Are Your Jeppesen Aust Electronic Charts Up to date? ? ? ?

[OverheadPanel]

This relates to Australian ASD04 Electronic Charts:

Be very cautious relying on the electronic version.

I am not sure how popular the Australian Electronic Jepp Charts are but something to consider is how up to date they are. Supposedly they are updated in accordance with the 2 week or so cycle - the same as the paper version..... however it appears that they are not updated as accurately as they should be - I am not sure if this is deliberate or merely an oversight.

This of course may be just an individual problem with my updates - then again maybe it isnt (and I believe the latter is true).

It came to my attention probably 4 or 5 months ago now that particular parts of the terminal section were not the same effective date as the paper version - all things being equal they should be identical..... I waited for 2 or 3 subsequent updates, and the same pages were still not updated to the most recent effective date (as per the paper version).

I then rang up the Australian representative - explained the problem - faxed appropriate copies of the out of date and current pages that I could find (and presumably there were many more, as i only looked in the terminal section) - he said he would look into it. He shortly thereafter rang me back to say yes there was a problem, and he would raise an update to have it resolved.

I thought - great - customer service works.. problem solved....


NOT.


Anyway, as I patiently waited for update cycle after update cycle after update cycle etc etc ( a few months worth)...... still no updates to the particular pages.


I email Jepessen USA - no reply



So I ring back, asking to speak directly with the person who you know deals with these problems.... the secretary or assistant (speed hump) says she may be able to help (as they do) - so you patiently explain the problem........ and then get - Oh i am sorry I cant help you with that- "you'll have to speak to so and so" - groan ..... Eventually you leave a contact number to have the call returned only they track down a different phone number (to get an answer machine) - And a rather rude message for the Australian Jepps Representative, says yet again - that yes there is a problem and we will update it -- (Sounding vaguely familiar).


Anyway.... several update cycles on.....and yet again Still no update.



So after this rather long rant..and whinge... my question is: Other than cancelling a subscription service and using the australian AIP, how does one get this resolved - if I cancel my service - it doesnt help others who rely on the information. Some of the issues on the pages I have seen could possibly affect aircraft safety - they relate to application of circling minimas etc.

[Chocks Away]

Good one O/P.
Am also keen to see the response here because I was in the middle of moving across to the Disk version.
Nothing has eventuated because some months back I requested details on what happens in the transfer and they said a quote would be emailed to me in explanation... still waiting.
Interesting to note their Aust. Head Office moved from Melbourne to Canberra some time ago and this is when probs stated arrising.
Jepps... A response possibly?

[OverheadPanel]

I wouldnt recommend holding your breath for this one Chocks away! :D

[Capt Claret]

OP, I persisted with JeppView3 for 12 months and have recently reverted to the paper based manuals due to what I see as a lack of responsiveness from Jeppesen.

The only way to ensure my Airway Manual was current was to check each and every page in the manual against the pages provided electronically, AND, only one electronic page was visible or printable at a time!

Jepp reps in Canberra seem to be let down by their US masters. If I wasn't required to use Jeppesen by company mandate, I'd go back to AirServices manuals.

[Chocks Away]

Thanks fellas. You can guess what I'll be doing now. Those paper amendments are a killer if you let them slip. :mad:
Looks like their office here in Oz really needs to catch up with technology and worlds best practice, ie cockpit "tablets", palm pcs etc, as in Swiss et all.

[Pole Vaulter]

Sadly since moving to CBR they lost their staff (Darren) who knew anything about customer service and having an interest in servicing the customers. Getting anything out of the people there now is like extracting teeth. It is either lack of experience or just lack of interest but sure is nothing like dealing with Jeppesen when they were in MEL. Sad as the product is good but also needs staff to back it up at times.

[blueloo]

Another update and they are still not up to date.

Does anyone know the legal ramifications for Jepessen if people have an accident based on out of date information, which they (Jepps) have been warned about?



Is there any requirement for CASA to enforce Jepps to keep their documents current wrt to Australian documents?




Is anyone else having any success yet with jepps?


:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :uhoh:

[Capt Claret]

For info only, and, I can't vouch for the veracity of said info.

I believe that Jeppesen Australia, now based in CBR claim that amendments are dispached from the US in plenty of time and that the delay is once the amendments enter the Australia Post system.

[ITCZ]

Clarrie, the 'new' jeppesen australia claim lots of things.

I have had three run-ins with jepp australia this year.

The first speed bump is their mailing system. It does not arrive in plenty of time.

The 'its supposed to arrive in plenty of time' bulldust they told you above, is the kind of rubbish that the 'new' jepp australia people specialise in.

I don't give a rats arse how my jepp amendments arrive in my mailbox. Send them from USA, via Denmark if you like. Airmail, Fedex, australia post, bundespost, carrier pigeon -- THATS NOT MY PROBLEM!!!!!! When I want a beer, the bartender pulls the pint and puts in on the bar. When I want charts, I want them in advance of the changes they describe, not a day or two after. They selected their postal carrier, that is THEIR arrangement, and I want my amendments in plenty of time, like I used to before they moved to CBR.

