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DG response re service fee



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 29th 09, 12:05 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Mike Yankee
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 7
Default DG response re service fee

I e-mailed Dr. Weber with some constructive suggestions and questions
regarding his proposed service fee policy, and am posting part of this
exchange because fellow DG and LS owners may be interested.

SUGGESTION: To the extent that service fees are really necessary, why
not add some reasonable amount to support services, parts, manual
revisions, etc. as they are ordered and needed?

REPLY: "Many additional information are available now and I really
like to ask you, to read the complete article carefully once more. I
am sure that then you will understand why this Service Agreement is
necessary to maintain our Type Support and keep the gliders flying."

SUGGESTION: At least give people a choice. I.e., if they elect to
pay 245 Euros a year up front, they enjoy your technical support for
free and some discount on parts; those who do not pay the annual fee
can be charged some nominal cost of $100 or so for a tech note or a
drawing, and will pay a higher price for parts -- but they will not be
shut out.

REPLY: "Many additional information are available now and I really
like to ask you, to read the complete article carefully once more. I
am sure that then you will understand why this Service Agreement is
necessary to maintain our Type Support and keep the gliders flying."

QUESTION: Suppose I choose not to pay the fee, continue flying my
DG-300 another five years, then sell it. Now what happens if the new
owner wants your technical support? Can he buy into the program?
And, if so, at what cost? Will he only pay the current year? Or will
you charge him also for five years I didn't pay? Will you make him
pay 1225 Euros just to order something simple like a tailwheel axle,
or get one "free" technical drawing?

REPLY: None.

  #2  
Old December 29th 09, 09:36 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 209
Default DG response re service fee

On Dec 28, 3:05*pm, Mike Yankee wrote:
I e-mailed Dr. Weber with some constructive suggestions and questions
regarding his proposed service fee policy, and am posting part of this
exchange because fellow DG and LS owners may be interested.

SUGGESTION: *To the extent that service fees are really necessary, why
not add some reasonable amount to support services, parts, manual
revisions, etc. as they are ordered and needed?

REPLY: *"Many additional information are available now and I really
like to ask you, to read the complete article carefully once more. *I
am sure that then you will understand why this Service Agreement is
necessary to maintain our Type Support and keep the gliders flying."

SUGGESTION: *At least give people a choice. *I.e., if they elect to
pay 245 Euros a year up front, they enjoy your technical support for
free and some discount on parts; those who do not pay the annual fee
can be charged some nominal cost of $100 or so for a tech note or a
drawing, and will pay a higher price for parts -- but they will not be
shut out.

REPLY: *"Many additional information are available now and I really
like to ask you, to read the complete article carefully once more. *I
am sure that then you will understand why this Service Agreement is
necessary to maintain our Type Support and keep the gliders flying."

QUESTION: Suppose I choose not to pay the fee, continue flying my
DG-300 another five years, then sell it. *Now what happens if the new
owner wants your technical support? *Can he buy into the program?
And, if so, at what cost? *Will he only pay the current year? *Or will
you charge him also for five years I didn't pay? *Will you make him
pay 1225 Euros just to order something simple like a tailwheel axle,
or get one "free" technical drawing?

REPLY: *None.


Looks like DG needs to roll over and die based on Webbers responses!!

Al
  #3  
Old December 29th 09, 03:04 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
jcarlyle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 522
Default DG response re service fee

John,

It looks like Herr Weber is hunkering down, and now just parroting
things he's already posted on his web site. I think he knows that he's
made a big mistake in how he's handled the issue, but is too arrogant
to admit it and doesn't know what to do mitigate the damage. Hopefully
he'll take some time off, think things through, and come back from the
holidays with a better approach.

-John

On Dec 28, 6:05 pm, Mike Yankee wrote:
I e-mailed Dr. Weber with some constructive suggestions and questions
regarding his proposed service fee policy, and am posting part of this
exchange because fellow DG and LS owners may be interested.

SUGGESTION: To the extent that service fees are really necessary, why
not add some reasonable amount to support services, parts, manual
revisions, etc. as they are ordered and needed?

REPLY: "Many additional information are available now and I really
like to ask you, to read the complete article carefully once more. I
am sure that then you will understand why this Service Agreement is
necessary to maintain our Type Support and keep the gliders flying."

