Crew bidding, duty/rest, and qualifications that scale with the fleet.
Part 121 means thousands of pilots, hundreds of training events a week, and a duty/rest regime that has to hold up under inspection. Run the crew side as one system of record — bidding, reserve, open-time, MEL, and FAR 117 — without losing the audit trail.
Inside the Part 121 workspace
See it in action
Pilot bidding, crew pairings, FAR 117 duty/rest, MEL.
Today
What's slowing you down
- Bidding run in a legacy PBS tool whose UI predates the smartphone
- Reserve and open-time tracked in a spreadsheet the crew desk rebuilds nightly
- FAR 117 legality checked by hand, after the line is already built
With AviationAlley
What changes
- One workspace for bidding, reserve, open-time, and MEL
- FAR 117 duty/rest checked before a pairing posts
- Award runs are idempotent — the same inputs always produce the same lines
Every part, broken down
What you get for Part 121
Pilot bidding (LINE + PBS)
Seniority-ordered, deterministic, idempotent awards.
Build a monthly package per base × equipment × position and move it through DRAFT → OPEN → CLOSED → AWARDED → PUBLISHED, so pilots, the crew desk, and the auditor all know exactly where the bid stands. Pilots bid from the portal; awards publish to them only once the package is PUBLISHED. It replaces the legacy PBS tool whose UI predates the smartphone.
Run awards in classic LINE mode or rule-based PBS, processed in seniority order so the senior bidder is served first. PBS reads each pilot's hard and soft preferences from a generic rule catalog, and the same package and bids always yield the same lines. What you get is a fair, explainable award — not the mechanics of how it's computed. It replaces the regional incumbents that force LINE-only.
The award run is a pure function: feed it the same package and bids and it produces the same lines every time, and re-running cleanly replaces the prior awards rather than stacking duplicates. So you can re-run after a correction without fear of drift. It replaces the spreadsheet the crew desk rebuilds and re-checks by hand.
Build and edit pairings line by line inside the package; pilots without an awardable line fall to a reserve pool. The pairings drive what each line actually flies. It replaces maintaining pairings in a document disconnected from the bid.
Duty, rest & fatigue
When a pairing is about to be assigned, duty and rest legality is checked first, and an assignment that would bust the limits is blocked before it posts — not flagged after the line is built. The check is deterministic, so the same assignment always resolves the same way. You see whether an assignment is legal; the underlying limit tables stay in the engine. It replaces FAR 117 legality checked by hand after the fact.
Flight attendants get the same assignment-time duty/rest enforcement on the 121.467 regime that pilots get on 117, so cabin-crew legality is held to the same standard rather than tracked separately. It replaces the parallel FA duty spreadsheet.
A live board shows each crew member's duty used, derived from their shifts and flight log, so the desk sees who's running out of legal duty before assigning the next trip. It replaces reconstructing duty totals from paper.
The fatigue risk board surfaces a per-crew risk view that blends documented duty load with each crew member's self-reported sleep and rest, and every score traces back to the inputs behind it. It is deterministic and explainable — there is no black-box prediction model. It replaces judging crew fatigue by gut feel on long rotations.
Reserve, open-time & MEL
Track reserve crew as LONG_CALL and SHORT_CALL with callout and no-contact handling, so the desk knows who's available and who's been used. Reserve coverage lives in the same system as the lines it backs up. It replaces the reserve list kept on a separate sheet.
Pilots request drops, pickups, and swaps from the open-time board; a planner approves, and a trade that creates no duty/rest violation can auto-approve so the desk isn't a bottleneck on clean trades. Every trade still runs the legality check. It replaces trip trades negotiated over phone and email with no legality backstop.
Open a deferral against an MEL item and it tracks by category A/B/C/D with an auto-rolling expiry; an expired deferral raises a dispatch banner so the aircraft doesn't fly on a busted item. It replaces the MEL binder reconciled by hand.
Qualifications & recurrent
Run an Advanced Qualification Program with per-fleet proficiency objectives and continuing-qualification enrollments tracked alongside the rest of crew records, so CQ status isn't in a separate tool. It replaces the standalone AQP tracker most carriers keep apart from scheduling.
Flight-attendant training tracks the 121.421 categories — initial, recurrent, type-transition, and overwater — on their cycles, so cabin-crew qualification is held to the same visibility as pilots'. It replaces the FA training tracked on a separate spreadsheet.
A four-month grid lays credentials, FA recurrent training, and aircraft inspections on one calendar, so training and maintenance planning see the same upcoming wall of due dates. It replaces three separate calendars that never line up.
Record random drug-and-alcohol selections with a full audit trail, so the program's draws are documented and defensible at audit. It replaces draw records kept loosely in a folder.
Fleet, cargo & dispatch
Each tail carries its Airworthiness Directives, Service Bulletins, and life-limited parts with inspection clocks, and the fleet view rolls up what's coming due. Airworthiness status stops living in a binder nobody fully trusts. It replaces AD/SB applicability tracked by hand.
