Aviation operations platform
Bring your aircraft, people and daily operations together with Aircraft Steward. Built for flight schools, flying clubs, aircraft partnerships and rental fleets.
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Flying with an operator that uses Aircraft Steward? Use the invitation link from your operator's email. It works once and expires in 14 days. Getting started for renters
The schedule, booking a lesson, dispatch and check-in, student documents, reports, help and Books, narrated over the real product with fictional data.
A flight-school cut; Books appears as "when you're ready" and is a preview in this release.
One calendar for a shared aircraft, a flight split between two partners, and the part that ends arguments: ownership share, book capital and what each partner owes, kept apart, with the engine reserve reported as four separate numbers.
A partnership cut. Owners & partners is part of Books, a preview in this release; book capital is not tax-basis capital and no K-1 figures are prepared.
Every screenshot on this page shows the real product with fictional organizations, people, aircraft and figures. Pressing Play loads the player from YouTube; nothing is requested from it before that.
Four kinds of operation, one workspace. Pick yours to see the example that fits; the product itself is the same for everyone.
The problem. Aircraft, instructors and students have to line up every day, and a lapsed medical or a forgotten squawk shows up at the worst moment.
What changes. One schedule for aircraft and instructors, student records that turn amber before they lapse, dispatch and check-in that keep the meters honest, and reports that go straight to Excel.
For example. Book a lesson with the aircraft, the student and the instructor in one dialog. If either is already booked, the dialog says so before it saves.
See: Scheduling · People and qualifications · Documents · Training support · Reporting
The problem. Members share aircraft and a treasurer shares the paperwork: reservations, dues, block time and who still owes what.
What changes. Members book and see their own flights, staff see the whole calendar, and Books (in preview) carries member invoices, dues, prepaid block time and statements.
For example. A member reserves an aircraft, checks in with the Hobbs and tach, and the charge appears on Billing priced against the club's rate catalogue.
See: Scheduling · Billing and rates · Books · Organization access
The problem. Four partners, one aircraft, and three different numbers that get confused: who owns what share, who has paid in what, and who owes what this month.
What changes. Owners & partners keeps ownership share, book capital and amounts owed apart, tracks reserves as four distinct figures, and gives each partner a My account page that is theirs only.
For example. A partner records a contribution; their capital roll-forward moves and nobody else's does. The engine reserve shows target, assessed, designated and cash held side by side.
See: Ownership and partnerships · Scheduling · Maintenance · Books
The problem. Renters, aircraft owners and the desk all need a different view of the same flights, charges and maintenance items.
What changes. Renters keep their documents current from a phone, the desk dispatches and checks in with squawks captured, maintenance reminders track by date or meter, and revenue by aircraft is a report away.
For example. Check-in records Hobbs, tach, fuel, oil and squawks. The desk turns the squawk into an open maintenance item and the flight is priced on Billing.
See: Dispatch and flight logging · Maintenance · Billing and rates · Reporting
Aircraft, people, scheduling, documents, maintenance, billing and ownership in one organized workspace. Each capability below carries its availability in the current release.
Available now Available when configured Included · preview Planned
The schedule, the fleet and every flight, on one screen for everyone who signs in.
Available now
Day, week and month views with one row per aircraft and one per instructor. A booking that would double-book either is refused before it saves.
Available now
Model, base, status, current Hobbs and tach, and the rate that applies, with every meter change written to an audit log by the database.
Available now
Dispatch pre-fills the Hobbs from the aircraft record. Check-in takes Hobbs and tach in, fuel and oil added, and squawks, then updates the aircraft and prices the flight.
Available now
Reminders by date, by meter reading, or both. Open squawks, items due now and imported values still to be verified are counted on the Maintenance badge.
Reminders show what the organization recorded. They do not determine airworthiness or guarantee regulatory compliance. Work orders and shop management are not part of this release.
Records that say what needs attention before the next booking, and documents that arrive from a phone and are confirmed by a person.
Available now
A roster with certificate and ratings, endorsements, medical, instructor certificate expiry, government ID and document status. Expiring turns amber within 60 days; lapsed turns red.
Qualification tracking is information for the people who run the operation. It does not establish legal flight eligibility, and a booking is not blocked by a lapsed medical or a missing document.
Available now
A pilot needs a checkout in the aircraft type before booking or dispatching without an instructor on the reservation. One checkout covers the type, so a PA-28R-200 checkout covers every PA-28R-200 in the fleet.
Available now
Upload a whole export or one file at a time. Extraction proposes the values with a confidence score; a staff member compares them with the file and approves or rejects. Nothing changes on a record until approval.
Extraction runs through a document reader the deployment configures. Files are stored in a private, organization-scoped bucket; nobody outside the organization's staff and the person themselves can read them.