SUGGESTION: At least give people a choice. I.e., if they elect to
pay 245 Euros a year up front, they enjoy your technical support for
free and some discount on parts; those who do not pay the annual fee
can be charged some nominal cost of $100 or so for a tech note or a
drawing, and will pay a higher price for parts -- but they will not be
shut out.

REPLY: "Many additional information are available now and I really
like to ask you, to read the complete article carefully once more. I
am sure that then you will understand why this Service Agreement is
necessary to maintain our Type Support and keep the gliders flying."

QUESTION: Suppose I choose not to pay the fee, continue flying my
DG-300 another five years, then sell it. Now what happens if the new
owner wants your technical support? Can he buy into the program?
And, if so, at what cost? Will he only pay the current year? Or will
you charge him also for five years I didn't pay? Will you make him
pay 1225 Euros just to order something simple like a tailwheel axle,
or get one "free" technical drawing?

REPLY: None.


  #4  
Old December 29th 09, 03:32 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
vontresc
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 216
Default DG response re service fee

On Dec 29, 8:04*am, jcarlyle wrote:
John,

It looks like Herr Weber is hunkering down, and now just parroting
things he's already posted on his web site. I think he knows that he's
made a big mistake in how he's handled the issue, but is too arrogant
to admit it and doesn't know what to do mitigate the damage. Hopefully
he'll take some time off, think things through, and come back from the
holidays with a better approach.

-John

On Dec 28, 6:05 pm, Mike Yankee wrote:



I e-mailed Dr. Weber with some constructive suggestions and questions
regarding his proposed service fee policy, and am posting part of this
exchange because fellow DG and LS owners may be interested.


SUGGESTION: *To the extent that service fees are really necessary, why
not add some reasonable amount to support services, parts, manual
revisions, etc. as they are ordered and needed?


REPLY: *"Many additional information are available now and I really
like to ask you, to read the complete article carefully once more. *I
am sure that then you will understand why this Service Agreement is
necessary to maintain our Type Support and keep the gliders flying."


SUGGESTION: *At least give people a choice. *I.e., if they elect to
pay 245 Euros a year up front, they enjoy your technical support for
free and some discount on parts; those who do not pay the annual fee
can be charged some nominal cost of $100 or so for a tech note or a
drawing, and will pay a higher price for parts -- but they will not be
shut out.


REPLY: *"Many additional information are available now and I really
like to ask you, to read the complete article carefully once more. *I
am sure that then you will understand why this Service Agreement is
necessary to maintain our Type Support and keep the gliders flying."


QUESTION: Suppose I choose not to pay the fee, continue flying my
DG-300 another five years, then sell it. *Now what happens if the new
owner wants your technical support? *Can he buy into the program?
And, if so, at what cost? *Will he only pay the current year? *Or will
you charge him also for five years I didn't pay? *Will you make him
pay 1225 Euros just to order something simple like a tailwheel axle,
or get one "free" technical drawing?


REPLY: *None.- Hide quoted text -


- Show quoted text -


Hmmm I wonder if Mr Weber considered the increased call volume that
this plan will cause. Now that you are forced to pay your 245euros
owners will want to get some value for your payment.

Pete - Happy Schleicher owner
  #5  
Old December 29th 09, 04:24 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Mike Yankee
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 7
Default DG response re service fee

Hmmm I wonder if Mr Weber considered the increased call volume that
this plan will cause. Now that you are forced to pay your 245euros
owners will want to get some value for your payment.


Unfortunately, yes. DG says they will track their costs and adjust
the fee as required. So it's an automatic money-maker for DG, until
they calculate the cost of ticking off and losing customers.

As to "forced to pay," no one is. Certainly I am not. Only if and
when the FAA says I must pay this stupid fee will I be forced.
(Anybody want to bet on the likelihood of that ever happening? In
fact, I would not be surprised if the FAA flatly told DG they cannot
withhold support to US operators on the basis DG is proposing.)

I said to Dr. Weber in my initial e-mail, "I don't want to see your
company go out of business, but neither do I wish to be blackmailed
with a gun to my head because you cannot otherwise control your
costs. And I am not alone in this opinion! Please do not sleep until
you find a FAIR solution. Otherwise, you will have no rest."

