Alternatives to J-P Airline Fleets?
I have a CD-ROM version of J-P Airline Fleets International Edition 2001/02. This is getting out of date. I would like to obtain a current CD-ROM list of airline, charter and air work fleets but am reluctant to purchase another J-P for two reasons.
First, there are far too many errors and omissions in it. For example, I have flown a number of commercially registered aircraft that are over the J-P minimum weight for inclusion in the list but some of them are not shown in the 2001/2 Edition. Some of the commercial air operators who own these planes are not even mentioned, whereas numbers of their competitors are included. Why are some aircraft and some operators omitted? While I appreciate that some newer operations or recently purchased planes might be missed out I am concerned that too many aircraft and commercial air operators of long standing are missing.
Second, despite my concerns about J-P’s errors and omissions, as I am not aware of any alternative I have over the past six weeks sent four emails to Bucher & Co., Publikationen to try and find out ordering and pricing details for an update or new edition of J-P Airline Fleets. I have still not received this! My first two emails were ignored. The response to the third email was to refer me to their web site, the same as mentioned on the CD-ROM that I have. Every attempt to access it comes up as Page Unavailable. Despite advising Beatrix Bucher in my fourth email that I am unable to access their website and would she please answer my question and send me the ordering information and price my request is still being ignored. Her response was to merely refer me to her previous email that mentioned their web site, the same web site that I have told her I am unable to get through to! What use is that? Most companies would be only too happy to have a past customer contact them for more possible business and would promptly answer the queries. It seems Bucher & Co is not the slightest bit customer service oriented and does not care a hoot about repeat business!
Is there a practical CD-ROM alternative to J-P Airline Fleets International? Does anyone supply a reliable international fleet list on CD-ROM for airline, charter and air work fleets? I appreciate that some magazines supply fairly good printed lists of the fleets in their specific countries, such as Wings does for Canada, but I am looking for something that is international in scope and preferably more reliable than J-P Airline Fleets. If there is no alternative at present then there is an obvious opening here for a competent publisher in view of Bucher & Co’s shortcomings.
Thanks for any help.