of the Jeju accident in South Korea this last week. From the reporting that we have so far, obviously this is all speculative. We don't really know until the reports come out, but there was apparently a bird strike.

bird strike that could have caused a compressor stall in the right engine and the crew had to do wheels up landing just four minutes in the opposite direction of the first approach. Just watching that video was heart wrenching and so sad. what have you heard, Suresh, any observations from what we know so far?

Suresh Narayanan (01:35)

A lot of speculation. It's really sad. So obviously our heart goes out to people who lose their lives and any aviation incident. I think a lot of people are looking at the video and trying to understand what happened, but I do think it's going to take a lot of time to figure out what all the data points are. I think this last year was rough, even in business aviation with runway incursions and commercial aviation with all the challenges. I think perception wise to the public, it wasn't a good one.

for any of us. And so, you I'm in the maintenance side of biz jet aviation, as well as component repair side and commercial. And so our biggest focus, and I think there's still a long way to go, is how do we fix some of these issues? Because it's got to be preventative, right? And I think maintenance is a, no one looks at it till there's something wrong. And that's a problem. And I think in biz jet aviation, the reason I picked biz jet, even though

pretty familiar with commercial and military is I think people are flying in that segment more than ever, especially post COVID. And so you have more hours on these aircraft that weren't built to operate every day, but they're operating every day. And the maintenance capacity is pretty, fragmented and pretty low. And so my worry, what we're trying to do is make sure we scale the maintenance support in Bizjet to get to eventually the way that commercial is, is overall the commercial.

infrastructure is pretty robust. mean, the MRO world globally for commercial operators is top notch. There's degrees of excellence there. In the Bizjet space, it's very fragmented. There's a couple of big players in the US and that's it. There's a lot of small shops that are operating like we were 20 years ago. And so the reason we're in that space is hopefully we can come in and help prevent some of the mechanical issues happening in Bizjet space. Because again, people are operating these planes every day and they weren't

built for that. And the MRO infrastructure, in my opinion, has not evolved and mature to where it needs to be for people operating these aircraft like a commercial airline operation.

Jessie Naor (03:33)

Right. Yeah, I mean, and just I've been wondering too, we know, you know, there's been a lot of turnover in the pilot world. know, ATC has all of these crew shortages for air traffic controllers. You know, and I'm also wondering if we're seeing that start to pop up in the maintenance organizations. people have moved to new organizations. There's not enough talent out there to address things. I just, we always look at, you know, when these accidents start to occur, what's happening, what's going wrong? Part of it is the activity.

but also part of it is we've entered a kind of a new era and we used to have a lot bigger pools of talent and that's dwindling a bit.

Suresh Narayanan (04:08)

Yeah i also think the pilot shortage was talked about so much i used to be on the operator side of this so i you know i had the pilot side mechanics flight attendants the whole whole enchilada you know and spent a lot of crew. I'm in the focus was such on the pilot shortage and the mechanic shortage was averaging you know it was actually far greater by numbers but the turnover issue mechanic space which is what we're trying to fix at Jets MRO our sole purpose is to fix mechanic turnover.

So we provide a consistent, reliable product. I'm not reinventing maintenance. I'm just saying if I can keep a good experienced mechanic on these jet platforms within our organization, we'll win. We'll win. And what's happening is, you you look at 40, 50 % mechanic turnover. And so you look at a BizJet operation or any MRO, right? And you have a 20 year vet who knows a certain airframe and it takes a certain amount of time to support that airframe on any given task. Well, that person leaves for whatever reason.

and you bring a new A&P mechanic, maybe license and have all the, you know, may not have the same experience, might be licensed, do the same task, they're gonna take longer and be inexperienced. And then now you have longer lead times and less experience on platforms. And the Bizjet space, like I said before, it's an immature space. It's not like we have these massive maintenance manuals that are very articulated for daily operations. There is a lot of tribal knowledge, a lot of experience matters events.

And so what we saw before we started Jets MRO was there's a huge gap with maintenance and mechanic turnover coupled with the shortage. And so the next 10 years is not enough mechanics, again, they're licensed to even support what the BizJet MRO needs are, including commercial as well. So it's a dual industry issue. And the second issue is the ones that are coming in the industry or even leaving the industry are jumping around too much. And so I asked the question why, and everyone's first reaction is must be pay. I'm like, you know, that's the easy answer, but

Has anyone asked these mechanics at scale why they're jumping from one place to another? Pay is part of it. But I went and surveyed thousands of mechanics and tried to figure out just, just let me ask why I'm not trying to reinvent maintenance and try to fix this maintenance problem. And if I could have, I know it's cheesy, a happy mechanic in my organization that stays there, they'll provide a better product to the customer. Cause you think when you go into a shop or any business, if the person wants to be there and is excited to be there,

Jessie Naor (06:20)

Right.

