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Earlier
this year Boeing was pleased to conduct an all-operator symposium
in Seattle. Attendance totaled more than 500 people, representing
170 airlines and other operators. I hope your flight operations
personnel were among those able to attend. This was our first joint
flight operations symposium, involving Boeing people from both our
Long Beach and Seattle locations. We plan to make all such future
gatherings a joint event, providing you with an ongoing means to
communicate, face-to-face, with the people who support the merged
product line.
Your feedback indicated that the meeting was a great success. For
example, you liked how technical, operations, standards, and training
personnel from airlines and Boeing presented information about our
airplanes and conducted a formal dialogue on each current-production
model. According to the comments we heard, you found these exchanges
to be a valuable opportunity to meet with peers and discuss items
of mutual interest.
Because we continuously work to improve our support to you, whether
it is related to current issues or those you anticipate facing in
the future, we asked you how we might make our symposiums more valuable.
You asked us to include more specific technical information on each
model. As a result, our targets for the next joint symposium will
include presentations on technical issues and working groups to
address specific model issues.
In the meantime, though, Boeing Flight Technical Services (FTS)
will continue to support you with operations manuals and checklists,
Airplane Flight Manuals, performance data and software, Minimum
Equipment List/Dispatch Deviation Guide information, and simulator
data. Boeing is also developing new products and services for expanded
future support. A few examples are
- FTS Online,
which provides you with 24-hour access to operational information,
software, and documents (request an account by sending e-mail
to flightops.engineering@boeing.com).
- The Procedural
Event Analysis Tool (PEAT), which Boeing is introducing at airlines
to help them investigate incidents and develop measures to prevent
similar events in the future (see "The
Role of Human Factors in Improving Aviation Safety").
- Customized
publishing, which meets your unique requirements outside of our
existing document content and format offerings.
We believe the key to our success is listening to you and then
meeting your requirements. Our support engineers are frequently
on the road to visit you and understand your concerns. We are committed
to keeping your airplanes flying safely and efficiently, whether
the issue you face is operational, technical, or training related.
In addition to our documents and support, we also coordinate with
FlightSafety Boeing Training International to develop and deliver
flight and maintenance training courses. As we mentioned in the
symposium, we always welcome your feedback on how we are doing in
these areas.
You’ve told us that we must also recognize your needs for specialized
support in areas such as extended-range twin-engine operations (ETOPS)
and dispatch. We are available to assist you 24 hours a day, either
through our Technical Support Desk for Douglas-designed airplanes
or Rapid Response Center for Boeing-designed airplanes (see the
Boeing Field Service page).
Until we see you at a future symposium, please stay in close contact.
We look forward to our next opportunity to help you.
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