Anyone planning some weekend flying should be aware that for at least 16 hours there will be no fuel available at hundreds of airports across the country. QTPod, the ubiquitous self-serve fuel kiosks owned by FBO giant Signature, will be shutting down the network of more than 1,000 pumps for a software upgrade starting at 8 p.m. EST Friday. It’s targeting a resumption of service at 11 a.m. EST Saturday. The company told the airports and resellers that use its kiosks that the online management functions and credit card processing will be unavailable for that 16 hours.
Anyone planning a late Friday or early Saturday flight should check NOTAMs to ensure fuel availability at the departure airport, planned fuel stops, and alternates. QTPod pioneered self-serve fueling for GA aircraft and recreational boats and has 1,600 installations at airports and marinas in the U.S. and Canada. It was acquired by Signature Aviation in 2018.
Who remembers the good old days, when a Avgas pump could be updated by a swift kick and some choice word swearing.
Hopefully a better one. These kiosks are pathetic.
16 hour upgrade outage? With 1,600 dispenser systems spread across the U.S. I’m surprised (and disappointed) that the company doesn’t have an alternate method of dispensing available. Not having such a system implies that an unplanned software feature (aka bug) could shut their entire network down for an extended period of time. Is disaster recovery / business continuity not important any more?
Apparently not. But if the FBO has topped off their fuel trucks, that is an alternative plan at some airports.
I ran an airport that had one of the original terminals from what was then Applied Technologies – later rebranded to QT, and then bought out by Signature. The old unit ran on a dial-up modem, and as long as the copper phone line held up, it generally worked. And when it did fail, it was easily fixed. A main processor board that was in the $500 range and a dial-up modem, and that was it. Back then, support was awesome and readily available. And, I could use whatever credit card processors I wanted – one for everything or a mixture depending on the card.
I started looking at upgrades probably 5 years ago due to the difficulty of keeping that phone line working – otherwise, I would have kept that terminal forever. Going to the new QT units, though, required a forever $100+ month “subscription” – much like the current-day Quickbooks Enterprise packages. Fuelmaster had no such nonsense, and looked (and still looks) like a much better option.
The airport wound up closing at the end of 2022 (owner nonsense; otherwise it would have been perfectly viable but that’s another story) so I never got that far. At the end of the day though, I’m always going to gravitate towards a true stand-alone option as opposed to something that has to have (1) the cloud, and (2) somebody else’s equipment working in order to function – exactly to avoid what these airports are about to go through.
As a side comment and from what I’ve seen, I don’t think Signature ever made things better for the customer with these acquisitions. Service goes down and costs go up…who would have figured?
End of rant…at least for today….
You’d think QTPods would have picked the lowest fuel volume period to upgrade their pump system (and could have found this out by looking at their own records). I find it hard to believe Friday afternoon through Saturday morning is that period.
That’s actually probably a sign. Driven more by back end convenience than either customer service or sensitivity to operational income.
Great example of something being more complicated than it needs to be. Reminded me of this:
https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/TheParableOfTheToaster.html
Or maybe some lack of competition or efficiency on the back end.
dkkim, you’ve nailed it with The Parable Of The Toaster. Reading The Parable I realized why I am having the transmission in my 15 year old, 210700 mile travel trailer tow vehicle transmission preemptively rebuilt rather than spend $65K on a new tow vehicle. It’s not because a new tow vehicle would depreciate more in one year than what the transmission rebuild will cost, although that is a plus. It’s because smart is fine, but smartypants is not.
Watch out for the electrical parts of the engine. My 18 year old daily driver has some parts that you can only get used through EBay!
Goes for any conveyance, device or AI that does not understand the authority concept of lead/wing roles…and more importantly, if they do understand, they are NOT the lead.
“HAL open the airlock…”
The most awkward of all the self serve pumps. Painfully awkward…
Always carry cash. The door below the terminal can be opened by an FBO attendant, and access enabled to the pump by flipping a simple toggle switch. I’ve done this twice at separate FBOs.
I own two self-serves that use the QTpod terminals. They have totally screwed up their software update and as of now all 1600 self-serve stations across the nation are dead in the water! They gave us 72hrs notice of the server maintenance and chose the single busiest time of the week for self-serves (Friday afternoon and Saturday morning). They either don’t have a clue about their customers or they just don’t care. A few years ago they did this same thing and we were down for 5 days!!
Call ahead to your airport to make sure they can sell you fuel before you take off.