Suresh Narayanan (06:26)

they're probably going to deliver a better service and product. If they're forced to be there, so the mechanic space, if I have bad conditions, know, crappy hanger, or they're looking to just can't wait to get home, what kind of maintenance are they going to be performing? It won't be the best. I guarantee it. And so I look at that as how do I produce a happy mechanic that stays in the workplace produces a better product. And so we survey these mechanics. We realize that culture, engaged leadership were two of the biggest issues and what forced them to leave.

Jessie Naor (06:40)

Okay.

Okay.

Suresh Narayanan (06:55)

benefits

because that cost rises and schedule because when you have a shortage you force mechanics to work overtime. My industry is notorious for saying we're 24-7 on call and so they make folks be on call and I don't know any one person that loves to get that call if they're at home with their family on a Saturday or off hours. No one goes great my work's calling me in like I'm excited to go in and perform a task.

Jessie Naor (07:07)

Mm-hmm.

Suresh Narayanan (07:21)

And so I go, okay, well, let's create an organization that's open seven days a week. We'll staff it from day one. and when they go home, they go home. So we are open every day from 5 30 AM to 4 PM. If you call after that, I tell my team, don't sign up for it. The concept is we can come, our morning crew can come in and support them. And, know, until we're actually 24 seven staff, I don't want to be like other MROs where it's like, let's see, or it's on call 24 seven, if we can get the person to come in.

And then I go call 10 people and see who wants to come in or who's willing to be, go over and above. I want this to be a scalable professional operation, like the commercial space where they run 24 seven and you have folks who are focused on tasks 24 seven. Yeah, with rest, again, I don't know anyone who gets a call from work and goes, yes, this is great. It's just, it's how mechanics work. And so we staffed at seven days a week, day one.

Jessie Naor (08:02)

With rest. With rest given.

Yeah.

Suresh Narayanan (08:13)

All our employees get free family benefits day one. They can have 30 children or zero and it's free. Just one less cost to worry about. And then we're very engaged from a leadership perspective. So we share our financials. So instead of, you know, managers going, can't afford this. We have to cut costs. They're seeing the financials. So they know where we're coming from. If we have to say things like that, or we can't buy a tool, especially as a newer business. So we share financials. I present to every employee once a month, just like I present the shareholders. So very open.

Jessie Naor (08:21)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Suresh Narayanan (08:41)

down to net profit. we've only been in business one year. So you imagine we lost money until we scaled up to a certain size and we acquired a business and did some pretty neat growth things. And so I'd be coming into these meetings going, we lost money this month. Here's how much, and mechanics be freaking out. No one's ever told us this. I'm like, well, it's the plan, but now you guys know what I know. I always start this is I want you guys to know what I know. And so that's our way of addressing the four biggest issues for mechanics. And the goal is we have low turnover and recruit really good talent.

And then now you have good experienced mechanics on these biz jet aircrafts. Now your quality is better, your efficiency. So our big thing is on time performance seven days a week, not because we rushed because we're just good process oriented professional organization. think the best way to, yeah, the best way to do that is I have the most experienced folks that stay there and get consistency. And I think that's what's lacking. You know, when I was on the operator side, I'd go visit some of these MROs and go, why are planes always late for whatever reason, supply chain or.

Jessie Naor (09:23)

land around it.

Suresh Narayanan (09:39)

this or that or you know how it is with the mechanic shortage. And I'm like a ton of excuses. I go great. I don't know how to grow an op. I don't know how operators operate. Not knowing when you're going to get your aircraft back without any confidence. I had to go employ like they call them reps and people do this. They send people to the MROs to micromanage it. So imagine putting your car into the shop. Haven't have someone sit there and visit all the time. So you know you're going to get it back on time and then and then yeah, then scrutinize the invoice. It's very

Jessie Naor (10:02)

Guilty. I used to do that.

Suresh Narayanan (10:07)

immature, untransparent. So we're very open in the sales process. We don't employ salespeople. We're very open about how many hours stuff takes. We've kind of a cost plus model like government. So you don't have to worry about should I have been charged for all this stuff? And that's just how our industry is. And then the goal is you don't have to send a rep to make sure it works in your plan. It's getting work seven days a week because we communicate it and we have these systems that actually tell you how many hours I've put on the project. So we're trying to tackle a lot of different problems in the Bizjet space. Where in the commercial space. A lot of the stuff's been worked out.

