Aircraft Management Software: A Vendor Evaluation Checklist

To evaluate aircraft management software, take your own trips, aircraft and crew into a demo or trial and ask each vendor the same questions in ten areas: scheduling, maintenance tracking, crew duty and rest, release and risk, data security and tenant separation, records and audit history, accounting, data import and export, the pricing model, and support and onboarding. Ask the vendor to show each answer on screen with your data, not describe it. The questions below are grouped by area, followed by the red flags that should end a conversation and a printable checklist you can take into the room.

Before the demo: write down your own operation

List your aircraft and how you track them. For each aircraft, write the counters you track (hours, cycles, landings, APU hours) and the inspection program it’s maintained under.
Pick three real trips from the last quarter. Choose one simple round trip, one with a positioning leg and a crew change, and one that went wrong: a delay that pushed a pilot close to a duty limit, a maintenance item that came due, a passenger whose passport was about to expire.
Write down which rules you fly under. Part 91 only, Part 135, Part 91K, or a mix. The duty and rest rules differ, and a vendor’s answer on crew duty means nothing until you know which rules you need it to apply. Our comparison of Part 91, Part 135 and Part 91K covers the differences.

Bring those three trips to every vendor.

Scheduling questions to ask

Can I build a trip leg by leg, and find airports by code and by name?
How are times entered? Can I type each leg in the departure airport’s local time and see it correctly at the arrival airport and in my own time zone?
What does the schedule look like across a month, and is there a list or agenda view for the coming days?
What happens when I move a leg by two hours? Which checks run again, and when do I see the result?

Ask the vendor to move one of your sample trips while you watch. What changes, what gets flagged and how long it takes tells you more than any feature list.

Maintenance tracking questions to ask

The owner or operator has a long list of maintenance records to keep. 14 CFR 91.417(a)(2) includes “the total time in service of the airframe, each engine, each propeller, and each rotor,” “the current status of life-limited parts,” “the current inspection status of the aircraft,” and “the current status of applicable airworthiness directives (AD) including, for each, the method of compliance, the AD number and revision date.” Those records “shall be retained and transferred with the aircraft at the time the aircraft is sold” (91.417(b)(2)). Software that holds part of this needs to hold it in a form you can get back out.

Which counters can I track per aircraft? Can I add a counter of my own?
Can a maintenance item come due by date, by counter, or by whichever comes first?
Is the item’s status (current, coming due, overdue) calculated by the software, or typed in by a person?
Does it forecast when items come due, based on how the aircraft has actually been flying?
How is an item signed off, and what does the record keep about who signed and when?
How are defects logged and deferred? Can an aircraft be marked as grounded, and does that stop it from being released for a trip?
Can I plan downtime so the schedule shows the aircraft as unavailable?

A forecast is only as good as the counters behind it. Ask how flight hours get into the system: typed in from the flight log, carried over from the legs flown, or imported. Our aircraft maintenance tracking guide goes deeper.

Crew duty and rest questions to ask

For a Part 135 operator, the duty rules are specific and leave no room for a rough estimate. Under 14 CFR 135.267(b), for unscheduled one- and two-pilot crews, total flight time in any 24 consecutive hours may not exceed “8 hours for a flight crew consisting of one pilot” or “10 hours for a flight crew consisting of two pilots qualified under this part for the operation being conducted.” Paragraph (d) adds that each assignment “must provide for at least 10 consecutive hours of rest during the 24-hour period that precedes the planned completion time of the assignment.” Part 91K has its own rules in §91.1057 through §91.1059.

Which rule sets does the software apply: Part 135, Part 91K, a Part 91 company policy, or several? If Part 135, which paragraph of 135.267 does it check against?
Can I set our own Part 91 duty policy, and change it later?
When is duty checked: only when I ask, or every time the schedule changes?
Does it count other commercial flying, standby, days off and positioning?
What happens when a check fails? Does it name the problem and the pilot?
Can an admin override a finding, and is that override recorded with a reason?
Does it flag a pilot seated on an aircraft they aren’t qualified on, and show which certificates and training expire first?

