ForeFlight Unveils Advanced Collaborative Flight Planning for Teams of Any Size; Signs with Flexjet

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  • Dispatch is an add-on to ForeFlight’s Mobile and Web application that equally empowers pilots, flight planners, and ops managers in flight departments big and small to collaborate and plan flights with greater efficiency and precision.
  • Flexjet signs on as the inaugural customer, adopting Dispatch to complement its longtime use of ForeFlight Mobile on the flight deck.
  • Learn more at foreflight.com/dispatch

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 21, 2019 – Boeing (NYSE:BA) announced the launch of ForeFlight Dispatch, a team flight planning component of its web application that delivers a next-generation, multi-user, schedule-to-mobile flight planning capability for flight operations of any size.

With Dispatch, flight plans are created by pilots, dispatchers, or automatically via integrated scheduling systems to generate “cleared-as-filed” routes, briefings, and operational flight plans, which are then synchronized with the ForeFlight Mobile application on crew devices. Flight watchers or dispatchers can then monitor flights or make changes to flight plans, and all changes are automatically synced back to crew devices, resulting in a more productive flight operation.

Customers across North America and Europe have already tested the new capabilities with live flight operations in an extensive beta program. The inaugural customer of ForeFlight Dispatch, Flexjet, is a preeminent operator committed to deploying the latest technology throughout the organization.

“As one of the industry’s most innovative brands, Flexjet regularly seeks to drive efficiencies in every part of our business,” said Flexjet Chief Operating Officer Megan Wolf. “ForeFlight, in partnership with us, dramatically improved the flight planning process and created cutting-edge technology for both the Dispatchers and the Pilots.”
“For the past year, we have beta tested the Dispatch software to our Global fleet, which operate all over the world,” said Tim Montie, director of operations at Flexjet. “The efficiencies that we have realized with optimized flight plan routes, fuel burns, and passenger comfort have been outstanding. This has also allowed us to reduce the number of applications that our pilots must maintain and reduces the amount of actual paper documents that each pilot and aircraft must carry.”
“We are thrilled to be expanding our longstanding relationship with Flexjet as they adopt our Dispatch capabilities,” said Tyson Weihs, Co-Founder and CEO of ForeFlight, a Boeing Company. “We worked closely with Flexjet to identify and eliminate the biggest inefficiencies faced by their teams: workflow fragmentation, slow route generation, disconnected systems, and complex workarounds to release flights to crew members. We are now addressing these issues by combining the app’s historical strengths and our Jeppesen data in a single, streamlined, next-gen flight planning solution.”

ForeFlight Dispatch solves several common challenges for flight departments — how to efficiently load flight plans from the scheduling system, select valid and optimal flight routes, collaboratively plan, file, and monitor flights, and ultimately distribute them along with associated documents to crew members’ mobile devices.

With Dispatch, supported flight scheduling systems can send flights directly into ForeFlight so teams can start working with them right away. ForeFlight Web provides a centralized list view of all planned and filed flights so Planners have better insight into the status of any flight and the overall view of the day’s operations.

Likewise, pilots can easily see flights assigned to them both on the web and on their mobile devices. Flights created by pilots on their mobile devices appear on the web for planners to view and edit, allowing flight crews and planning teams to view more easily. ForeFlight’s Sync system ensures that all changes are reflected across the platform for everyone involved.

All of Boeing’s existing best-in-class flight planning features through ForeFlight, combined with its high-quality “runway to runway” flight planning data through Jeppesen, are enhanced by the addition of advanced capabilities like fine-tuned route constraints and partial routing, at-a-glance speed and altitude performance comparisons, expanded fuel policies, automatic Jeppesen Airway Manual lookups and overflight reports.

Dispatch’s Scheduling API allows ForeFlight to integrate with scheduling software providers and enterprise systems. Initial planned integrations include Boeing’s Jeppesen Operator, SD Scheduler, Flightdocs Enterprise, BART by Seagil Software, PFM Ops Console, and Avmosys.

Customers attending NBAA can see a demo and sign up to get started with Dispatch at the ForeFlight booth in North Hall – Booth 5518, and the Boeing booth in North and Central halls – Booth 5202.

To learn more about ForeFlight Dispatch, visit foreflight.com/dispatch. To schedule a demo of Dispatch, contact sales@foreflight.com.

Additional Product Highlights:

Workflow Enhancing Integrations

Scheduling system integrations can send scheduled flights into ForeFlight, complete with the flight details needed for a flight planner to start working with them right away. Dispatch’s APIs also allow external systems – scheduling software, passenger itineraries, and more – to leverage ForeFlight’s advanced performance engine with quickly-returned “performance quotes,” delivering estimated time and fuel burn results for flights before they even reach ForeFlight.

Dispatch integrates crew assignment and mobile flight releases into its flight planning workflow, allowing planners to release flight plans directly to assigned crew members’ iPads and iPhones before departure. Flight plans are delivered to crew members within seconds of being released, complete with aircraft, airport, route, and performance details.

ForeFlight’s Navlog and Briefing documents are also generated for each flight plan and synced to crew members’ devices, providing quick access to everything they need. Any changes made by planners to a released flight will automatically sync to pilots’ devices, along with updated documents reflecting the changes.