But the mechanic shortage is definitely, I mean, any industry from military, commercial or biz jet, it is a problem. But I still think people are not focused on the culture turnover issues first. And we got to do better by the mechanic. think that's going to solve a big part of it is keep the ones you got, make them happy. And then yes, we need more schools and we need more of aggregate number, but growing the pie, having a thousand more mechanics every day doesn't help us if they're not happy where they're at.

Jessie Naor (11:05)

Well, no, I think that's all really good points. We need to be more sophisticated as an industry as well. I think our roots are, and you know this from going from one to the other, our roots are kind of the mom and pop shop. It was managing aircraft management, a single airplane. We did a grand view, was ran it like an airline. We had the same fleet. We had 18 Phenom 300s

all the same, same parts, super efficient, but I think the same challenges are, you know, arising in the MRO space or have been in the MRO space. Now it's like, how do you modernize, make things efficient? Because yeah, I mean, there are mechanic shortages, but at the same time, like I do think a lot of what happens is the shop will say, well, you know, in the past it's taken us three months to do this, but now the world has changed a bit, you know, and they haven't really updated their models or they don't have.

internal systems for, know, these parts are on backorder for these times, these are the issues I'm having. So that's cool. I like to see that you're addressing that. It seems needed.

Suresh Narayanan (12:04)

Yeah, I think if you've been in aviation long enough, it hasn't matured. We're not progressive. I hear all the time, this is how we've done things before. This is how we've been doing it for 20 years. And it drives me nuts. I go, great. We're 20 years behind the curve. I look at other industries. I'm in some leadership groups. I get exposed to how other companies or industries operate. And I'm like, I didn't invent some of these things, but we are way behind the curve, whether it's culturally, how we treat people.

Jessie Naor (12:15)

Yeah.

Suresh Narayanan (12:30)

process oriented, leveraging IT or AI these days. We are so beyond the curve. And I think our industry, unlike others, is very resistant to change. So you have folks that are like, we've been doing it this way. You can't do that. I hear that all the time. You can't do that. This is how we've been doing it. Or multiple interpretations of regulations and certification, which is, know, it's like basically being a lawyer and you have to understand that it's super important. But I hear a lot about why we can't do things in our industry. My first thing is like, let's find solutions.

Jessie Naor (12:31)

Thank

Thanks.

Suresh Narayanan (12:59)

let's at least try something and let's fail. Let's fail and let's be open to that, let's not, like being reluctant to change is not acceptable and our industry is very much probably one of the leaders in that topic and it's not a good thing.

Jessie Naor (13:12)

Well, and it's just not going to cut it anymore because we've had too many delays and things damaging our businesses that we're just going to have to be efficient and figure out how to get it done. If you're going to survive in this environment, and it's been tough the last couple of years, you're going to have to do that. But speaking of surviving, that's a great segue into our next story. So on the heels of Lilium, who declared, was going to declare bankruptcy, laid off a thousand employees. Now we've gotten word that Volocopter is also going bankrupt this week, two German.

eVTOL companies. But I think they're kind of facing the same thing that everybody is right now. It's just there's a financial crunch. know, it's really difficult to raise money in today's environment, especially for businesses like that, where, you know, things are very unknown when they're when they're going to occur. I think fortunately, in MRO space, that's not the case. There does seem to be some excitement in that space and generating, or bringing in investors.

But yeah, I don't know, what do you think? Are you gonna be repairing eVTOL in the next couple years or are gonna wait a while ?

Suresh Narayanan (14:09)

Couple

years, And so I love the concept of eVTOL, but the biggest challenge in our industry is certification. And I think a lot of these eVTOLs are trying to raise a ton of money and then jump right into mass production, widespread use. And I'm like, that doesn't work in our industry. Everything just takes a long time. If someone asks me, do you want to certify a new aircraft in general? I don't have the patience for that. mean, it's it's...

It's such a long investment threshold. Like you got to think 20 years, especially if it's a new model. That's why many Bizjet or commercial manufacturers, you see a lot of variants of already established platforms. And that is just a path of least resistance than a whole new platform or TCDS, know, bringing a whole new certification process in. We're kind of incentivized not to do that. And so now you got your VTOL, now it's new technology and

it's going to take a long time. So who has the pockets and foresight to be patient that long? I hope someone does it. I'm not against it. I'm just not surprised that people like, we'll be operational in five years. like, from what I know about, you know, certification regulations, I always say it's at least 15 years just for that piece, let alone all the other pieces, if not longer. And so will I see one in my lifetime? Yes. But like, I'm gonna be pretty old, I think, when one actually comes to production commercial use.

Jessie Naor (15:11)

Mm-hmm.

