Switching flight department software goes well when you treat it as a records project with a date on it. Export the fleet, maintenance items with their counters, people, certificates and training, and open trips from the old system or spreadsheets. Clean that data before it moves, load it into the new system, and run both side by side for one full cycle so you can compare due dates and expirations. Then pick a cutover day, train each role on the jobs it does, and keep the old records archived, because some of them, like total time in service and airworthiness directive status under 14 CFR 91.417, must stay with the aircraft for as long as you own it.
The plan below works whether you’re leaving a spreadsheet, a paper binder or another system.
What data do you need to export when switching flight department software?
Start with an inventory: every place a record lives today, from the scheduling spreadsheet and the training binder to the folder where someone keeps medical certificate dates.
| Data | What to pull | Why it matters on day one |
|---|---|---|
| Fleet | Registration, make and model, serial number, base, status | Everything else hangs off the aircraft |
| Counters | Airframe total time, landings or cycles, each engine’s time and cycles, APU hours, and the date each reading was taken | Hour- and cycle-based items can’t be due without a current reading |
| Maintenance items | Each inspection, life-limited part, overhaul item and recurring airworthiness directive, with its interval, when it was last done and when it’s next due | This is the list that grounds an aircraft if it’s wrong |
| Open defects | Every deferred or open discrepancy and its status | An aircraft that is grounded today must be grounded in the new system too |
| People | Name, role, contact details, which aircraft they fly | Crew can’t be scheduled until they exist |
| Certificates | Pilot certificate type and number, ratings, medical class and date | Expirations drive who can fly next month |
| Training | Each requirement (recurrent, checks, company courses) and the date each person last completed it | Currency gaps show up here first |
| Open trips | Every trip booked from cutover day forward, with legs, crew and passengers | Trips in flight during the switch are the easiest thing to drop |
| History | Flown trips, past maintenance entries, old training records | Some of it you must keep; most of it you archive rather than load |
The records 91.417 says you must keep
The maintenance side has the firmest rules. Under 91.417(a), the registered owner or operator keeps two kinds of records.
The first, in (a)(1), is the record of maintenance, preventive maintenance, alteration and required inspections, which must include “a description (or reference to data acceptable to the Administrator) of the work performed,” “the date of completion of the work performed,” and “the signature, and certificate number of the person approving the aircraft for return to service.” Under 91.417(b)(1), these “shall be retained until the work is repeated or superseded by other work or for 1 year after the work is performed.”
The second, in (a)(2), is the status record:
- “The total time in service of the airframe, each engine, each propeller, and each rotor.”
- “The current status of life-limited parts of each airframe, engine, propeller, rotor, and appliance.”
- “The time since last overhaul of all items installed on the aircraft which are required to be overhauled on a specified time basis.”
- “The current inspection status of the aircraft, including the time since the last inspection required by the inspection program under which the aircraft and its appliances are maintained.”
- “The current status of applicable airworthiness directives (AD) including, for each, the method of compliance, the AD number and revision date. If the AD involves recurring action, the time and date when the next action is required.”
- “Copies of the forms prescribed by § 43.9(d) of this chapter for each major alteration to the airframe and currently installed engines, rotors, propellers, and appliances.”
91.417(b)(2) says these “shall be retained and transferred with the aircraft at the time the aircraft is sold.” So the status record never expires while you own the aircraft. Whatever system you move to, the (a)(2) list is what your export has to carry over intact, and the signed (a)(1) entries are what your archive has to keep. 91.417(c) also requires you to make these records available for inspection by the FAA or an authorized NTSB representative, so you need to be able to find them after the switch, not only own them.
Crew records for Part 135 and Part 91K
If you operate under Part 135, 14 CFR 135.63(a)(4) requires “an individual record of each pilot used in operations under this part,” including the pilot certificate “by type and number” and ratings, the “effective date and class of the medical certificate,” the “date and result of each of the initial and recurrent competency tests and proficiency and route checks,” and the pilot’s flight time “in sufficient detail to determine compliance with the flight time limitations of this part.” 135.63(b) says to keep those records “for at least 12 months.”