DG should scrap this BS plan and replace it with a simpler pay-as-you-
go.

  #6  
Old December 29th 09, 06:06 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Andy[_10_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 261
Default DG response re service fee

On Dec 29, 7:24*am, Mike Yankee wrote:
Hmmm I wonder if Mr Weber considered the increased call volume that
this plan will cause. Now that you are forced to pay your 245euros
owners will want to get some value for your payment.


Unfortunately, yes. *DG says they will track their costs and adjust
the fee as required. *So it's an automatic money-maker for DG, until
they calculate the cost of ticking off and losing customers.

As to "forced to pay," no one is. *Certainly I am not. *Only if and
when the FAA says I must pay this stupid fee will I be forced.
(Anybody want to bet on the likelihood of that ever happening? *In
fact, I would not be surprised if the FAA flatly told DG they cannot
withhold support to US operators on the basis DG is proposing.)

I said to Dr. Weber in my initial e-mail, "I don't want to see your
company go out of business, but neither do I wish to be blackmailed
with a gun to my head because you cannot otherwise control your
costs. *And I am not alone in this opinion! *Please do not sleep until
you find a FAIR solution. *Otherwise, you will have no rest."

DG should scrap this BS plan and replace it with a simpler pay-as-you-
go.



Unfortunately, this is a classic problem for long-lived, support-
intensive products, particularly as the growth rate in sales slows or
goes negative. You end up with a huge fleet to support and not enough
margin from the small volume of new product sales to cover the costs.
It's similar to what happened to so many General Aviation
manufacturers in the 80s - in their case it was exacerbated by product
liability insurance premiums to cover 50 years of production. In that
case the solution was simple - restructure the assets into a new
company and leave the liabilities behind. It's hard to cover these
costs by raising the price of new aircraft because it's a competitive
market. If DG produces 50 aircraft a year, the $500,000 in costs they
claim for support amounts to $10,000 per new aircraft. As a matter of
fairness it probably makes more sense to charge the costs to the group
that incurs them, the existing fleet.

Pay-as-you go is an alternative, but be prepared for pay-a-lot-as-you-
go. To break even on the costs as described on the DG website each
support incident would need to include a surcharge of several hundred
dollars, maybe more. You can perhaps vary the charge based on the type
of support, but if a fair amount of the costs they are trying to cover
are the fixed overhead of maintaining regulatory documentation it is
likely that even seemingly trivial requests will carry a heavy burden.
Then what happens is demand elasticity kicks in as customers start
looking for alternatives for DG services where possible and the costs
for the services that you can only get from DG go up even more as the
fixed costs are spread over an even smaller number of support events.
Imagine a pure pay-as-you-go world where an issue is discovered with
an older design and the entire fleet is grounded until the owners of
the affected S/Ns raise enough money to pay for the engineering for a
fix - it would be a mess. Then there's enforcement. How do you
restrict distribution of flight manual changes just to those who have
paid? For bigger stuff, let's say it costs $2000 per affected aircraft
to engineer a fix for an AD. How do you restrict the applicability of
the AD to just owners who have paid their share of the costs - can you
legally ground anyone who hasn't paid? Oh, and saying "ADs should be
free" doesn't resolve the basic economic problem - fixing stuff costs
money.

Sure, the manufacturers can tighten their belts some more, but if the
regulators say you have to comply, you have to comply - that requires
people and people usually get paid. I don't think any of us want the
companies that built our gliders to be slow in responding to ADs or in
issuing important TNs, or in providing parts. That can result in a
grounded glider - maybe for a very long time.

I'm not defending how DG has handled this. If I owned an older DG or
LS I'd be ****ed and disappointed. I am also a bit skeptical of the
cost numbers they are quoting. That said, it makes me wonder if we all
are going to face rising costs of keeping our gliders flying -
particularly if the regulators keep piling on the administrative
requirements.

Hoping the new year brings a better solution to this.

9B
  #7  
Old December 29th 09, 06:52 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Bob Whelan[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 400
Default DG response re service fee

Andy wrote:
On Dec 29, 7:24 am, Mike Yankee wrote:
Snip...


DG should scrap this BS plan and replace it with a simpler pay-as-you-
go.