Suresh Narayanan (15:32)

And that's a challenge. You look back at a lot of initial certifications of like an aircraft called the Beech Starship, first composite, all standard category certified aircraft. And it took a long time and was, it was so hard for the FAA to get around this new technology using composite materials. know, 787 came after, but it was a long, it was a hard process and it made the business case for that aircraft unattainable. you know, some mergers happened and never, they produced 50 something of them.

Jessie Naor (15:41)

you

Suresh Narayanan (15:59)

But it never became mass widely used like it should have. And so you think certification regulation, we respect it, but you got to understand it to know how long is it really going to take. And I think these companies are falling short of understanding that piece. And so they these good ideas for utilization, consumer facing stuff, or regulation certification don't care about that. They care about safety and making sure we do what's right for the industry, especially a new product. I don't think they've thought that enough and how long it's going to take.

Jessie Naor (16:24)

Well, too, and this is something that I haven't really seen anyone talking about yet. You talk about going to the shop to get a repair. How do you transport these aircraft? If there's only one repair station in, let's say, Florida and your eVTOL is in New York, how do you get it from one to the other? I guess you have to truck it in. But with the range and the lack of charging stations and other things, there's so many of those back-end challenges that you're right. We've looked at the fun consumer side of things, but

A reliable aircraft is a totally different story than one that just flies. It's demo.

Suresh Narayanan (16:59)

And look, there's a lot of regulations, the FAA is working the quickest they can to rewrite or apply some of them for what they're trying to do. Cause you can't just take historical regulations and say, just be compliant to this. I'm like, this is a whole new product. Like let's use our thought process here and go, it will never be certified if we don't actually open our mind to changing how we look at what meets compliance and what needs to be compliant today, not what was compliant 30, 40 years ago. So many regs are just old.

you got to solve that piece for a commercial product or else, you know, I don't know how these companies are going to get to kind of widespread use or get to their model. I hate to see them fail because I love disruption. love, you know, new ventures. I love when people say something can't be done and they do it. I love to like punch the idea in the face. And so it's always sad to see, you know, one from people's jobs affected, most importantly, hate to see companies not succeed.

Jessie Naor (17:50)

Mm-hmm.

Suresh Narayanan (17:53)

And so I'm hoping someone figures it out and or raises enough capital know it's going to be a long, long process. But in 2030 years, we can see the ROI and we can stomach that.

Jessie Naor (18:02)

Yeah, mean, look, this is not for the PE five-year exit plan. This needs to be people who are really committed to this in the future. But I mean, the good thing is, Lilium, it's got new financing, so they're working on rehiring those thousand employees back. So someone will get there, but we're going to see some failures along the way, inevitably, with such a transformational technology.

Suresh Narayanan (18:22)

Someone's got to risk big, invest big to get the reward, but it is a big risk.

Jessie Naor (18:24)

Right.

For sure. Well, since we have you here, you are our MRO expert. What's going on with supply chain? I think that's been everyone's frustration since COVID, essentially. And it just feels like we have made some progress, but there's still pockets of frustration and issues. what are you seeing out there? Are we going to have a better year in 2025 for lead times and everything else?

Suresh Narayanan (18:49)

think you'll have a better year. I think we're on the right track, either as an MRO or new supply chain, new manufacturing. Our company specifically, we acquired a component repair station based in South Florida this year that did lot of commercial EASA repairs. They do lot of fabrication for the sole purpose of, one, protecting our Dallas business jet maintenance supply chain. So if they run into an issue, we have a repair shop now that can support them through various fabrications and repairs.

But two, industry just needs more part component solutions. And so our Miami component repair shop, what makes it unique is it has its own internal engineering, so they can approve alternate materials, fabrication of parts during repair, which are alternate solutions to just when is the manufacturer gonna make enough of these replacement parts and put them on the shelf? I don't think that is gonna happen, but I do think people are gonna get.

smart and hopefully keep investing like we are in alternate solutions. So can the part be repaired? Can we make the part? Can we use engineering to certify an alternate part number? There's a lot of alternate solutions that aren't leveraged enough by operators and they're starting to be forced to go, okay, I can't find this exact part number. What do I do? Well, can we modify something? Can we use an alternate part number? Can we use FAA approved engineering? I think that's going to be the push that people have to rely on. And so I'm glad that we're already there.

Jessie Naor (19:54)

Mm.

Suresh Narayanan (20:09)

Cause we'll have folks call us and go, Hey, the manual says we have to use this dash number for this part here. I'm like, well, here, give us the part that's broken. And basically we go through a fabrication process. We're fabricating new details and go into the assembly and get certified and go on the aircraft. And if we don't do that, waiting for a new part was like years. Just think about it years aircraft would sit. And so I think MROs that have engineering and computer repair capabilities like we do are going to have a leg up. Cause I don't think.