Take your trip that went wrong and enter it. If the software doesn’t flag the problem you already know was there, it won’t flag the next one. The Part 135 duty time limits guide walks through the 135.267 tracks in detail.

Release and risk questions to ask

Ask how a trip goes from scheduled to cleared to fly, and who decides.

What has to pass before a trip can be released: trip checks, the aircraft’s state, a risk assessment?
Can I write our own risk questions and set our own thresholds?
Above a set risk score, does the release need a named approver?
What happens to a released trip when someone changes it afterward? Does it go back to not released?
How is each leg logged as flown? When a log entry is corrected or voided, is the original kept?

A flight log that can be overwritten silently can’t answer “what did the log say before?” Our flight risk assessment tool guide covers building the risk questions themselves.

Data security and tenant separation questions to ask

If the software is hosted and serves many operators, your data and a competitor’s may sit in the same database. Ask how they are kept apart.

How is my company’s data separated from other operators’ data? Is that enforced in the application code only, or in the database itself?
Which fields are encrypted: passports, dates of birth, crew certificate numbers?
When someone views a sensitive field, is that view logged?
How do roles work? Can I give a dispatcher scheduling access without access to invoices, or a mechanic maintenance access without passenger documents?
Where is the data hosted, and how is it backed up?

A vendor that answers “it’s secure” without saying how hasn’t answered. Ask them to name the mechanism.

Records and audit history questions to ask

A Part 135 certificate holder must keep an individual record of each pilot, including “the pilot’s flight time in sufficient detail to determine compliance with the flight time limitations of this part” (14 CFR 135.63(a)(4)(vii)), and keep those pilot records “for at least 12 months” (135.63(b)).

Is every change to a trip kept in a history that shows who made it and when?
Can a record be deleted outright, or only voided with the original kept?

Accounting questions to ask

Even a department that never sends an invoice needs to know what each trip cost. A charter operator needs to quote, invoice and collect.

Can I keep vendors and their fuel prices, and record fuel uplift on each leg?
Are expenses entered with receipts and categories? Is there an approval step before an expense counts?
If an approved expense is edited, does it need approval again?
Does each trip show what it cost, rolled up from fuel and expenses?
Can I print invoices, issue credit notes and record payments against an invoice?
For charter: can I build rate cards, and quotes from them?

Ask the vendor to put one of your sample trips’ real costs in and show the total.

Data import and export questions to ask

The data you bring in decides how fast you can start. The data you can take out decides whether you can ever leave.

Can I import my fleet, maintenance items and counters from a spreadsheet? In what format?
Can I import people, their certificates and training records the same way?
Will the vendor load the data for us, and what does that cost?
What can I export, and in what format? Can I export my whole history, or only summaries?
If I cancel, how long is my data kept, and could another system read my export?

Try an import during the trial with a slice of your real data, not the vendor’s sample file. Column names, date formats and blank fields are where imports go wrong, and you want to find that out before you sign.

Pricing model questions to ask

Price per month matters less than what the price is counted by.

What is the price counted by: aircraft, users, flight hours, modules?
If it’s per aircraft, does an aircraft count when it’s in maintenance or sold?
When I add an aircraft mid-month, when am I charged, and how much?
When I remove one, when does the charge stop? Is anything credited?
Which features are on which plan? If I start charter work later, what changes?
Is there a one-time setup fee? Is anything charged during the trial?

Get the answers in writing, in the contract.

Support and onboarding questions to ask

Who answers when something breaks, how do I reach them, and does anyone help move our data in?
How long does onboarding take for an operation our size?
How are changes to the software announced? Will I hear about a change before my staff run into it?
Does it work in a phone’s browser for crews on the road, or only at a desk?

