On this page you will gain an insight into the work that we have undertaken for a wide range of clients and in many different situations over the last few years. Some may be quite amusing stories of minor items but others may have been more serious or costly issues (or maybe both). Of course the names and places have been changed to protect the innocent, as well as the guilty parties.

Why has the flight attendant charged a pair of expensive men’s Churches’ shoes to her aircraft credit card and booked them as “uniform”?

On a recent monthly review of operational invoices on behalf of a family office we came across this strange “expense”. Granted it was only £400 in a very substantial operations invoice, though it did seem strange.

It was queried and the answer came back from the operator that the flight attendant was asked to pick up some shoes the principal had ordered while she was “in town” doing the shopping for the aircraft. She put them on her aircraft credit card and submitted it as a “uniform” expense as it seemed to her the most logical place to book it.

In the end no harm done, the flight attendant was providing an excellent service and the principal was pleased to get his new shoes.

How much is that part?

During a maintenance event where Mercury Aero was acting on behalf of the financial institution as their representative on technical and commercial matters, the maintenance facility informed us that a Spoileron Actuator (a small hydraulic actuator that controls some of the flight controls on the wing) was defective.

As always, we asked for the labour and parts costs and the maintenance facility came back to say they couldn’t find one. A week or so later they came back with a quote for the part at $41,800 for a used unit. Mercury Aero, using our spare parts brokering side of the business, had already sourced a repaired unit within a couple of days for the client at a cost of $5,005. The unit had all the correct certification paperwork from a reputable supplier.

The maintenance facility then wanted to charge the client $8,000 for supplying “their own parts”. We explained it was ridiculous to expect the client to pay more for the parts “handling” than the actual cost of the unit! It was then agreed a fee of $525 would be charged, which was much more acceptable. In the end the cost saving to the client was $44,270 on this single discrepancy!