We might look at things from a customs viewpoint, but always with our own eyes.
If you look at the sky and see an aircraft flying at 10,000 meters, it looks as if it's moving very slowly. But if you are sitting inside an aircraft, watching a jet at the same altitude only a couple of kilometers away, you see the speed of an aircraft through entirely different eyes. What does this observation have to do with customs procedures? Quite a lot, actually. Let's be honest: Customs procedures are a million miles away from the fascination of flying, and the formal customs approach to aircraft – even aircraft that require a high level of speed when it comes to maintenance and overhaul processes – is pretty slow. That's why we have come to an agreement with customs: Instead of relying on their eyes alone, they let us use ours – to carry out preliminary checks for them with the same severity they would, but in addition with a unique view of the requirements of aircraft and their maintenance and overhaul processes.
Relying on our eyes for official customs inspections requires a great deal of trust, of course. As an AEO, we have the certificate to prove that this trust is completely justified. We use this certification to speed up approval processes, reduce the number of inspections and simplify data checks – with the help of IT systems that have been developed specifically for this purpose. In short, we use this level of trust to ensure that we can keep up with the speed of MRO processes at all times – despite handling 900,000 customs clearances a year with a total value of 10 billion euros in Germany alone. We have the expertise ourselves to manage customs procedures for 30 different countries, and the necessary contacts to manage customs clearances professionally all over the world. This ensures that our customers never have to pay any unnecessary customs duties.
But our field of vision is not restricted to individual customs procedures; our eagle eyes are also good at seeing the big picture for our customers. We take a close look at the usefulness of existing customs procedures, outline new approaches that are worthwhile, keep an eye on upcoming customs examinations and thus open up new perspectives for our customers – from the unique perspective of a company that owns more than 300 aircraft itself. That's because only those who look at aircraft from this angle can really develop an eye for their speed.