Jessie Naor (20:28)

Mm-hmm.

Suresh Narayanan (20:38)

brand new part manufacturer just going to catch up. think that's still, they're getting better, but they're not just going to be a bunch of new replacement parts. People can just R and R off the shelf when they need something. They're going to have to lean on repairs and alternate engineering driven solutions. And they're all, they're all certified. They're all legal. They're great solutions. I would put them on any airplane I fly. I think people just don't know about them. And the easy, but is just replace the part and you know, going, going back to be reluctant to change.

Jessie Naor (20:42)

Mm-hmm.

Suresh Narayanan (21:04)

it's going to take a lot of folks to be open minded to alternate solutions or their planes are going to sit and then you're not adding any new value that any other operator has unless you are open minded to all other solutions. So I think that's going be the push in 2025.

Jessie Naor (21:15)

Yeah.

Well, and that's something that, especially as we see more fleet operators, more people with larger scale fleets, start to understand those different things that they can employ. I think historically in the past, fleet operators have had 40 different aircraft types. They can't go through and figure out the engineering for each type. But as you have 20 in your fleet, okay, this is worth the investment and time to figure out a way around this. Because was, Ken Ricci spoke at Corporate Jet Investor a couple months ago, and he mentioned,

this is what manufacturers are doing. They're outsourcing the engineering and the parts, and then there's one person who gets to produce that part. we don't have the flexibility. I think the airlines have more flexibility in those aspects where they just have more scale and spend the time and money on it. But that's a reality, and I don't think that's going to change. So like you're saying, we're going to have to come together. Maybe consortiums of certain types of aircraft operators can go in together on certain parts and component repairs, but...

Yeah, I don't think that that part is ever going to go away because the manufacturers have just decided to outsource.

Suresh Narayanan (22:17)

Well, here's some free advice for anyone. Anyone listening is they should leverage MROs more because they have the solution. So MROs like our component repair station, or there's a lot of others that aren't Jets MRO. If you ask them, especially if they have engineering resources, they can write repairs for components. What I tell folks, I go, it costs you nothing. If a part breaks, like we fix metal components in our South Florida component repair station. Send us the part, we'll charge you nothing. And we don't need to have the OEMs approval to repair it, but we'll see if we can figure out a certifiable repair.

Jessie Naor (22:20)

Thank

Suresh Narayanan (22:46)

And that costs you nothing. The alternate is just waiting for the manufacturer. think the free advice is look for local MROs that have engineering and capabilities to fabricate, obviously good reputation and quality systems, and ask them how they would fix it to see if you can get a solution developed as you need to pair an issue. Instead of waiting for some mass PMA part or something on the shelf, that's not going to happen. That's the easy answer that everyone wants, is I don't want to look for the part number when I order it. You're not going to get that.

people managing repairs or aircraft fleets are gonna have to leverage MRO partnerships and say, you know, before I throw this part away, let me just see if someone can save it. And if you don't get the answer you like, well, you're still back to square one anyway, so you have nothing to lose. But I think people don't leverage that opportunity at all. And a lot of them do free evals just like us.

Jessie Naor (23:28)

Thank

Yeah, well a lot of times it's just, it's an aircraft owner is calling his mechanics, they get it repaired and he's like, just figure it out. And they're this, a single man operation or woman operation where, know, like they don't have the time to explore all that all the ways. But no, interesting, interesting advice. Definitely good free advice for everyone out there. It doesn't hurt to talk to people and to ask questions. So don't assume.

Suresh Narayanan (23:39)

They don't know, yeah.

There's a,

the FAA website has a part 145 listing. And yeah, there's a lot of big MROs that do maintenance, but on that listing, there's hundreds in every state, hundreds and thousands of little MRO component repair stations. You'll be surprised what's out there. And sure, it's hard because like if you're a one person shop, I don't know this component who's good at it. But if you go on the FAA resources, you can search stuff and there's some other new resources, Google one of them.

Jessie Naor (24:11)

Thank

Suresh Narayanan (24:22)

you can find these shops out there and you'll be surprised how many there are out there that have the abilities to do just like what we can do in South Florida, but there's a lot of them in every state and they're just not leveraged as much, but they're also hard to get to.

Jessie Naor (24:31)

Yeah.