ULDs carry their IATA type and an AC 120-85 inspection clock, and the build-up manifest supports hazmat tags, so freight ops live in the same system as crew and fleet. It replaces a separate cargo tool and a clipboard for ULD inspections.
Live position and ETA appear on the ops board via FlightAware's AeroAPI, using your own key — you bring the FlightAware subscription. It replaces calling for position updates.
Generate a print-ready release with current METAR/TAF, NOTAMs, fuel, weight-and-balance, and a crew signature block, so the crew gets one assembled briefing instead of printouts from several sites. It replaces the trip sheet rebuilt by hand per leg.
Reliability & reporting
Each tail gets a 0–100 aircraft-on-ground risk score that surfaces which aircraft to look at first, and every score is shown with the factors that contributed to it — airworthiness posture, inspection timing, utilization, and age. It is deterministic and explainable, not a black-box prediction: you see what drove the number, not a mystery output. It replaces guessing which tail is the next surprise AOG.
Per-tail hours over 30 / 90 / 365 days sit next to an inspection countdown, so planners see which aircraft is overworked and which inspection is closest. It replaces the utilization tally done by hand each month.
Managers get a morning email of today's operation and the items that need attention, so the day starts from a brief instead of a cold dashboard. It replaces piecing the morning picture together from several screens.
Utilization, currency, and completion KPIs roll up across the operation and export to CSV for board packs or your own analysis. It replaces the month-end rebuild across disconnected tools.
In every operation
The platform-wide backbone — the same under every FAR Part.
When a flight or session is marked complete, the time posts to the pilot's logbook automatically by seat — so nobody double-enters at the end of a duty day. You can still add legs by hand, and import or export ForeFlight-compatible CSV both ways. It replaces the paper logbook and the side spreadsheet pilots reconcile before a checkride.
Every certificate, rating, medical, and type rating lives on one record with its expiry date and the scanned document attached. The system flags what's coming due so a lapsed medical or expired CFI never surprises you on the ramp. It replaces the wall calendar and the folder of PDFs no one can find during an audit.
Open a work order, set priority and assignee, and consume parts straight from inventory — stock decrements as parts go on the job and restores if they come off. Parts carry a real per-part reorder threshold and a location label, so low-stock items surface before the shelf is empty. Vendors and purchase orders link back to the same catalog. It replaces the whiteboard job list and the parts count done from memory.
Every regulatory and recurring requirement sits on one Compliant → Due-Soon → Overdue → In-Progress → Waived timeline, so the whole operation's status is one screen. A weekly digest emails admins and managers what's overdue and what's coming due. It replaces the three spreadsheets nobody fully trusts the week before an inspection.
The dashboard rolls up utilization, currency, completion, and activity KPIs across the operation, and every report exports to CSV for your own analysis or for the board pack. It replaces the month-end rebuild where someone re-keys numbers out of five different tools.
Every change records who did it, what changed, and when — searchable and exportable. When an evaluator asks who signed off on a record or when a status changed, the answer is one search away. It replaces the email-archaeology and the "I think it was Karen" guesswork before an audit.
Grant an FAA POI/PMI or outside auditor a read-only invite that expires on its own — typically a short audit window — so you never hand out a shared login or forget to revoke access afterward. Their view is scoped to the records they need, and what they looked at lands in your audit trail. It replaces the permanent account passed around by email.
A scoped, bearer-token REST API and HMAC-signed outbound webhooks let you push events into HRIS, ERP, an ops dashboard, or Slack/Teams the moment they happen. Keys are scoped and the raw token shows once; every delivery attempt is logged. It replaces the multi-month custom-integration engagement most aviation suites quote for.
Every record is scoped to your workspace, access is gated by role, and managers can narrow an individual employee to specific operations and hide specific surfaces on top of their role. TOTP two-factor protects accounts, and GDPR data export and erasure are first-class. It replaces the spreadsheet that anyone with the share link could open.
Why operators switch
What we have. What incumbents don't.
| AviationAlley | Status quo |
|---|---|
| Modern PBS UI built this decade | AD OPT / Sabre CrewTrac UIs date to the 90s |
| LINE and rule-based PBS modes | Many regional incumbents force LINE-only |
| Public REST API + signed webhooks | Bespoke integrations, multi-month engagements |
| Modular by FAR — pay for what you use | Monolithic suites; pay for unused modules |
Recommended for Part 121
Enterprise plan
Unlimited seats · priced to your fleet
Every module — Part 121 pilot bidding, AQP, multi-base. For regional carriers and multi-center training networks.
- All operation modules
- Full PBS with the contract rule library
- Multi-base + AQP
- Per-center white-label
- Dedicated customer success manager
Built for Part 121.
See it on your operation. Request a demo or join the waitlist.