Available now
The pieces a school needs to run lessons on the schedule: an instructor on the booking, published teaching hours, and hours reported as dual or solo.
Not in this release: syllabi, lesson plans, stage checks, grading, student progress records, and weekly repeating instructor availability.
Charges derived from flights, a rate catalogue with review states, and a full set of books when you are ready for it.
Available now
Billing prices each checked-in flight against the aircraft's rate at the time. Maintenance hours are listed separately and charged to no one.
The Billing page calculates; it does not invoice or collect, and charges are not turned into Books invoices automatically. Invoicing and taking payment happen in Books.
Included · preview
Books is a double-entry general ledger for the organization: customer and member billing, vendors and bills, bank activity, reconciliation and financial reports, with every figure derived from posted entries.
Books is installed and usable today and is labelled a preview: an accountant should validate account mappings, opening balances and representative statements before an organization relies on it. When an organization connects payments, its people can pay an invoice by card or US bank account through Stripe; Aircraft Steward stores the brand and last four digits, not the full number. Books does not file taxes, run payroll, or produce tax-basis capital or K-1 figures.
Included · preview
Bring in bank and card activity, let matching propose links to entries the books already have, and reconcile against the statement until the difference is exactly zero.
Matching and categorisation propose. Not every transaction can be reconciled without someone looking at it, and the module never initiates a payment or a transfer.
Included · preview
Each set of books gets a dedicated intake address. Forwarded receipts and vendor invoices become items with the amount, date, vendor and invoice number extracted, a suggested category and aircraft, and a duplicate check.
Requires a receiving email domain configured by the deployment. Image-only receipts are stored and shown for manual entry; no OCR provider is wired in unless an administrator authorises one.
Included · preview
Owners & partners keeps three things apart that are easy to confuse: an owner's share, their book capital, and what they owe or are owed this month.
A member's spending balance, an owner's ownership percentage and an owner's capital account are three separate concepts here and are never combined. Book capital is not tax-basis capital.
Available now
Seventeen operational reports over the organization's own rows, one date range that follows you between them, and every one exporting to a real Excel workbook with typed dates, numbers and money.
Help where the work is, access that follows the organization's roles, and a way in for the records you already have.
Available now
Every screen and dialog has a ? button (or press ?) that opens help beside the work without closing anything. The Help Center adds search, role-based getting-started checklists, guided tours, a glossary and a support route.
Available now
A person can belong to several organizations and switch between them. Each organization sets its type, its wording, its reservation rules and who may do what.
Available now
Aircraft Steward is a responsive web application. The schedule, dispatch and check-in, the portal's documents and My flights all work at phone width; there is nothing to install.
There is no native app. Sign-in links are emailed by the sign-in service. When an organization turns on outbound mail in Books, the platform can also email statements, invoices and payment notices. Staff still send portal invitations from their own mail application. There is no SMS, push or in-app messaging.
Available now
Supported imports today are from a Flight Circle export and from your own spreadsheets and bank files. Each import previews before it commits and can be run again without duplicating anything.
Reservations, flight history and balances are not imported; flying starts fresh from the cutover and historical charges belong in the books' opening balances. There is no one-click migration from other platforms and no import is lossless by promise: what needs a person's check is flagged for review on the People, Rates and Maintenance pages.
What actually happens when a member flies, using only what the product does today. Preview steps are labelled.
The member books from the schedule (or the desk books for them). Conflicts with the aircraft or the instructor are refused before the booking saves.
Dispatch pre-fills the Hobbs. At check-in the member or the desk enters Hobbs and tach in, fuel and oil, and any squawk. The aircraft record updates and the change is logged.
The flight is priced against the aircraft's rate at the time and listed under completed flights. The desk adds any squawk to Maintenance as an open item.
If the member bought oil on the way, they forward the receipt to the books' intake address. It becomes an item with the amount and vendor extracted, waiting for a bookkeeper to decide what it is.
Flight time, utilization, charges and revenue by aircraft are a date range away and export to Excel. In Books (preview), the member's own account page shows what they owe and every invoice and receipt.
Records are not approved, invoiced or paid automatically at any step. Billing prices the flight; a Books invoice is a separate act by a bookkeeper. A card or bank payment is taken only when the organization has connected payments and someone pays or charges a saved method. Sign-in links are emailed by the sign-in service. Statements and invoices are emailed only when the organization sends them.
Real screens from the current build, captured against fictional organizations, people and aircraft.
Start a 30-day free trial from this page: no card, and you set the organization up yourself. If you would rather begin with a conversation, talk to us and we will invite the first administrator.