Yeah, well, here we go. Creative solutions. We'll find a way. Well, speaking of people that have been in business for a long time, I was a little sad to see this story. It's becoming a common theme, unfortunately. But there's more national parks that are no longer allowing air tours. It's due to the Air Tour Management Plan that's a collaborative program between

the National Park Service and the Federal Aviation Administration, but they just prohibited air tours in Canyon De Chelly I don't know if I'm saying it right, National Monument in Arizona. It is over tribal lands, so there's been this back and forth on, they deserve to have serenity in this space and it's beautiful, which I understand, but at the same time, there was an interview with the guy there who's been doing tours in the area for 50 years and now his business is closing.

That's Bruce Adams of Southwest Safari. So not a surprise, but unfortunately becoming a more more common trend that these areas are no longer accessible by air.

Suresh Narayanan (25:30)

Yeah, so you're teaching me about this topic, but I didn't know such a big issue until we kind of started talking. And it is sad to see, again, I hate to see our industry take steps back or cut things out. You most industries are looking at how to progress and grow. And so when I see this or EVTOL or anything, I take those as a step back. I'm like, great, we're doing less as an industry. And so it is sad to see that we don't find alternate solution or different ways to make it work.

I remember growing up, I went with my parents to Hawaii and we took a helicopter over volcanoes. I still remember that. I was probably 10 or 9 years old. Getting exposed to the world's beauty through aviation should be promoted. If there isn't a way that folks have an issue with right now, then what does that solution look like? But taking it away completely isn't a solution. It's just basically saying we don't want to deal with it. I think aviation is, again, not being progressive when they do things like that.

Jessie Naor (26:25)

Well, and you know, let's think about good ways to do it. Let's limit the times. Let's limit the number, you know, but make it accessible. And there was a comment on one of these websites that I saw and actually it was a great point. You know, some people say, you can go hike and see this monument. There are people with disabilities that can't hike, you know, so they will never see that place. But aviation is wondrous and amazing and something that, you know, really has.

Suresh Narayanan (26:48)

I wanna fly, I don't wanna be on my feet. I wanna be up in the

air. Being up in the air too is its own experience, right? And so I don't have to be looking at anything, just being up in the air is just awesome. And so that's a different level of experience. so again, it's been part of a lot of people's lives for such a long time. To see it get cut is, it's just sad. And so it'd be better if people thought about how do we make this work, maybe adding restrictions, but not taking it away completely.

Jessie Naor (26:55)

Right, right.

Suresh Narayanan (27:18)

I would love for more people to get exposed. That's a good way to expose people to aviation in general. You know, it's a one-time event that people can afford versus like trying to pursue a pilot career or fly privately and you don't want to lose these little things that get people and keep people connected to aviation. It's not going to be good for us long term.

Jessie Naor (27:25)

Mm-hmm.

It's also really good for training. mean, a lot of helicopter pilots, they get their hours from doing tours, know, New York City, Grand Canyon. So that's also gonna constrain the pipeline even further, especially on helicopter side. But yeah, I mean, we talked about the EVTOLs are coming, but what if there's no cool places for them to fly over anymore? That would be a bummer. yeah, unfortunately, this is way of the world. People don't like airplane noise and helicopter noise, and I think they're often the target of a lot of anger.

Suresh Narayanan (28:01)

We need to get those people in the airplane or helicopter and they'll think it's awesome.

Jessie Naor (28:05)

That's right. That's right. We do. When I hear airplane noise, I'm like, you know, staring at the sky and enjoying it. You know, it's like we got to just inspire more excitement.

Suresh Narayanan (28:13)

I guess we're different because I actually enjoy this smell of Jet A

Jessie Naor (28:17)

Yeah, I did

well so my husband's helicopter pilot and he used to do some of the organ transplant missions and Yeah, but but it was the funniest thing always, he'd be out in the middle of night You know But as soon as he got back into the bed like you three four o'clock in the morning with missions over he smelled like jet fuel So I just like associate that with I'm coming home. It's like a messed up brain association, but jet fuel. It's the smell of love

Suresh Narayanan (28:24)

Yeah, well that's crazy, yeah.

Nice, like that.

Jessie Naor (28:45)

All right, so our last story of the day. You may not be able to comment on everything. So for those who don't know, Suresh was a former executive at JetSuite. And we've now heard, this is just a rumor online, that Alex Wilcox, the founder and CEO of JetSuite/JSX, is on the short list for potential FAA administrator. I think if nothing else, this does show some sort of connection in the White House, and I'm wondering what this is gonna do to the...

the air carrier battles that have been going on between the main lines versus Jet Suites model. So I'll let you lead with what you wanna share with us or what you can't share with us.

Suresh Narayanan (29:22)

Well, I stay out of the political side of aviation. You know, I work in the regulation certification side, so I'm kind of like, you know, whatever cards are dealt regulatory wise, I play within those rules, right? I try to avoid the world should be like this, and I'm trying to change the world of regulation. I think overall, any change is progressive for the FAA is going to help. You know, what I see as a customer of the FAA is they need help, they need more resources. You everything takes longer than it needs to take.

