JSSI Advocates for Business Aviation With Free No Plane No Gain Materials

February 17, 2012

Last month, Lou Seno, Chairman and CEO of Jet Support Services Inc., (JSSI^®), ordered more than 150 copies of the NBAA Business Aviation Fact Book and the just-issued NBAA pocket brochure on business flying, featuring No Plane No Gain advocacy campaign spokesperson Warren Buffet.

When the advocacy documents arrived at the firm’s Chicago headquarters, Seno made sure each of JSSI’s 120 employees had their own hard copies.

Seno has long advocated wider distribution of materials detailing the facts about business aviation, and its central role for citizens, companies and communities across the U.S. “It’s important that our people get behind the industry. They do, and they’re embracing it. They get it. They realize it’s about jobs and their livelihood is based on it.”

Both NBAA Business Aviation Fact Book and the brochure are among the 20+ publications, videos and reference materials available free under the “Resources” tab on the home page for the No Plane No Gain website, or in the NBAA Publications Store. Also free are limited quantities of the popular No Plane No Gain advocacy lapel pins (pictured above).

JSSI is now also including the Fact Book in materials presented to each new employee during orientation, a suggestion of JSSI Director of Human Resources Frank Hattula. JSSI is the world’s largest independent provider of hourly cost-maintenance programs for aircraft engines and airframes and boasts an unprecedented 97-percent client renewal rate.

Seno also conducts quarterly update meetings for all JSSI employees, keeping them abreast of critical information on business aviation, company results and stressing the need for correcting the public misconceptions about the industry. “Goodness knows, public ignorance is so widespread that every employee of every business aviation company should be equipped to spread the truth,” he said.

The JSSI president said he has received numerous emails from employees since distributing the NBAA materials, some expressing surprise at what they learned. One employee said she had no idea that only about three percent of all business aircraft are flown by Fortune 500 companies, with the remainder flown by a broad cross-section of organizations large, medium and small.

“It’s important that people understand the truth,” said George Kleros, VP Technical Operations for JSSI. “Armed with the facts, employees like ours can effectively refute one-on-one the inaccurate media stories about corporate fat cats and widespread misuse of business airplanes.”

He added that those employed in business aviation are much more credible than faceless TV, radio or newspaper reports denigrating business aviation. “When someone at a party bad-mouths business flying, a JSSI employee there can now give them the facts in an authoritative, believable way. I think every company involved with business flying should make best use of these free NBAA resources.”

Distributing free NBAA materials to employees is not the only advocacy effort recently undertaken by JSSI. Seno said in the last year the company’s efforts to spread the No Plane No Gain message won favorable comment in the USA Today newspaper and the London Financial Times. Seno also appeared in a CNBC interview on the value of business flying, and has a regular aviation blog as part of Forbes.com. “And we’ll continue pushing the No Plane No Gain message in future blogs, too,” he said.

NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen applauded JSSI’s efforts to educate their employees as part of a strategy to advocate for business aviation on the grass roots level. “NBAA has free materials to help every Member company do what JSSI is doing,” he said. “Especially in these turbulent times, all of us need to continue working to put forward the true face of business aviation.”

The No Plane No Gain campaign, a joint undertaking of NBAA and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, educates policymakers and opinion leaders on the importance of business aviation in supporting jobs, helping companies of all sizes succeed, connecting towns and communities and supporting humanitarian initiatives.