Putting digital records at the heart of the aviation industry

The flydocs Network

Following a 10-year career at Virgin Atlantic as a Senior Asset Manager, flydocs’ John Bowell certainly thrives under the pressure of deadlines. More recently, in his role as Business Development Manager, he is driving the adoption of flydocs in the rapidly expanding Middle East and Asia Pacific markets. Here he takes a short break from customer presentations and demos to offer his perspective on how digital aircraft records management can provide a platform to transform ways of working across the aviation industry.

I saw the benefits flydocs offered the aviation industry first hand, initially through returning aircraft for Virgin Atlantic. However, it became apparent very early on that flydocs offers much more value than that and can benefit the aviation industry as a whole.

Often when OEMs initially deliver aircraft, there can be data issues which can lead to a minefield later on in the life of the aircraft. flydocs allows the OEM and operator to work together pre-delivery and track any issues prior to final acceptance to ensure clear, concise and correct build data is supplied. Using some of the advanced features within flydocs they can also manage the concessions and customer pickups throughout the build and acceptance phases digitally with its tablet-based app solution. Post-delivery, the OEM and operator can then track the outstanding warranties throughout the life of the airframe – all in one online platform.

Also, whilst there are several products available for lessors, flydocs is the only provider to enable peer-to-peer aircraft trading. It gives the lease companies 24/7 online access, allowing lessors to have full visibility and current status of leased assets. They avoid nearly all costs and logistical issues that come with the traditional mid-term audits and EOL projects, not to mention provide them with live, accurate data to assist with reviewing and creating a true reflection of the residual value of the leased asset at any time.

Later in the life of the asset, when it’s time for an aircraft to go from one operator to the next, flydocs enables the lessor to carry out the transaction completely digitally within the system, thus eliminating almost all of the time consuming and costly exercise of numerous consultants on site reviewing aircraft records and the issues that come with having multiple operators onsite during back to back lease transactions.

flydocs even offers regulatory authorities a much deeper, yet more concise view of not only the aircraft under their control but a complete overview of other regulatory controls and compliance requirements. For example, the licence / approval statuses of the operator’s and engineers/pilots/ crew/ staff within the region can all be managed within flydocs in a paperless and real-time process.

My initial exposure to flydocs years back really was just the tip of the iceberg. As the adoption of the product expands into all areas of aviation we are seeing true revolution and innovation across the industry.