Lowrance Airmaps
Lowrance Avionics had a problem with quality control; Airmaps were manufactured in Mexico; shipped out to Tulsa; shipped out worldwide and some; if not many returned faulty; the sheer cost to the company must have outweighed any profits made apart from the loss of good will from Airmap customers. Quality Control was down the pan. Add to that Management problems; their management certainly had no idea of how to advertise worldwide hence Garmin wiped the board with them and only because the Airmap management were totally out of touch with international requirements; i.e. Jeppesen aviation international databases. European Military Traffic Zones did not exist and all that was needed was a few more Dollars for Jeppesen to incorporate MATZ into their databases; Lowrance never did this; couldn't be bothered and so they must have lost a lot of business to Garmin. I believe that Lowrance were more concerned about their home US market than the rest of the world; their loss, Garmin must have picked up many lost orders to Lowrance and only because of management incompetence at high levels. It is a pity; because the later Airmaps were excellent only to be let down by ignorance of the worldwide market that they lost. What a lesson to learn the hard way. Garmin must have smiled all the way to the bank. A great product that should still have been in the market place.