As we wait for the dust to settle after the recent final approval of the merger between Satcom Direct and Gogo, we at Pro Star have just celebrated an important anniversary. We will absolutely follow-up with thoughts of the final approval of the merger with some in-depth thoughts. In the meantime, however, I would like to commemorate the first anniversary of our authorization to be a Dassault FalconJet service center.

While Pro Star has always worked on Falcons for the entirety of our existence, it was mostly related to avionics upgrades and some light engine maintenance. This remained until last Fall, when we were officially approved as an Authorized Service Center (ASC) in the Northeast U.S. for Dassault Aviation. This month in particular, though, marks the one-year anniversary for us as an authorized ASC.

Looking back on this past year, our growth has been steady and predictable, but not overwhelming. In Q1, we had very little scheduled maintenance. Despite that, the first quarter was also filled with a fair bit of unscheduled maintenance and a significant number of AOG events. We were able to respond to these unplanned events to provide warranty or AOG support when it was unlikely that Dassault would have been responded to without us. In this way, not only have we found extra business through this arrangement, but FalconJet can also assure that their brand is not left to seek support outside of the service center network.

By Q4 this year, the amount of scheduled maintenance we’ve done has risen significantly, with lots of maintenance work already being scheduled into next year. This includes maintenance on all aircraft that we are certified for: 2000, the 7X, and the 8X. We have maintained this by putting a lot of money into personnel training and custom tooling into the FalconJet product line. We are also actively finishing the requirements to add the 900 and 6X to our Service Center capabilities. With all of this in consideration, it is likely that we will soon be certified to be an ASC for the entire active FalconJet product line, with the exception of the 10X.

To ensure that we can keep up with the workload, this year has seen expansion in our facilities, both here in Manchester and our facilities outside of NH. This is something I discussed in more detail in September’s blog. This expansion will allow us to provide additional square footage availability for the FalconJet brand, which will be strictly supported in Manchester. Support for our other OEMs like Pilatus will be focused on our facilities outside of Manchester, which will enable growth in that realm as well. Twenty years ago, during the infancy of Pro Star, I would have never suspected that we would be doing such a significant amount of FalconJet maintenance, let alone be an authorized service center for them. From that perspective, it is staggering to see the growth that we have undergone to get here. But that progress has allowed us to be multi-faceted, and to meet the needs of brands like FalconJet. The fact that we’re well known for both aircraft upgrades, as well as maintenance, is something that has allowed us to be a good fit with FalconJet. This past year, we have really started to explore that. With 2025 right around the corner, it will be an exciting year to see how this relationship, and Pro Star, will continue to grow.