You have a "rosemarie" now answering the phones and taking customer requests for address changes and missing amendments. Totally clueless.

This lady knows nothing about paper or electronic charts. You may as well be asking for left handed neutrinos, she has a similar level of knowledge about that subject. She wasted an hour of my time on an STD call and sent me copies of CANADIAN revisions 17 and 18 when I asked what had happened to my Australian revisions.

She very helpfully sent me a SECOND copy of Canuck revisions to replace the first set of Halifax VOR approaches. And yes, I had told her that Australian Jepp amendments had "AAD" as the first three letters of the product identification number, not "CAN".

And don't bother ringing the boss, Terry W-S. He will (a) not apologise and (b) proceed to give you a lecture on the diffeence between jeppesen chart issue dates and AIRAC effective dates, and then (c) try to convince you that receiving your chart amendments the day before an effective date is good service, when Jepp Oz under Darren's guidance had them arriving several days in advance.

Trying to explain to the 'new' Jepp Oz people that they have seriously slipped in the quality stakes is almost impossible. They think they are ok. Jepp customers of several years standing think they now stink.

Its like trying to tell a pimply 17 year old in a Celica that mags and a loud stereo do not make a hotrod. They don't know, and what would that old bastard know anyway?

Wouldn't be so bothered if I didn't have to pay top dollar for ratsh!t service.

[blueloo]

Its the guy called richard something who is as useless as a third tit on a bull.

[Capn Bloggs]

So does this mean we can expect our "Jepp" version of AIP SUPP 51/05 (NAS 2c) a month after the event?

[nasa]

I took the liberty of alerting Terry to this thread as I also had problems earlier in the year and thought that Jeps should at least have the right of reply. Following is an e-mail I received from Terry this arvo.

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Hi Nasa,


Thank you for taking the time to send me the thread from PPRUNE. It was a very interesting. I am not sure if you were seeking a Jeppesen response to be posted on PPRUNE or were just making sure that I had seen it. Either way, I am grateful since objective feedback is always very valuable and highly appreciated, even when critical, and especially if true. Please feel free to post this response on PPRUNE if that was your intention.

As with most anonymous forums, the thread contains a mixture of both fact and fiction.

It is true that there has been a significant change in the way Jeppesen does business in Australia and the region, and it is true that we have had some problems in getting started. Some problems have been caused by our lack of experience with Jeppesen, which I hope is changing with a new training/supervision regime we have recently introduced. Some have been caused by major IT problems with the “new” Australia database in Denver, but we are hopeful that that issue will be resolved with the roll-out of a new software version expected in January, coupled with the better (data entry) training and supervision which was introduced a couple of months ago.

It is also true that the staff here, with the exception of Richard Low, did not have any previous aviation experience when they joined us. That is a fact of life, but unavoidable since no-one with any aviation experience applied for any of the positions when advertised. The much missed Darren was both capable and experienced, and would undeniably have been an asset here, but neither Geoff Brown nor I could get him to move from Melbourne. He wanted to avoid upsetting his family, which is very understandable, but disappointing from our point of view, and meant that there was no carry over of the expertise that the Dandenong office had. We were starting cold.

“OHP” makes some very valid points – thank you. The issues he raised were in fact formally passed to Denver at the time, and the reason for their apparent non-incorporation is currently under review at the highest level in the company. Hopefully, OHP, we will not see a repeat.


“ITCZ” believes that revisions were previously mailed in plenty of time by the Dandenong office, but are now mailed late by the Canberra office. The truth is that mailing is still done direct from the US, in the same way, by the same people and with the same lead time as when the Dandenong office was operating. However there are undeniably sometimes problems with deliveries, and my staff and I have put in an enormous amount of effort to try to fix them. Those efforts are very slowly having results, but much slower than I would have liked. Consequently we may, for the first time, take over responsibility for distribution of discs, in an effort to speed up their delivery. The plan is for discs to be sent in bulk direct to our office for individual mailing to customers. Hopefully this will be quicker than the current system by at least several days. I apologise ITCZ if I was lecturing you during our conversation, but we get a lot of complaints from people who get revisions after the Issue Date and think they are late when they may not be. The revisions leave the US a couple of days before the Issue Date which is typically a week before the Effective Date which is the critical date. As I recall, your concern was with the 9 June changes in some of your NT charts (Issue Date 3 June), which you received on 20 June, which obviously was unacceptably late. Your particular case was used by us to support a full scale investigation being carried out in the US into the performance of the contracted courier. Since I had not heard back from you I had assumed that your problem had been fixed for subsequent revisions. Please let me know if this is not the case.