A fractional program manager under Part 91K has a near-identical list in 14 CFR 91.1027(a)(3), and 91.1027(b) adds that when an employee leaves, the pilot and flight attendant records “must be retained for at least 12 months.” For either operation, the twelve months before cutover must still be retrievable afterward, from the new system or the archive. If you’re not sure which rules you fly under, our comparison of Part 91, Part 135 and Part 91K covers the differences.
How do you clean the data before moving it?
A spreadsheet can carry a typo in a due date for a year because a person reads around it. A system that calculates status from the data will act on the typo.
Work through each export with this checklist:
- One row per thing. One aircraft per row in the fleet file, one maintenance item per row, one person per row, one credential per row. Split cells that hold two items (“Phase 1 / Phase 2”).
- One identifier, spelled one way. Pick how each registration and each person’s name is written and use it everywhere. A registration typed with and without a space becomes two aircraft.
- Dates in one format. Choose one (year, month, day works well) and convert every column. Watch for spreadsheet cells that hold text that looks like a date.
- Units in their own column. An interval of “600” means nothing without “hours,” “cycles” or “months” beside it. An item due by whichever comes first needs both limits.
- Current counter readings, dated. A due date calculated from hours needs the hours as of a known date. Take fresh readings from the aircraft logs the week you export.
- Last done, not only next due. Next-due dates can be recalculated; last-done dates and readings are the evidence. Carry both and let the new system’s calculation be checked against yours.
- Retired data out. Aircraft sold, people who left, items removed by an alteration. Archive them; don’t load them.
- Open items flagged. Mark every deferred defect, every overdue item and every expired credential so they get checked by hand after the load.
Assign an owner to each file. The director of maintenance or the maintenance controller signs off on the maintenance items and counters. The chief pilot or training manager signs off on certificates and training. The scheduler signs off on open trips. Each owner signs off on their file before anything loads. If you’re coming from a spreadsheet, our notes on running a flight schedule in a spreadsheet list the columns that tend to drift.
A worked example of migration volume
Every number here is illustrative, to show the scale of the job rather than any real operation.
A department with 3 aircraft and 8 pilots might export:
| File | Rows (illustrative) | Who checks it |
|---|---|---|
| Fleet | 3 | Director of maintenance |
| Counters | 3 aircraft × 6 readings = 18 | Maintenance controller |
| Maintenance items | 3 aircraft × 120 items = 360 | Director of maintenance |
| People | 8 pilots + 2 maintenance + 3 office = 13 | Chief pilot |
| Certificates | 8 pilots × 3 (certificate, type rating, medical) = 24 | Chief pilot |
| Training | 8 pilots × 6 requirements = 48 | Training manager |
| Open trips | 15 | Scheduler |
The maintenance items and counters are most of the rows and nearly all of the risk, so give them most of the cleaning time.
Should you run the old and new systems in parallel?
Yes, for one cycle, and with a clear rule for which system is the record during that time.
A cycle is the shortest period in which every kind of record changes at least once. For most departments that’s one month: counters get updated after flights, at least one inspection or recurring item comes due, a training date or medical passes, and the schedule turns over.
During the parallel run:
- The old system stays the record. Releases, sign-offs and crew assignments are decided from it. The new system is checked against it.
- Enter every change in both. Each flight’s counters, each maintenance sign-off, each new training date.
- Compare weekly. Put the next-due list for each aircraft side by side. Every item due in the next 90 days should match on date or reading. Do the same for credential expirations in the next 90 days.
- Chase every difference to its cause. A mismatch is either a data error from the export, a different calculation (for example, how a whichever-first item is counted), or a mistake in the old system. Fix the data, not the comparison.
- Write down what you found. The list of differences and their causes is what the director of maintenance and chief pilot read before they agree to cut over.
When a week passes with no unexplained difference, you’re ready.
Cutover day
Pick a day with little flying, ideally right after a weekly comparison came back clean. Avoid the week of a scheduled inspection or a recurrent training event.
The sequence on the day:
- Freeze the old system. Announce a time after which nobody enters anything into the old system or the spreadsheet. Make the files read-only if you can.
- Take a final export. Pull every file once more, after the freeze. This is the snapshot you archive.