There hasn't been one FAA person I've worked with that's never been that hasn't been short-staffed. That's a problem. And so I look at that as a business that has customers and supposed to protect public safety. And I go what they're doing, they're doing the best they can. And I really appreciate and respect the people at the FAA. But as there's more like 135 private biz jets growing, commercials growing.

Like we got to get them more help. It's almost like trying to manufacture a certain amount of aircraft with half the staff you need. We always hear, we're not staffed enough, we're not staffed enough. I'm like, great, you know the problem, what are we doing to fix it? And so I'm excited to see, you know, anything that helps change them. And I think they need consistency too. They've had a lot of changes, short lived changes there and a lot of great ideas. I'm like, great, you know, what is actually changing that goes downstream? Did we increase funding that increased?

Jessie Naor (30:17)

Yeah.

Suresh Narayanan (30:42)

people, what's our headcount, what's the issue with tower personnel? That's been a conversation for years. Is it fixed or are we just talking about what should be fixed? And so I hear a lot about what the problems are and the gaps are, and I'm like, what are we going to do to help fix it? I'm on the maintenance certification side. We are getting our new facility certified and look, we'll do it faster than anyone else, but it's still a process.

Our South Florida company has already been certified for six years, but sometimes it makes it easier to acquire a business that's already certified than apply for a new certification because of the time and politics behind how long it takes. I would love for that to change because I think if it's easier to navigate with the FAA and they have the right resources and support, and I'm a big fan of trying to help them, I think the entrepreneur world can step in to bring different solutions and support the industry much better.

But when I like I have investors in my business, you know, the biggest topic when I advise on big mergers and acquisitions and or we're pursuing ourselves is various entry and regulation certifications, a huge one, not because it's hard to understand. mean, you've got to have expertise in it, but because it's so the time and the subjectivity to it is just so antiquated that people just go, nevermind. Like, know great, I'm in it. So there's a barrier to entry. So I'm happy, but that's not the way I want to limit people coming in. I would love for more entrepreneurs to be able to enter aviation and get

more FAA support to navigate it, because then it pushes people like me or any other business leader to have more competitors and to be progressive. And I want to be pushed to be better. Not say I can keep a lot of people out of my subspace because of regulation. I rather say bring them all in the right way. Let's give them the support to all take stabs at different takes of whether it's MRO or how you run a 135. Bring different flavors into it.

I welcome that challenge. I think it'll make us better entrepreneurs and then help the industry. Whereas most, when I see investor meetings, like, we have great barriers to entry because you can't just step into the ring because of regulation. That's not a good thing.

Jessie Naor (32:42)

Yeah, and I have an idea on how to solve this. I wrote an article last year about the designee system. this is, as long as it's done right and people are trained properly, I think there is a huge opportunity to leverage the designee system. What we do now is basically the FAA can't charge for services. You know, they have to provide what they provide, designees can, but you know, it's kind of a limited pool of designees at the moment. Not everybody can be a designee.

But there is an FAA comment period that I think is open now about this and saying, okay, what kinds of roles could designees do? How can we train a lot of designees to do some task of the FAA, you know, really specific, well-controlled safety processes, but done by third parties that you can pay? You know, that's a way to open up the flow of people doing this work.

But what we have today is a very, very small number of designees. Like if you want to get an engineering certification overseas, there's like one person in an entire region that's allowed to do it. So I would love to see that get opened up wide. doesn't cost the FAA, well, beyond training the people, it doesn't cost the FAA that much more and it helps give them more robust support to get things done. But I understand that could come with some risk as well on the safety side, so we have to be careful.

Suresh Narayanan (33:59)

I love that. wish there were more designees. So one of my previous jobs, you know, we grew a business with my brother called AQRD. That's still running and flourishing. And we use a lot of DERs, engineering representatives, to basically as private citizens, you know, approve data and or run the process. thing with, but they're important. They're important. And especially, you know, you think about alternate solutions where there's not a solution or a repair. Like you want to look at and make sure it meets regulations right away. So I respect.

Jessie Naor (34:15)

They're expensive, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah.

