Following military service, Pat 'the Patman' Hall began his aviation career at a Beechcraft airliner refurbishment station and later served as a worldwide turbine engine rep for Pratt and Whitney small airliner engines. He has spent the past 15 years in the air charter industry, with personal experience on a variety of corporate aircraft including Beechcraft, Hawker, Lear, Westwind, Citation, and Gulfstream.

The Patman is also an avid motorcyclist, who spends his off duty hours adventure-touring and as a photojournalist for an international motorcycle magazine and believes in providing “sound maintenance with common sense.”

How important is the maintenance department to Business Air?

"Well Terry, it’s absolutely essential, from a couple of points of view.

First of course, is that our dedicated maintenance staff here at Business Air allows us to see and touch these aircraft every day. From simple pre-flight checks to major periodic inspections, over time we have come to know every nut and bolt on this equipment, and believe it or not, each aircraft even has a “personality’, and we know that too. So, in
order to keep the aircraft in top notch condition, having intimate knowledge of the equipment is key to speed and accuracy in troubleshooting and making necessary repairs. We’ve found that this type of dedication and attention to the aircraft isn’t always there when using an outside source for fleet maintenance.

"Second, is obviously business related. Performing maintenance here in a controlled environment not only allows us to ensure the quality of our maintenance due to this knowledge of the equipment, but our in-house capabilities, parts procurement, and quality oversight allow us to keep the maintenance budget in line. And since maintenance costs are a large part of aircraft operational costs, keeping that under control allows us to offer safe and reliable aircraft at a very competitive price point to our flying clientele.

Business Air's FBO at Denton Enterprise Airport (DTO)

Is the department able to deal with any problems that occur?

"For the most part, yes. Business Air’s Air Carrier Certificate mandates that we are completely responsible for, and in control of, all maintenance actions on the fleet aircraft. We have full in-house maintenance facilities and staffing, to include departments for Maintenance Scheduling, Parts and supplies, Inspection, Document Control, Line Maintenance and of course Quality Control. That being said, certainly there are some items that are better left to specialists. For instance, like most operators our size, we are capable of removing and installing any of our jets turbine engines. But also like the majority of operators, we have programs available to have the engine manufacturer do the actual overhaul, thus ensuring the absolute best quality of parts and service for that engine. Likewise, we have relationships with avionics shops, paint and interior shops, and other specialists who we call on to ensure the best quality product from any maintenance action. After all, aircraft technicians aren’t always great at sewing together leather seat cushions!

Are you looking to expand the department?

"I think any maintenance manager would answer “yes” to that question. Maintenance guys love tools and equipment. So we will always jump at any chance we can get to expand our capabilities with new facilities (shop areas) and equipment. In fact, we have recently put in all new LED lighting and beautiful new painted floors in our Denton shop, and are right now in the planning stages of building a new 22,000 square foot maintenance and storage hangar also at our base in Denton Texas.

Additionally, we are expanding into new territories with aircraft based in Seattle, Longview, Fort Worth, here in Denton, and in the coming weeks, San Antonio.

Personnel requirements on the other hand seem to come along as new aircraft are acquired. As we expand our fleet, perhaps adding two or more aircraft per year, we will always need to adjust our staffing to ensure complete maintenance coverage of the new fleet. Recently we have added a dedicated Manager of Quality Control and Safety Management here in Denton, as well as a new Lead Technician in our Seattle office. As time goes on there is no doubt in my mind that Business Air as a maintenance department and as a company will continue to grow.

Business Air's Vice President of Operations and Director of Maintenance, Pat Hall, believes in providing “sound maintenance with common sense.”

Do you have spare maintenance capacity for other operators?

"Right now our maintenance department is completely dedicated to the aircraft in our charter fleet, and unlike a retail maintenance shop we don’t normally advertise our technicians as “for hire”. But having said that, we are certainly members of the tightly knit aviation community, and as others have helped us while we’re on the road, we always do our best to help other transient operators when they may need help at one of our bases."