- Bring counters up to date. Enter the last flights’ times and cycles in the new system and check each aircraft’s totals against the logbook.
- Check the open items by hand. Confirm that every deferred defect, overdue item and expired credential flagged during cleaning shows the same status in the new system.
- Confirm open trips. Walk the schedule for the next two weeks leg by leg: aircraft, crew, passengers, times.
- Switch the record. From this time on, the new system is the record. Tell everyone, in writing, with the time.
- Retire the old access. Remove edit rights to the old system and spreadsheets the same day. A spreadsheet that can still be edited will be.
Keep someone available in the first week to answer “where did this go” questions.
How do you train the team on new flight department software?
Train by role, on the jobs each person does in their first week, using your own data. Your own fleet and schedule are already loaded by the end of the parallel run, so every training session can use real aircraft and real trips.
| Role | First-week jobs to train |
|---|---|
| Scheduler and dispatch | Build a trip, assign aircraft and crew, read the checks, change a trip after it’s built |
| Pilots | See their schedule, check their own currency, log a leg as flown, record expenses on the road |
| Maintenance | Update counters, sign off an item, log and defer a defect, see what’s coming due |
| Training manager or chief pilot | Enter a completed course, see who expires next, add a new pilot |
| Office and accounting | Find a trip’s costs, enter vendor invoices, run whatever report leadership reads |
| Administrators | Add and remove users, set who sees and changes what |
Two short sessions per role beat one long one: one before cutover to see the screens, one in the first week to answer questions about real work.
What should you keep archived after the switch?
Loading ten years of flown trips adds little and makes the import harder to check. Archive history instead, in a form you can still open in five years.
Keep:
- The final export snapshot from cutover day, every file, read-only, with the date in the folder name.
- Signed maintenance records. Logbooks, work orders and return-to-service entries with signatures and certificate numbers. Under 91.417(b)(1) some may age out after a year or when the work is repeated, but the (a)(2) status record and the major alteration forms go with the aircraft when it’s sold.
- Crew records for at least the retention period. For Part 135 and 91K operators, that’s at least 12 months under 135.63(b) and 91.1027(b). Your own policy may ask for more.
- The parallel run notes, the list of differences and what caused them. If a question about a due date comes up later, this shows how the number was checked.
- A way to read the old system. If the old system’s data is in a proprietary format, export it to plain files (CSV for tables, PDF for documents) before the subscription ends.
Write down where the archive is, who can open it, and which records live where. That one page is what you hand an inspector who asks for a record from before the switch.
If you’re still choosing the system, our guide to flight department software and our notes on aircraft maintenance tracking cover what to look for before you commit to a migration.
Moving your records into Avion Desk
Avion Desk brings your fleet, maintenance items and counters in from CSV files. People, their credentials and their training come in from CSV the same way. If you’d rather not do the loading yourself, Launch Assist is a one-time service per company where we load your data for you; see pricing. You can try the imports in a free trial before you switch. See the aircraft and maintenance features and admin and your data. To try it, start a free trial and import your fleet from a CSV in the trial, or request a demo.
Frequently asked questions
How long does switching flight department software take?
Plan for the cleaning, one parallel cycle of about a month, and a cutover day. The cleaning is the variable part: a small fleet with tidy spreadsheets moves faster than a large fleet whose maintenance items live in several places.
Do I have to load all my old maintenance history into the new system?
No. Carry over the status records that 91.417(a)(2) lists, since they stay with the aircraft: total time in service, life-limited part status, time since overhaul, inspection status, AD status and the major alteration forms. Older signed entries can stay in the archive, as long as you keep them for the periods 91.417(b) sets and can produce them on request.
How long should the old and new systems run in parallel?
One cycle, long enough for every kind of record to change at least once. For most departments that’s about a month. Stop when a weekly comparison shows no unexplained differences.
Which system is the record during the parallel run?
The old one. Decide releases, sign-offs and crew assignments from the old system until cutover day, and use the new one only to check against it. Switching the record partway through is how items get missed.
What should we do with the old system after cutover?
Remove edit access the same day, keep a final read-only export, and make sure you can still open the records in plain files after the old subscription ends.
This article explains the rules in plain language and isn’t legal advice; the regulation text governs.
