Searca Vuelos Charter
Searca Vuelos Charter is Colombia’s largest charter operator. The company has more than 300,000 flight hours and operates 30 aircraft – a Gulfstream G200, five Hawker Beechjet 400As, 19 Beechcraft 1900Ds and five Let 410 UVP-Es. From its four bases in Colombia, Searca serves locations across South America and the Caribbean, offering business and pleasure travel. With a team of 250 professionals, Searca also operates a comprehensive maintenance and training center.
Jorge Campillo founded Searca in 1992 and has more than 40 years of experience piloting a wide variety of aircraft. Originally from Medellin, Jorge’s career has been driven by a passion for aviation. In the 1980s, he worked as a test pilot for Cessna, an experience he regards as foundational. Today, Jorge is current on all aircraft in Searca’s fleet and also flies his personal Raytheon Premier 1A for pleasure.
“About 70% of our flights are within Colombia for corporate clients, including energy companies such as Chevron, Ecopetrol and Oxy,” explains Jorge. “Mostly, we’re shuttling employees in-and-out of remote locations. We fly every day of the week. The balance of our business is tourism. People come from all over the world to visit Colombia’s jungles and Pacific coast. Our aircraft can access airports too small to be served by commercial carriers.”
“The aviation community in Colombia is small and Searca is one of the biggest players. Because of our size, a lot of other operators in the region look to us for guidance. We have recommended Traxxall to several other operators in Colombia and beyond. Based on our experience, I am confident that Traxxall would be an asset to operations no matter where they are based.”
The Challenge
“We used other competing systems to track the maintenance of our Gulfstream and our own system to track the other aircraft in our fleet. Operating two systems was not cost-effective and consumed a lot of time. We wanted to unify all aircraft under a single system. Initially, we implemented Soma but it was complicated and caused a lot of problems.”
“Around this time, Ana Maria Desmaison, from Traxxall, contacted us and gave us a demo. Her timing was perfect! We liked the system and implemented it not long afterwards.”
The Benefits of Traxxall
“Our experience with Traxxall has been excellent. The system is easy-to-use and well-supported. Thanks to Traxxall, we have moved from a paper-based maintenance tracking system to an iPad-based system. Having our entire fleet under one maintenance tracking system creates significant efficiency gains. Given our fleet’s size and diversity, we manage a lot of inventory. All parts and components are managed using Traxxall, which makes our mechanics much more efficient.”
“The analysts at Traxxall are also particularly good. They bring a level of experience and knowledge to their work that their competitors just don’t have. This is beneficial because impeccable maintenance protects the value of our aircraft.”