FJ Industries often uses a small aircraft to secure maximum flexibility towards visiting customers and suppliers around Europe and to transport parts and products.
At FJ Industries, one of the keys to success is a constant attention to creating value for its customers by being proactive and agile. In order to achieve maximum agility and flexibility, the company often uses a small aircraft to visit both customers and suppliers, not to forget transportation of parts and products. In this way, customers around Europe can be reached within a very short time frame.
“We are very much a commodity, and sometimes our customers only allow us a very narrow time slot in their tight schedules for a meeting. We are able to show our presence by almost always saying “we will be there”, before we have to spend time on booking airline tickets. Many of our customers are located in central Europe were the density of small and medium airports suitable for General Aviation is very high. Normally we only have to travel less than 20 kilometers by car from the airport to our final destination,” FJ Industries’ CEO Lars Wildenschild explains.
FJ Industries do not own their own plane, but the CEO of the company, who has almost 30 years of flying experience, owns a small General Aviation aircraft (Mooney) together with a friend that also uses it for the same purposes.
The plane is serving and boosting the business for 3-4 different local companies, and according to Lars Wildenschild, it makes perfect sense for FJ Industries on a number of parameters.
“FJ Industries also have a small plant in Jönköping in Sweden, primarily producing parts for one of our big customers. By car it takes more than one full working day just for the driving, and then we have to stay overnight. By plane it takes a little over an hour. We can have a full day’s meeting, and we can be home for a late dinner the same day. That’s really efficient time management and looking at the cost side, it’s also significantly cheaper, if we include lost working time, hotel, bridge fees and so on,” he continues.
“It is of course not cheap to maintain and operate an aircraft, but when the costs can be split between more users, the business case really makes sense. It is of course more complicated to acquire a Private Pilot License with an instrument rating on top, which is required to fly in low visibility and low ceiling, than to get a driver’s license, but it is worth the effort for us, and we think many more companies should explore the benefits of being less dependent on airlines.”