Jeppesen, which is also known as Jeppesen Sanderson, is navigational information, operations planning tools, flight planning products, and software corporation based in the United States.

Pilots refer to Jeppesen’s aeronautical navigation charts as “Jepp charts” or simply “Jepps” because of their popularity.

Elrey Borge Jeppesen, a pilot for Varney Air Lines, created the company in 1934 and was the first to create aeronautical charts enabling pilots to navigate in flight. At first, the information he gathered and the charts he produced were just for his use, but fellow pilots rapidly recognized the value of these charts, and Jeppesen began selling copies of his chartbook for $10. Other pilots began collecting information on their routes and submitting it to Jeppesen for inclusion in his navigation book.

United Airlines, the company for whom Jeppesen worked in the late 1930s, was one of the first to use Jeppesen’s charts. After a while, the chart business began to consume so much of Jeppesen’s time that he abandoned his position as a Captain and concentrated all of his efforts on chart production.

Jeppesen evolution

• Jeppesen relocated its headquarters from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Denver, Colorado, in 1941.
• In 1947, Jeppesen and the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) teamed up to create the National Flight Data Center and develop standard instrument approach techniques.
• The first commercial usage of Jeppesen NavData in flight control computer guidance systems was in 1973.
• It expanded globally between 1990 and 1995, adding operations in Australia and China to serve customers in the Asia-Pacific area.
• It introduced the first commercial electronic flight bag and internet-based chart distribution in 2002.
• It was the first commercial entity to be licensed as a „Qualified Internet Communications Provider“ by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2003.
• Jeppesen and ForeFlight established a partnership in 2017 to integrate electronic Jeppesen charts with ForeFlight Mobile, a popular electronic flight bag application.

About the company and its productions

It is a global company that maintains, manufactures, and distributes flight manuals including safety information for over 300,000 pilots and 400 airlines from over 80 countries. Jeppesen charts are used by almost 80% of pilots. Major airlines such as American, Delta, Federal Express, Japan Airlines, Korean Airlines, Lufthansa, Northwest, Qantas, Southwest, United, UPS, US Airways, as well as numerous smaller airlines and private and corporate pilots, are among its customers.
Approximately 3,200 people work for the company.

Weekly revisions, which clients can subscribe to, and new manuals are two of Jeppesen’s main products. Customers who already own Jeppesen manuals will receive the changes.
A revision is a collection of folds and charts that have been updated or revised. Every week, a pilot who subscribes to this service receives new information. A consumer who orders a manual receives a binder with all of the current folds and charts for a certain geographic area. Because aviation information changes so frequently, around 75% of all charts must be updated at least once a year, and a significant percentage of charts must be updated even more frequently. Geographical locations are commonly used to configure flight manuals.

Jeppesen sends between 5 and 30 million pages of chart updates to over 200,000 customers around the world every week. It revises about 1,500 charts per week, influencing over 1,000 coverages.

When Jeppesen receives information on a potential change, it determines whether to make a change based on how critical or permanent the change is. Some modifications, such as a 20-minute runway closure on one day, may not require inclusion on a chart.

Each week, the marketing department at Jeppesen receives roughly 1,500 new requests for varying amounts of various manuals. An airline, for example, would acquire 20 to 30 manuals to accompany a pilot training course since they must understand how to utilize it and how it may influence them.

And as Elrey Borge Jeppesen said, “I didn’t start this company to make money; I started it to stay alive.“. This is especially noteworthy given how much those charts have affected and aided today’s pilots.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeppesen
• https://simpleflying.com/jeppesen/
• Katok, Elena & Tarantino, William & Tiedeman, Ralph. (2005). Improving Performance and Flexibility at Jeppesen: The World’s Leading Aviation-Information Company.
• Boeing (Cover Image)