For “Capt Claret”, I am still not sure where the delays occur, but as mentioned, it is under investigation in Denver to determine exactly where, so that it can be fixed permanently. As ITCZ so eloquently points out, I agree that it should not be the customer’s concern how it gets to you, just so long as what you ordered arrives in time. That is what we are trying to achieve. But I have no reason to believe that the problem is with AustraliaPost, although it might be, and there is always a conflict between wanting as up to date information as possible and posting earlier.


“Chocks Away” wants the Canberra office to catch up with technology, and produce data for tablets and pocket PCs. Sorry “Chocks Away”, we do not produce anything here. We are purely a shop front for our parent in Denver. However, Jeppesen does produce data for use with tablets (eg JeppView/FliteDeck), but it does not produce data for Palms and other Pocket PCs, for a number of technical reasons. I understand that there are a lot of other suppliers producing Pocket PC based systems and data for experimental and recreational users, but as far as I know they are all uncertified. I do not foresee Pocket PCs ever being approved as EFBs, if only because of their small size and the degree of difficulty in operating them.

“ITCZ” severely criticises Rosemary. Rosemary is our office junior/receptionist, and has only been here since the end of June, which was not long before the episode to which ITCZ refers. She tried to help because all of the lines were busy at the time, as they virtually always are. In retrospect, she should have just taken a message, but I guess she tried to help rather than have ITCZ delayed. The Canadian chart fiasco was inexcusable from an office point of view, but was not really her personal fault. The fault lay elsewhere. But I agree it was inexcusable.

Despite some strong statements in the thread to the contrary, I can assure readers that my staff and I are extremely customer focused, since we understand very clearly that our salaries are paid by our customers. More to the point, we believe that our customers should be able to get what they order with minimum hassle and within an appropriate time frame. Nevertheless, we came into this extremely complex business cold, at a time of great change, and are still learning. It disappoints us greatly when we let down a customer, and embarrasses us intensely if we repeat a problem. For those who have been let down, I unreservedly apologise. But more importantly, my staff and I are doing all that we can to improve the level of service that we provide. Sadly, in any large organisation, and particularly in an IT based one, there is a lead time for getting decisions made and for corrections of data, presentation and even changes of addresses to take effect.

To summarise, we took on a mammoth undertaking in April with a brand new team, and we made some mistakes, but not through lack of interest. We have learned and are continuing to learn from them, and we have instituted a number of changes to processes here and in Denver to better enable us to offer a service which matches the quality of our Jeppesen products. I have no problem whatever with apologising either personally or on behalf of the company for any problems we may have caused along the way. I would just ask that if you have a problem, bring it to the GM so he can do something about it at the time. Don’t leave it to fester until you need to put it on a public forum in frustration.

My task here is finished now that the company is established. Consequently I am retiring on Monday, and handing over the reins to Richard Low who will be the new General Manager. We all work in an industry where mistakes can be dangerous, so my plea is that if you are having problems, which, human nature being what it is, is probably inevitable from time to time, take it straight to the GM for resolution. I know I can speak for Richard when I say that we would rather hear about the problem first hand when it is current, than read about it months later when there is no opportunity to resolve it. From Tuesday 1 November onwards, the GMs address will be [email protected], and his direct dial telephone number will be 02 6120 2902.

On behalf of Jeppesen, thank you NASA for giving me the opportunity to see and respond to this thread which I would not otherwise have seen.

For those of you who are Jeppesen customers, thank you for your business, and be assured that it is highly valued. For all of you who are aircrew, I wish you safe flying and favourable winds.

Best regards,


Terry Wesley-Smith

General Manager

[ITCZ]

Terry, thanks for your reply. My greatest concern was that I had lost the excellent service I had become used to. To hear that you are taking a customer's concerns seriously, and investigating to the level you describe, is heartening.

nasa, for drawing Terry's attention to this thread -- good call.

[OverheadPanel]

Terry, I thank you for your reply and Nasa thanks for drawing it to his attention.

Whilst I do appreciate that you will look into the matter, I do not believe that it should have come down to getting a response after having had to post on the internet.

I spoke ( & faxed) to Richard Lowe in the first instance. He said it would be followed up.

Nothing happened.

I emailed Jepps America. Not even a reply.

I spoke to Richard Lowes assistant. I received a message from Richard (fairly rude) promising that it would be rectified again.

It wasnt and as far as I am aware to this day it still isnt.

Unfortunately, I am not entirely convinced that when Richard takes the helm things will get better.

I have been a customer for almost 6 years now, and it isnt really a cheap product. I would consider that for almost the last 4 months I have been paying for a product which isnt being delivered as promised. I continue with it because (a) I am probably foolish and (B) I hope that with customer feedback, you will start to deliver what was promised.

[lck186]

My goodness gracious me, what a bunch of festering sores! Terry's response is extremely well written, and I believe that Richard's aim is to provide a good service, but he is still building his team, and allowing them to gain the experience that they need!