Category: BizJet

Clay Lacy Aviation has been recognized as a leader within private aviation for its Safety Management System (SMS). Its organization-wide approach has been validated and recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to meet the new standards of the FAA SMS Voluntary Program.

The validation places Clay Lacy in the top 2% of Part 135 operators in the United States that have completed this process and developed a culture of safety promotion. The FAA SMS Voluntary Program (SMSVP) attests that the company’s SMS also meets the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) requirements.

“Clay Lacy has a commitment and priority to safety, continuous improvement and enhancing our safety culture to be proactive and predictive to address problems before they occur,” says David Lamb, Chief Operating Officer. “We are going above and beyond what the FAA is requiring because we recognize the importance and benefits of having a holistic, organizational approach to safety operations.”

Clay Lacy’s SMS touches all components of operations, including aircraft management and maintenance, charter operations and its fixed-based operator (FBO) services. Its team began work to expand existing SMS to the FAA SMSVP standards about two years ago, engaging with the FAA throughout to share knowledge and implement better systems. The SMS implementation is part of Clay Lacy’s Continuous Improvement Program (CIP) where the company fosters company-wide contribution and a systematic review and implementation process to benefit both external and internal stakeholders.

The FAA SMSVP consists of four safety components: policy, risk management, assurance and promotion. The company has aligned its processes, communications and risk assessments to meet and exceed all components. The SMS implementation mandate gives operators 24 months to meet the requirements Clay Lacy has already exceeded.

SMSVP in Action

One practical example of the new SMS was in identifying and assessing a potential hazard on thermal runaway events for batteries during flight. Clay Lacy airplanes are now equipped with thermal runaway bags and flight crews have been trained in case of this rare incident. Outside of equipment and materials, Clay Lacy has instituted a risk assessment and management process throughout its operations, including within accounting and computer systems. It has developed a standard operating procedure at every level.

“We know that this is something that’s more important than checking a box,” Lamb said. “Our culture is one of leadership and doing the right thing on a daily basis. While this is an important milestone, we know that our work to improve is never completed.”

ATP recently announced the integration of Flightdocs Operations with FuelerLinx, the premier software solution used by business aviation operators for shopping and ordering fuel, planning fuel consumption and minimizing fuel costs.  

With the recent partnership, the two companies say operators will no longer have to build duplicate trip itineraries in FuelerLinx or manually communicate fuel order details to crew members, saving an estimated 10 to 15 minutes of time per trip.  

“FuelerLinx does an outstanding job solving the problem of connecting fuel buyers to suppliers and we are very excited about our partnership, which helps our mutual customers get even more value from our solutions,” said Kent Pickard, vice president of product at ATP. 

Among other benefits, operators will also have the capability of automatically syncing their aircraft schedules to their FuelerLinx account where fuel planning and ordering can be performed. Once fuel orders are created in FuelerLinx, the fuel order details are effortlessly displayed on the trip and trip sheets within Flightdocs Operations, allowing crew and schedulers to easily access all fuel order details by leg. 

“The more we can provide the operator with a straightforward experience while still allowing them to utilize best-in-class applications like FuelerLinx, the closer we will be to creating the ideal technology ecosystem for a flight department,” said Mike Profit, chief operating officer at ATP. 

“We are thrilled to announce the integration of FuelerLinx and ATP Flightdocs Operations, two industry leading products in aviation technology,” said Kevin Moller, chief executive officer of FuelerLinx. “This integration will provide customers with a seamless experience, enabling them to easily manage fuel and scheduling operations from a single platform. Our joint solution will improve efficiency, reduce costs, and ultimately deliver greater value to our customers.” 

Earlier this year, ATP announced a new suite of features for Flightdocs Operations, including enhanced communication features that streamline data flow and keep flight scheduling and trip planning moving effortlessly.  

Bluetail has announced that Houston-based Wing Aviation, Part 135 on-demand charter and aircraft management company, has selected Bluetail’s leading modern aircraft records platform and to digitize all of the maintenance and operational logs for its current fleet of over 30 business aircraft.

“The on-demand segment has grown to unprecedented levels over the past 24 months, with no sign of any significant slowdown,” stated Bluetail COO and co-founder Stuart Illian. “We are extremely proud that Wing Aviation, one of the companies at the forefront of this growth, has put their faith and trust in what Bluetail can do to make their operations even more efficient.”

“We selected Bluetail for their in-depth understanding of business aviation,” Frank Zimerman of Wing Aviation said. “The most significant value of an aircraft is in its maintenance records and history – adopting the Bluetail platform will help us maintain the value of the prime assets we manage while running one the safest and the smoothest operation in North America. Bluetail’s capabilities are written around FAA Advisory Circular AC120.78A for electronic record keeping. Our maintenance teams can use the MACH Search functionality to search for granular data across specific FAA forms. You can’t do that with anything else.”

As Wing Aviation continues to add managed aircraft to its Part 135 fleet, it will rely on Bluetail’s new MACH Conformity Module to make completing its FAA conformity processes faster and more efficient.

“We were invited to participate in the design and evaluation of Bluetail’s MACH Conformity module and took that opportunity very seriously,” Frank Zimerman said. “FAA conformity is a known bottleneck to the process. We’ve seen how the conformity software streamlines the entire process. Now any new aircraft can be added to our Part 135 certificate more easily and enter revenue services faster.”

Zagreb-based business aviation operator Jung Sky has lots of reasons for contentment looking back at 2022. Besides achieving YoY growth in revenue, number of passenger flights, flight-time with passengers, the number of destinations covered and the number of clients who chartered flights from them, the company also added a certified Part-145 aircraft maintenance organization to its service portfolio.

Their MRO team is based at Zagreb Airport and can currently meet any line maintenance requirements for jet types Cessna 525, 525A and 525B.

“Although we are stationed at LDZA, our team is pretty agile and can assist in maintenance-related situations anywhere in Europe. Just recently we deployed them to Lyon, France for an AOG mission,” said Davor Bujan, Jung Sky’s technical director.

“As a business aviation operator ourselves, we know what it means to put your aircraft and your trust into someone else’s hands, but given the fact our MRO team also looks after our own fleet – you can be sure we’ve assembled a very skilful team, stocked up with expertise and experience from prominent maintenance companies from around the world,” says Bujan.

Besides providing line maintenance for third parties and in-housing maintenance activities for their own fleet as much as possible, Jung Sky’s long-term plans also include increasing the number of line maintenance bases plus establishing base maintenance services at LDVA airport in Varazdin, Croatia.

Jung Sky is a business aviation operator based in Zagreb, Croatia and currently operating with two of its own Cessna 525A CJ2 aircraft. They average around 1,200 flights per year to more than 200 destinations across Europe and sometimes even the Mediterranean parts of northern Africa.