Close up: A visit to Bombardier’s Hartford Service Centre

Why should you bring your aircraft home to a Bombardier Service Centre? In this ongoing series, we connect with our service centre general managers to find out what they do best and how their teams take customer service to a whole new level.  

Here, we speak with Bryan Bell, General Manager of Bombardier’s Hartford Service Centre in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. 

Please tell us a bit about your service centre. 

Hartford was opened in 1979 by Canadair and became a flagship service facility for the Challenger aircraft line. Bombardier purchased Canadair in 1986 and continued with the Challenger program, subsequently acquiring Learjet in 1990. This facility and a few others added Learjet services at that time. In 2002, we added our Global aircraft hangar and we now service Bombardier’s entire aircraft family, up to the Bombardier Global 7500, and soon the Bombardier Global 8000.  

How do you offer Bombardier customers a state-of-the-art experience? 

We’re the OEM, so we have the latest and greatest data, knowledge and parts support, along with access to service bulletins and modifications. At Hartford, we have 173 maintenance technicians working on the floor, with a broad range of expertise – and they are second to none. They work hard, they know their stuff and they love what they do. It’s more than a job for them; they care about every aircraft and treat it like their own.  

How many people work at the centre and what do they bring to the table in terms of customer experience?  

We have 220 people on our Hartford team. When you walk in our door, you get a friendly greeting from our front desk staff. I get tons of compliments on our customer service folks. They bend over backwards to help customers with rental cars, shuttles or any other needs.  

Is there something your service centre is known for doing especially well? 

If I was to put it all together into one sentence, it’s the customer-oriented mentality. Our customer project managers, leads and ops managers are very approachable.  

How do you make things easy for customers?  

We have a shuttle service and rental car capabilities. We also have customer offices in the Challenger and Global hangars. Clients can come in and work onsite and can be there for any maintenance questions that might come up. They have easy access to their aircraft and the crew that is working on it. Hartford also has a Mobile Response Team (MRT) that travels throughout the area, usually within an eight-hour drive, so they can help customers in places like Teterboro, N.J. We have the MyService App, which is currently in use and undergoing enhancements, and it’s very helpful. Customers using the app can see exactly what’s going on with their plane. 

Are you working on any future improvements that you can share? 

 We have the best technicians in the industry, but we want to hire more to further streamline the customer service experience. As we recruit more technicians – probably about 20 over the next year – we’ll be in a better position to offer additional spaces for more aircraft. As well, we are performing the 7,500 Landing inspection on the Bombardier Challenger 300 aircraft. This is a major inspection that sees the aircraft completely dismantled – no engines, no landing gear, no winglets, no interior – and checked from nose to tail. Again, since we are the OEM, we have all the engineering resources on hand. I highly recommend that owners consider any other concurrent work when they have this inspection done – for example, sending the landing gear for inspection at the same time. This is the opportunity to prevent future downtime. Hartford has always been known as the flagship service centre for Challengers. I think that when you bring your airplane home, you’ll find out you made the right choice. We are hyper-focused on quality, safety, and on-time deliveries.  

What do customers say about your service centre? 

They always highlight our communication about the job, our knowledge of the aircraft, and our customer orientation. I get a lot of compliments from customers that no matter who they ask, people are happy to help. That speaks to the quality of our entire team. A good example is our Customer Project Managers, who keep customers apprised of what’s happening. They not only do customer interface, but vendor and technician interface, and keep track of parts, too. They do an amazing job. 

Planning to be in the Hartford area? Visit Bryan Bell and the friendly team at Bombardier’s Hartford Service Centre.