Optimized Route Generation

Dispatch leverages and extends ForeFlight’s next-generation flight planning engine and Recommended Route, which uses Jeppesen’s high quality “runway-to-runway” aeronautical data along with forecast weather, aircraft performance, and ATC history to create optimized and globally file-able flight plans. For flights in Europe, ForeFlight automatically validates every route against EUROCONTROL rules to ensure it can be filed without rejection.

The new Route Builder feature allows planners to specify detailed route constraints that ForeFlight adheres to when generating the optimized Recommended Route. These include avoiding FIRs, airways, waypoints, and SID or STAR procedures, or including any of the above in ForeFlight’s auto-generated route. Planners can also specify “partial routes” that comply with strict overflight permits or preferential routing through certain airspace, allowing ForeFlight to incorporate those segments verbatim while optimizing the remainder of the route. ForeFlight accepts new constraints and updates the Recommended Route extremely quickly.

A key component of the Route Builder is the Route Analysis Report document, which searches Jeppesen’s digital airway manual and returns any relevant airway restrictions in seconds. Flight planners can then add new constraints to bypass the airways and re-generate the route, saving significant time and removing the need for leafing through physical airway manuals.

Dispatch also brings ETP and ETOPS planning to ForeFlight. Aircraft can be configured with details concerning depressurization and medical scenarios, ETP-specific fuel parameters, and single-engine speed used for ETOPS calculations. Flight planners can then select diversion airports for a flight and ForeFlight will calculate ETP information for each pair of airports and include it in the Navlog document for easy reference.

Enable ETOPS for a flight and ForeFlight will check that every route leg is within ETOPS certification, and display ETOPS rings around each diversion airport on ForeFlight’s dynamic route map. The map can also highlight a route’s point of safe return (also known as point of no return), allowing planners to quickly identify how far along the route the plane can still return to the departure airport with sufficient fuel reserves.

Flexible Fuel & Performance Planning

Dispatch combines ForeFlight’s existing fuel planning capabilities like Fuel Policies with new features that make the process even easier. Cruise Advisor provides side-by-side performance comparisons of different altitude and cruise speed combinations so flight planners can quickly find the desired balance between time enroute and fuel usage. Planners can choose up to three cruise profiles to compare at five nearby altitudes, and ForeFlight calculates the forecast winds, time enroute, and fuel burn for each combination. The combinations resulting in the lowest fuel usage and the shortest trip time are each highlighted for easy identification.

Dispatch adds multiple wind model options for greater flexibility while flight planning. Planners can choose the Forecasted model, which uses actual winds aloft forecasts out to seven days in advance; the Historical model, which uses historical winds with selectable probability settings of 50%, 85%, or 90%; or the Fixed wind model, which allows the planner to define a specific head- or tailwind component and ISA deviation that applies to the entire flight.

Multiple reserve fuel policies corresponding to a number of FAA and EASA regulatory designations are also available with Dispatch. Planners can select one to automatically calculate the fuel required under that policy, or manually input a quantity of reserve fuel or minutes of equivalent flight time.

Helpful Flight Documents

Dispatch extends ForeFlight’s lineup of auto-generated preflight documents with new additions that can help flight planners and crew members prepare for and conduct the flight. The Briefing document combines information about NOTAMs and forecast weather with other documents to create a single, comprehensive flight briefing for simplified crew delivery. ForeFlight’s Navlog document provides detailed flight fuel and weight metrics, waypoint-by-waypoint performance and altitude comparisons, airport frequencies, and more, making it a convenient inflight reference.

The new Overflight Report sums together all FIR overflight fees that would be incurred for a given route. For each FIR the document lists the parent country, the entry and exit coordinates, the total distance and duration spent transiting the FIR, and the overflight charges and accrued cost as the flight progresses.

Flexjet first entered the fractional jet ownership market in 1995. Flexjet offers fractional jet ownership and leasing. Flexjet’s fractional aircraft program is the first in the world to be recognized as achieving the Air Charter Safety Foundation’s Industry Audit Standard, is the first and only company to be honored with 20 FAA Diamond Awards for Excellence, upholds an ARG/US Platinum Safety Rating and is IS-BAO compliant at Level 2. Flexjet’s fractional program fields an exclusive array of business aircraft—some of the youngest in the fractional jet industry, with an average age of approximately six years. In 2015, Flexjet introduced Red Label by Flexjet, which features the youngest fleet in the industry, flight crews dedicated to a single aircraft and the LXi Cabin Collection of interiors. To date there are more than 30 different interior designs across its fleet, which includes the Challenger 350, the Embraer Legacy 450, Global Express, the Gulfstream G450, G500 and G650, and the Aerion AS2 supersonic business jets. In addition, the overall jet collection includes the Embraer Phenom 300 and Bombardier Challenger 300. Flexjet is a member of the Directional Aviation family of companies. For more details on innovative programs and flexible offerings, visit www.flexjet.com or follow us on Twitter @Flexjet and on Instagram @FlexjetLLC.

Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company and leading provider of commercial airplanes, defense, space and security systems, and global services. As the top U.S. exporter, the company supports commercial and government customers in more than 150 countries. Boeing employs more than 150,000 people worldwide and leverages the talents of a global supplier base. Building on a legacy of aerospace leadership, Boeing continues to lead in technology and innovation, deliver for its customers and invest in its people and future growth.