Getting started for renters. If you fly with an operator that uses Aircraft Steward, you do not sign up yourself. Your operator sends a personal invitation link. It works once and expires in 14 days.
The first administrator signs in with an emailed link, sets the organization type (flight school, flying club, partnership, rental operator), the wording for people, and invites staff by link. Each staff member picks up a passkey after their first sign-in if they want one.
Add each aircraft with its base, status and current meters, and the rate catalogue. Reservation increments, defaults and minimums come with sensible defaults.
Add pilots, students or members, define the documents the organization requires, and send portal invitations. People upload from a phone; staff approve what extraction proposes.
Moving from Flight Circle: run the extractor, import the export ZIP, then confirm the rate rows and maintenance items flagged for review. For Books (preview), the migration wizard takes CSVs for contacts, an opening trial balance, open invoices and bills, funds, capital and bank accounts, and commits only when the control totals agree.
Book, dispatch, check in. The Help Center's role-based checklists walk each person through their first week, and the ? on every screen answers the question in front of them.
Move-over help depends on fleet size and is set out under Pricing. Flagged-for-review items after a Flight Circle import are yours to confirm. Imports from other scheduling platforms are not supported in this release.
The controls that are actually in the product, in plain terms.
An emailed one-time link, or a passkey once you have enrolled one. There is no password to leak or reuse.
Every organization-scoped table is protected by row-level security in the database. A person sees only the organizations they belong to, in the role they hold there.
Pilot documents are stored in a private, organization-scoped bucket and reached only through the signed-in person's own permissions. Identity-document fields sit in their own report group so nobody exports a licence number without noticing.
Document extraction, inbox extraction and bank matching all state their confidence and wait for a review. Records change on approval, not on extraction.
Meter changes are written to an append-only audit by the database. In Books, a posted entry can only be corrected by a linked reversal, and every job, webhook and export is logged.
When an organization connects Stripe, its people can pay that organization by card or US bank account. Stripe collects the number; Aircraft Steward keeps the brand and last four digits. Bank activity in Books comes from statement files (CSV or OFX), not a live bank feed. The platform does not run payroll or transfer money between an organization's own bank accounts.
We do not publish uptime commitments, certifications or customer testimonials, because none have been established for this release. What is here is what the product does.
Start with a 30-day free trial, no card needed. Books is included on Standard and is labelled a preview. QuickBooks Online sync is not available yet.
$29
per aircraft per month, billed annually
$348 per aircraft per year. Or $35 per aircraft per month if you pay monthly. No minimum, and no per-person charge. Five aircraft on annual billing are $1,740 a year; the same five on monthly billing are $2,100.
$199
per year, one aircraft
Verified EAA or AOPA members pay $159 a year. The $40 discount is checked by hand from a member number and last name. It applies to the Owner plan only.
No shared scheduling, reservation rules, Books, online payments, QuickBooks sync, or assisted setup.
50% off
Standard annual, for 12 months
The first 25 organizations, including any already using Aircraft Steward, while places remain: choose Standard billed annually when the trial ends. After the first year the price is $29 per aircraft per month ($348 per aircraft per year), locked for 24 months.
Subscription prices only. Setup, opening balances and a history import are listed below and are not included in the figures above, except where a line says they are.
Not in this release. When it is offered, it is Standard only and priced per QuickBooks company file: $29 a month on a monthly plan, or $290 a year on an annual plan. It is not available on the Owner plan or during a trial, and founding pricing does not reduce it.
“Yourself” here means the organization brings its own records across, during the trial or after it.
Bring the records across yourself at no setup fee, or pay one $750 fee. That fee covers move-over help and Books opening balances. There is no separate opening-balance charge.
Move-over help is included: members, aircraft and rates imported, reservations moved by hand, and one 60-minute kickoff. Capped at 3 hours, used within 30 days of the subscription starting. No setup fee. Books opening balances are $750 for up to 3 aircraft, plus $150 for each aircraft after that.
The same move-over help is $750, credited in full if you switch to annual billing within 60 days. Opening balances are the same $750 plus $150 for each aircraft after the third.
Move-over help follows the fleet size above, and the one-or-two-aircraft $750 setup fee is not charged. Opening balances and a QuickBooks history import are free. A founding organization with one or two aircraft can still bring records across itself.
A one-time import of up to two years is $1,500. A longer history is quoted. Founding organizations on annual billing are not charged for the import.
30 days, no credit card. Standard features with unlimited aircraft. Member payments are live, up to $10,000 during the trial, once your Stripe onboarding is finished and we have approved them. The trial includes 25 invitations (staff and portal together), 25 documents and 25 document readings a day, and no QuickBooks sync or assisted setup. When it ends, the account stays read-only and can be exported. If no plan is chosen, it is deleted 90 days after the trial ends; we email the administrators 30 and 7 days before. Choosing a plan continues the same account.
