What specifically are you looking to improve with your maintenance program? At your level there may be other options available other than having a 3rd party manage your maintenance requirements.Our flying club of 3 single engine aircraft is looking to improve our maintenance program
Finding a timely mechanic has become an increasingly difficult task especially in certain locations. One option that has worked for me in helping owners out is to expand the service area when looking for a mechanic or shop. Since you now manage the mx requirements and you'd be willing to pay $$ for a 3rd party perhaps instead offer pay a "retainer" to one of those distant shops to include a timely service agreement? Good luck.Right now, availability and timeliness.
As the pool of mechanics decreases, the planning will have to be very sharp indeed to keep flight school airplanes flying. It tends to weed out the small flight schools who have to contract for maintenance, in favor of the larger schools that can justify full-time maintenance staff.I used Savvy for two years. They weren't much help at all. And they sure won't do anything to help with availability and timeliness.
Savvy looks like it’s primarily oriented toward private owners who aren’t hands-on with maintenance and don’t have the time, or the inclination, to learn it. With everything out there online - articles, forums like this one, and social media groups - you can get a great deal of the knowledge side of ownership and managing maintenance. I know a few pilots who really know almost nothing about what’s under the hood, and if something isn’t running just right, they just take it to their A&P and basically say “call me when it’s ready”. They never research and order parts themselves, don’t understand the procedures and thus don’t know understand the time some things take, and often don’t even know what actually is required (SB vs AD for example).
I think for guys like that, Savvy could be a benefit. For the guys who grok ownership, they can pretty much handle being their own director of maintenance and do better overall than subbing it out.
This will be a driving force for the maintenance side especially over the next year or two. While there's been a slow but steady decline in experienced mechanic numbers over the past years, next year may see a marked increase in the decline due to retirements from what I've seen and heard. I think intially the decline will be at the regional 135/145 levels however the resulting open slots will provide an opportunity for current Part 91 mechanics to move into those slots and remain in the same area leaving more private GA owners underserved.two are over 60 and are retiring soon
Savvy has been good at finding a shop for an AOG problem, or a prebuy across the country. But I wouldn’t use them for day to day management unless I truly didn’t have time or interest in anything maintenance wise. Even then, if you identify a shop to work with long term, you would probably get just as much if not more maintenance management advice from the shop as from Savvy.