Management software

[Let'sgoflying!]

We are looking for an app/software to schedule a small # of aircraft, pilots, passengers, maybe maintenance
With capability to send reminders to the people involved as the scheduled event nears.
Maybe does not need to even be aviation specific software.

 

[kep5niner]

I can’t recommend enough Flight Circle. It does everything you ask above, is very user friendly, the UI is amazing, customer support is top-notch, and the price is more than reasonable.

 

[Pinecone]

Local FBO uses Flight Schedule Pro

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

First glance, both those say flight training / student /school.

Think it could still work for our needs; dry lease (pilots/plane/passenger, specific trips) and government pt91 work (several planes / several pilots/days to weeks missions), need text reminders to pilots, passengers, management?

 

[Skymac]

Flight Circle would be perfect… I love it and it’s affordable. They also continually make updates and take suggestions.

 

[TCABM]

First glance, both those say flight training / student /school.

Think it could still work for our needs; dry lease (pilots/plane/passenger, specific trips) and government pt91 work (several planes / several pilots/days to weeks missions), need text reminders to pilots, passengers, management.

There’s several options. One plane I fly is on bookourolane.com. Don’t waste your time there, it won’t do what you want.

Our plane is on aircraftclubs.com. Cheap, will do some of what you want, easy, and no customer support.

That really leaves Flight Schedule Pro and Flight Circle. The two will what you want for about $25/mo per plane with payment pricessing incorporated if you want. Flight circle offers a cheaper option with no billing.

Our club will switch to Flight Circle this year; it’s well documented, has fantastic customer support, and will get us out of money handling with electronic billing and payments, to include auto pay by ACH, credit card, or charge to an account that can be paid by zelle/venmo/whatever.

Both have maintenance and reporting, FSP charges more for advanced maintenance tracking and reporting. Flight Circle will give you a 30-day trial while FSP only 7-days.

ETA: pax manifesting and contact is something you’d have to talk to both companies about, but I could see some creative ways to get FC to do that, I think.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Dave,

I'm guessing you're talking turbine stuff, not just a flying school or flight club?

For a pro product, the best one I saw when I was looking was FlightDocs, which is now Veryon Tracking. I was looking to replace Avianis, which does a lot of things but doesn't do them very well IMO.

This is a very different world than the flying club stuff others have suggested so far. The successful products on the pro side have maintenance tracking, crew assignment (and currency/paperwork tracking), TSA security checking for pax, integrations with tools like FlightBridge for arranging fuel/rental cars/etc, integration with ForeFlight Dispatch, etc...

There's several other players in this market. I'm actually pretty surprised about that, since it's a very small market.

 

[TCABM]

…. it's a very small market.

That’s for certain.

… FlightDocs, which is now Veryon Tracking..

The Flight Operations module, which would handle the pax manifesting, looks nice and I can definitively say flight circle doesn’t have that level of feature.

I’m going to bookmark that and do some more research. I’m assuming charter brokers use something similar to that and are the people I’d probably be talking with to see what else they use.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

Dave,

I'm guessing you're talking turbine stuff, not just a flying school or flight club?

Yes, Kent.
(I must have dropped out when I posted that part, lol)
A couple of turbines, several pistons, a couple of helos - throw in all the pilots and passengers involved and it can suddenly be a spiderweb.

It has gotten big enough that scratch paper/google calendar is not handling things anymore - need to reduce workload and avoid scheduling mix-ups. Not big enough for full-on 135 software probably ($).
Thanks everyone for the ideas. I will look at the three additional names you posted Kent.

 

[Abram]

I actually just started another business that does scheduling, dispatch and aircraft operations for small flight departments and contract pilots. I would love to hear this groups thoughts on it. The website - which is a work in progress - is www.FlyWingLeader.com.

I demoed several different platforms and none of them are perfect, but Schedaero was the one that gets the most right, so far.

Good luck!

Abram Finkelstein
N685AS

 

[Mikey52]

I use flight circle. And I really like the maintenance reminders.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

A couple of turbines, several pistons, a couple of helos - throw in all the pilots and passengers involved and it can suddenly be a spiderweb.

Yes - There's a lot of stuff to keep track of. Taxes (business vs personal use) is another common thing for organizations like this to need to track.

To be complete, and find something that works for your particular scenario, you might want to look at all of these:

Business Aviation Site

ba.foreflight.com

That's as close a place as I know of to find a comprehensive list. Flight Docs was the best in our case. I do have a friend who's using Airplane Manager in a strictly 91 corporate setting. I also spoke with tripplanning.biz and at least one other though I can't remember for sure who it was (probably another M&A or rebranding).

It has gotten big enough that scratch paper/google calendar is not handling things anymore - need to reduce workload and avoid scheduling mix-ups. Not big enough for full-on 135 software probably ($).
Thanks everyone for the ideas. I will look at the three additional names you posted Kent.

All the software gets pricey at this level, but it's a lot cheaper than either noncompliance or paying people to do the busywork that's otherwise required.