Red flags in aircraft management software

Any one of these is reason to slow down. Two or more is reason to walk away.

No trial. Without one, every answer came from the vendor’s own data.
The demo never leaves the sample data. If a vendor won’t enter one of your trips during a demo, you can’t judge how it handles yours.
Duty rules described as “configurable” with no named rule. Ask which section it checks against. If nobody can say, assume it checks nothing specific.
Checks that only run when you press a button. A check that waits to be asked will miss changes.
Records that can be overwritten. A flight log, sign-off or override that can be edited without keeping the original can’t be audited.
No answer on data separation. “Your data is safe” is not a mechanism.
No export, or export only as PDF. If your data can’t leave in a format another system can read, switching later means typing it in again.

Printable aircraft management software checklist

Print this page or copy the list into your own notes. Run one copy per vendor.

Scheduling

Built one of our real trips leg by leg, finding airports by code and name
Entered times in local time and saw them correct at each airport
Moved a leg and saw which checks ran again

Maintenance tracking

Set up our counters on one aircraft
Added an item due by date and one due by counter
Saw status calculated, not typed
Saw a forecast of when items come due
Logged, deferred and cleared a defect; grounded an aircraft

Crew duty and rest

Vendor named the rules applied (Part 135, Part 91K, our Part 91 policy)
Entered our problem trip and saw the duty issue flagged
Saw an override recorded with its note
Seated an unqualified pilot and saw it flagged

Release and risk

Saw what must pass before release
Wrote one of our own risk questions and set a threshold
Changed a released trip and saw it go back to not released
Corrected a flight log entry and saw the original kept

Data security and tenant separation

Vendor named how our data is kept apart from other operators’
Vendor named which fields are encrypted and whether views are logged
Set up a role with limited access and confirmed what it can’t see

Records and audit history

Read a trip’s change history, with who and when

Accounting

Entered fuel per leg and an expense with a receipt
Approved an expense, edited it, and saw it need approval again
Saw one trip’s cost rolled up

Data import and export

Imported a slice of our real fleet and crew data
Exported data in a format another system can read
Got the cancellation and data-return terms in writing

Pricing model

Know what the price is counted by
Know what happens when we add or remove an aircraft
Know whether anything is charged during the trial

Support and onboarding

Know who loads our data and what it costs
Opened it in a phone’s browser and used it

Red flags found

None, or listed here with the vendor’s answer

Running the checklist in Avion Desk

Some of the answers, for Avion Desk: every save of a trip is checked against the aircraft, the crew and duty, and you see the result each time you save; an admin’s override is recorded with a note. A trip is released only after its checks, the aircraft’s state and a risk assessment pass, and a change after release takes it back to not released. Each operator’s data is kept apart in the database itself, using row-level security. You can bring your fleet, maintenance items and counters in from CSV, and the price is counted per active aircraft per month (see pricing). The features overview shows each area. To run the checklist yourself, start a free trial and build one of your three sample trips with its aircraft and crew to see the checks run, or request a demo and bring the trips with you.

Frequently asked questions

What is aircraft management software?

Software that holds an operation’s trips, aircraft, maintenance status, crew qualifications and duty, and often its costs and invoices, in one system instead of separate spreadsheets and calendars.

What should I ask in an aircraft management software demo?

Ask the vendor to enter one of your own trips and show each answer on screen: how duty is checked and against which rule, how maintenance status is calculated, what must pass before a trip is released, how your data is kept apart from other operators’, and what you can export.

Should I do a trial or a demo first?

A demo is useful for a first look. A trial is where you can enter your own trips and data and test the answers you were given. If a vendor offers no trial, weigh that.

What are the biggest red flags?

No trial, records that can be overwritten without keeping the original, duty rules that can’t be named, no clear answer on how your data is separated from other operators’, and no way to export your data in a format another system can read.

This article explains the rules in plain language and isn’t legal advice; the regulation text governs.