Exclusive: JSSI doubles down on maintenance tracking with TRAXXALL acquisition

Business jet airplane on the ground. Early morning.

Jet Support Services, Inc (JSSI), has bought maintenance tracking company TRAXXALL. JSSI acquired SierraTrax, a maintenance software-as-a-service company focused on owner-pilots in June 2021 as it continues to diversify from its core independent hourly maintenance programme business.

“What excites me about TRAXXALL are the opportunities to deliver a broader value proposition to our customers across the whole life cycle of jet ownership – from using Conklin & de Decker to find out what aircraft best suits them; JSSI advisory on the transaction, independent maintenance programmes, access to parts and of course, maintenance tracking,” Neil Book, CEO of JSSI, told Corporate Jet Investor.

Book said there is little overlap between TRAXXALL and SierraTrax. SierraTrax delivers a simple, low-cost maintenance tracking solution, while TRAXXALL provides a more robust enterprise product.

“TRAXXALL offers complex maintenance tracking and inventory management. We see huge opportunities to integrate JSSI Parts & Leasing to help reduce maintenance costs for operators,” said Book. “There are huge opportunities to drive efficiencies for operators.” JSSI Parts & Leasing is the company’s fastest growing division.

The maintenance tracking business is dominated by CAMP Systems. JSSI’s largest shareholder private equity firm GTCR sold CAMP Systems to publishing company Hearst in 2016. At the time, CAMP had enrolled 19,000 aircraft. GTCR invested in JSSI in November 2020.

TRAXXALL is used by more than 2,000 aircraft with another 1,000 enrolled in SierraTrax.

The other leading maintenance tracking company is Flightdocs owned by aviation software company ATP. In August 2021 private equity firm Accel-KKR agreed a new investment into ATP having already worked with existing investor ParkerGale Capital to acquire Flightdocs. ParkerGale acquired ATP from its founder in 2015.

TRAXXALL’s global team will join JSSI’s SaaS division, which comprises SierraTrax, reporting to Ash Reddy, recently promoted to the position of chief operating officer at JSSI.

“Our focus is on creating value for operators. JSSI already covers more than 2,000 aircraft on programmes involved in thousands of maintenance events a year and now we have SierraTrax and TRAXXALL covering thousands more. We have tens of thousands of lines of parts inventory and a robust engine pool to lease or buy,” said Book. “We want to use all of these different data sources to make owning and operating an aircraft simple and the whole process more transparent. We want to simplify the complex.”

Neil Book,  JSSI CEO: “What excites me about TRAXXALL are the opportunities to deliver real value to our customers across the whole life cycle of jet ownership …”.  (Photograph by Andrew Collings).