Sensible input snipped...

I'm not defending how DG has handled this. If I owned an older DG or
LS I'd be ****ed and disappointed. I am also a bit skeptical of the
cost numbers they are quoting. That said, it makes me wonder if we all
are going to face rising costs of keeping our gliders flying -
particularly if the regulators keep piling on the administrative
requirements.


"What Andy said,"...with the following seditious (U.S.-centric)
observation regarding regulators and "safety."

Just as perfection is never an option, neither is 'perfect safety' and
no reliance on any government-based scheme (e.g. CAA/FAA-based AD's on
ATC'ed airframes, etc.) can change that fact. That said, maybe it's time
we - the aviation community as a whole - begin to look for 'the future
maintenance of safety' outside government-based bureaucracies. Certainly
a new bureaucracy (private?) will be required, but here's an aphorism
(origin unknown) that may apply to current European/U.S. realities:

"When a bureaucracy loses sight of the purpose it was originally formed
to serve, and begins to serve itself, it has outlived its usefulness."
Is it too much to append, ..."and its justification for existence)"?

Bob - living in the pipedream-created U.S. - W.
  #8  
Old December 29th 09, 09:29 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
jcarlyle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 522
Default DG response re service fee

Nice thought, Bob, but as I understand it EASA isn't changing the
rules. It was set up from the get-go to charge for everything that it
did. Herr Weber started complaining about EASA charges when DG was
issuing free technical notes for installing transponders. What we're
seeing now is the logical outcome of EASA making clear to DG (and
everyone else) that any interaction with them will be costly. I'm
certainly not defending Herr Weber, but I can see how this debacle
started. EASA needs to die, but I'm afraid it won't until only huge
aviation companies are left in Europe. By that time, of course, German
glider companies will be toast.

-John

On Dec 29, 12:52 pm, Bob Whelan wrote:
"When a bureaucracy loses sight of the purpose it was originally formed
to serve, and begins to serve itself, it has outlived its usefulness."
Is it too much to append, ..."and its justification for existence)"?


  #9  
Old December 30th 09, 07:24 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
stephanevdv
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 60
Default DG response re service fee

Everything is certainly not negative in what EASA is doing. But they
have to work with the national aviation authorities too, and they even
do not have the last word in the matter. They are very open to
discussion, but their proposals have to be approved at the political
level by the EU. And the national bodies that control aviation are
doing their utmost to keep everything as much under their control as
they can. So what results is often more stringent rules than
originally proposed by EASA. And then you can apply these rules in
different ways at the national level.

Changing a rule once adopted doesn't seem to be a realistic option,
the work has to be done during the rulemaking process. That's why we
have Europe Airsports and the European Gliding Union, who are battling
at every possible level to keep things as simple as possible.

For example, EASA rules should make it possible for sporting bodies
(national aeroclubs, or even indidvidual aeroclubs) to maintain
gliders themselves, but if the national FAA-equivalents impose long
waiting times, impractical procedures and high fees on the paperwork
this involves, such a system is not viable. Belgium is a case in
point. Many of our gliders are now German registered, because it is
much simpler (!) and even cheaper (!!!) to have them maintained by a
German workshop than working with our administration. The EASA rules
are the same in Germany as they are in Belgium, but...

Concerning costs for the glider companies, EASA is creating a new
category of aircraft called ELA (European Light Aircraft) that will do
much to simplify the certification procedure for new types of
aircraft. All gliders will fall into the ELA category, wich should
seriously cut costs in that department.

It is also a question of adapting to the system. If the glider
companies had included the possibility for transponder installation
into the original certification paperwork of a glider type, they
wouldn't have to pay for STC's now. The writing was on the wall for a
long time...
  #10  
Old December 31st 09, 12:39 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
tommytoyz[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 23
Default DG response re service fee

I don't own any of these gliders, but after reading Herr Weber's
reasoning, it makes sense. He is not responsible to support those
aircraft. The alternative would be for him to just drop all support.
Would that be better? Maybe it would.

Interesting would be to compare how the old Glasfluegel, Grob, and
other owners cope with the issue of their manufacturers being out of
business. Would it be better if nobody supported the aircraft, so long
as no serious problems arise?
 




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