Flight schools, flying clubs, aircraft ownership partnerships, and rental or managed fleets. An organization sets its type when it is created, and the interface adapts its wording (Students, Members or Customers), its help and its Books modules to that type. An individual owner or a standalone set of books are supported types too.
Yes. The schedule, fleet and records work the same for one aircraft or a fleet, and a person can belong to several organizations and switch between them. The largest fixtures we test against are a multi-aircraft school with several instructors; if your operation is larger than that, tell us the numbers when you get in touch.
If you already have an account, use the Sign in button at the top of this page. It opens the sign-in screen, where you enter your email for a one-time link, or use a passkey if you have set one up. If you are already signed in on this browser, the button reads Open dashboard. If you are flying with an operator and have not signed in before, open the invitation link in your operator's email first. The link works once and expires in 14 days, and you sign in with the same email address it was sent to. The For renters page explains the steps.
From Flight Circle: customer documents (through the extractor and the bulk import), the rate catalogue, customer records and maintenance reminders, with rows that need a person's check flagged for review. Into Books (preview): contacts, an opening trial balance, open invoices and bills, prepaid funds, capital balances and bank accounts as CSV, and bank statement files as CSV or OFX. Reservations, flight history and balances are not imported; flying starts fresh from the cutover date. There is no import from other scheduling platforms in this release.
A pilot or student uploads a document from the portal, or staff upload on their behalf. Extraction proposes values (certificate, ratings, medical class and date, expiry dates) with a confidence score. A staff member compares the proposal with the file and approves or rejects it with a reason. Only an approval changes the person's record, and the record can be rebuilt from approved documents at any time.
Yes. It is a responsive web application; there is nothing to install. The schedule, dispatch and check-in, the portal's document upload with camera capture, and My flights all work at phone width. There is no native app in this release.
Staff roles are administrator, manager, member, bookkeeper and maintenance; pilots, students and members use the portal. Instructor is not a staff role: an administrator tags a person on the People roster as an instructor, which lets them be booked as the instructor on a lesson and publish their availability. Administrators invite staff by a link bound to an email address and send portal invitations to people. Books has its own roles (administrator, accountant, reviewer, owner, member, auditor) because a managing partner is often an administrator and an owner, and those grant different things. Access is enforced in the database, not only in the interface.
Books is included and labelled a preview. It has a double-entry general ledger, customer and member invoicing with partial payments, credits, prepaid block time, recurring dues and statements, vendors and bills, owner equity and reserves, and financial reports. Bank and card activity is imported from statement files (CSV or OFX). Live bank feeds are not offered. Matching proposes links and a person reviews them; reconciliation finalises only at an exact zero difference. When an organization connects payments, people can pay by card or US bank account through Stripe. Books does not file taxes, run payroll, or produce K-1 figures, and an accountant should validate the setup before an organization relies on it.
QuickBooks is not required. There is no QuickBooks connector in this release. A QuickBooks Online sync is planned for Standard only, at $29 a month on a monthly plan or $290 a year on an annual plan, per company file. It will not be offered on the Owner plan, during a trial, or at a founding discount. A one-time history import of up to two years is $1,500; a longer history is quoted. Founding organizations on annual billing are not charged for that import. Books is built in and labelled a preview, and its reports export to CSV. If you keep your books elsewhere, you can use scheduling, dispatch, records and maintenance without Books.
Start a 30-day free trial and set the organization up yourself, or talk to us and we will create it and invite the first administrator. One or two aircraft can be brought across by the organization at no setup fee, or one $750 fee covers move-over help and Books opening balances. Three or more aircraft on annual billing include move-over help, capped at 3 hours within 30 days of the subscription starting. Three or more on monthly billing pay $750 for that help, credited if they switch to annual within 60 days. The full schedule is in Pricing. Inside the product, the Help Center has role-based checklists, and every screen has contextual help.
Standard is $29 per aircraft per month billed annually ($348 per aircraft per year), or $35 per aircraft per month, with no minimum. Owner is $199 a year for one aircraft, or $159 a year for a verified EAA or AOPA member. Founding pricing is 50% off Standard annual for 12 months for the first 25 organizations, while places remain, then the $29 rate locked for 24 months. Every organization can start with a 30-day free trial, no card needed, and choose a plan in the app when it ends. The Pricing section has setup fees.
Start a 30-day free trial, no card needed, and set the organization up yourself. If you would rather begin with a conversation, talk to us and we will create the organization and invite its first administrator.
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People who fly with an operator: questions about a booking, a document or a bill go to that operator. Sign-in help uses the same address. Getting started for renters.