Suresh Narayanan (34:28)

the level of scrutiny to become a designee, whether it's D-A-R, D-E-R, but I think there needs to be more of those. How do we promote more people to get through that process? Because you still have to go through the FAA. So like me applying for a new cert as a business or someone going through a designee process, it's still a process that, you know, we're kind of told be ready for a multi-year wait. And that's hard to do just to get through the process, even though you may be ready for it. Like for us, certification wise,

If you spent two days in our organization, we could get certified in two days. Like we meet the requirements, we're that sharp, we've done it before, but the process due to time and resources and everything takes year plus. There's some companies that have been waiting three years for their part 145 certification. I go, that's a huge incentive not to do stuff. I'm like, that's not good for the industry or business. So any extra support or any advocation for the FAA I'm a big fan of, I've just been hearing about it and I hope to see it evolve better.

Jessie Naor (35:00)

Right.

Yeah, well, for those who listening, the comment period is open. I would definitely recommend you mention it. I mean, this could benefit so many different parts of the industry. 135 has the same problem. You know, getting a certificate from 135 is taking years to do at this point. There's a lot of tasks I think we could be outsourcing out there and it just isn't happening. And I don't know why. But if you talk to Alex and he ends up being the administrator, tell him to take a look at the outsourcing designees, if you would.

Suresh Narayanan (35:50)

I think that will grow. Again, that's one of the political space. I don't know a lot about how to get stuff done at that level, but I'm hoping to be, I hope our industry gets more entrepreneurial friendly and to do that, you've got to lower those barriers to entry. Because again, keeping people out isn't good for the industry. Keeping smart entrepreneurs out that could change how we do things for the better is not the best way to regulate safety. Just, I mean, if you want to be the safest, nobody fly and nobody leave your house.

Jessie Naor (35:54)

I'm going to.

Mm-hmm.

Suresh Narayanan (36:19)

And that's sometimes a feeling I get when they're like, you can't do things. And I'm like, well, someone's got to figure this out. And so, you know, for us, like me, I don't take no for an answer. And I go, look, there's a way to do it the right way. And that's how we're going to do it. But I'm not going to accept barriers to entry. We're going to, we're going to punch them down. And, and, you know, if you're standing in my way, we're going get through them too. And I think that's more the entrepreneurial spirit, but it takes a lot of effort. And I think if I didn't grow up in this industry,

Jessie Naor (36:38)

You

Suresh Narayanan (36:46)

you know, with my older brother who knows regulation certification, well, we grew a business, you know, successfully together. My dad was in this business, but I have so much passion for aviation. I mean, and most entrepreneurs don't have the growth, you know, the upbringing I did. I could see them going, it's not worth going down this path. And I get a lot of like business school entrepreneurs that call me going, Hey, I'm looking at buying this business. There's a lot of M&A activity in aviation. but I've never done it on aviation. I want to learn it.

And it's hard, I'm like, want you in the industry. I want you to buy a business, an old business that hasn't changed in 20 years and grow it and be my next competitor. It's good for me. But it's hard because when they look at it, they go, nevermind, know, the transfer certificate takes two years. I'll just go buy an auto store. I can do that tomorrow. And I'm like, man, we're killing ourselves. We're losing like good players who should be in our industry because they'd rather play a different sport. And that's not, that's not good for any of us.

Jessie Naor (37:15)

Thank

Yeah.

Yeah, well, whoever it's going to be, I hope they are a business minded person and take all that in mind and hopefully we get just we don't. I am not advocating for less regulation. I don't think that that's a problem. I think it's just the lack of ability to get through the processes efficiently, you know, fine playing by the rules, but just let's speed up the enforcement and the processing and everything else. That's the real bottleneck.

Suresh Narayanan (37:57)

It's like

double the FAA staff. I mean, can you imagine an FAA team that has enough resources so it's not always, we don't have enough time for this. They're looking at drones now and the resources are getting pulled out of normal certification for drone support. I'm like, imagine a business or the FAA regulatory agency that has a staff they need. I don't think it'll ever be boring, but imagine if it wasn't so stressful. And it wasn't like, oh, this is going to be delayed, delayed, delayed. Cause I'm like, great.

That's the perception of the whole organization. Imagine if it was like, this goes fast or just go through the FAA or they're an awesome resource or let's ask them. People, people goes, Hey, what do think the FAA would say to this? I'm like, wouldn't it be awesome if I could actually ask them and get an answer back? But how about we do the research, figure it out ourselves because asking questions can delay your overall process. So it's hard. It's hard to leverage them the way we should be, um, as private, you know, private citizens or private business leaders, but we should be able to be awesome if we could get there.

Jessie Naor (38:57)

Yeah, for sure. Well, with that, we're going to wrap up the pod today. We like to keep everything short and sweet for your morning commute. The VIP seat is the best way to get your top news in aviation fast. We also have a newsletter that's all of our topics, three sentences or less, quick information so you've got what you need for the week. any comments or suggestions are welcome, and we'll see you next time on the VIP seat.