Universal Weather & Aviation modernizes legacy aircraft and crew scheduling software

Client Overview Challenge Solution Outcome Technologies Used

Enabling Corporate Flight Departments to Manage Aircraft and Crew Schedules

Aircraft dispatchers and schedulers who support private flights and charter operations rely on specialized scheduling systems to manage aircraft and crew utilization. Such scheduling systems offer a full suite of features and integrations which ensure compliance with applicable regulations and operational requirements, from building flight schedules to tracking crew qualifications and duty times.

Universal Weather & Aviation, a leading provider of trip support services for business aviation operators, had sold and supported FlightPak, a purpose-built desktop scheduling system. However, as more flexible workflows were needed and clients wanted to access scheduling features on the web, Universal engaged Perituza to rewrite the existing application.

An Integrated Solution Connecting Flight Departments with Universal’s Trip Support Services

While FlightPak was originally developed using FoxPro, Universal’s IT department requested that the next-gen rewrite, called Flight Scheduling Software (FSS), be developed using Microsoft ASP.NET MVC. Perituza was engaged to provide a tech lead, developers, and quality assurance analysts to augment Universal’s internal IT team, which included a product manager, designer, tech leads, and developers.

Replatforming Aircraft and Crew Schedule Management from Desktop to Web

Perituza’s developers worked hand-in-hand with Universal’s in-house FoxPro developer and subject matter experts to analyze FlightPak’s existing functionalities. Perituza’s developers documented use cases, business requirements, process flow diagrams, and wireframes, ensuring that FSS functionalities would remain at parity with FlightPak.

Perituza’s team members, working directly with Universal’s IT team, worked through 1 PM Central daily. This time zone overlap allowed Perituza’s team to participate in daily standups and deep dives with the Universal team.

FSS was delivered using the scrum framework, with demos and releases taking place at the end of each two-week sprint. Perituza’s tech leads worked on an ongoing basis with Universal’s team to document FlightPak’s complex logic and ensure sufficient product backlogs for upcoming sprints. Additionally, in order to increase the speed of delivery, Perituza implemented QA test automation, continuous integration, and continuous delivery (CI/CD).

Additionally, during FSS’ development, Universal continued to support and maintain FlightPak. Perituza assigned two experienced FoxPro developers to augment the existing support team.

Phase I - Gap analysis and documentation

Perituza assigned two highly experienced FoxPro developers to analyze the existing system functionality

Created business requirements documentation including process flow diagrams and wireframes

Phase II – UI design and development

Implemented test automation, continuous integration, and continuous delivery (CI/CD)

Designed and developed new user interfaces

Architected and developed the new system

Phase III – Go-live and data migration

Provided production support as clients onboarded to FSS

Migrated legacy data into the new system

A Dedicated Full-Time Development Team

Perituza provided Universal with 13 senior team members for the duration of the project.

It has been a pleasure working with the Perituza team. They pay a high level of attention to detail, ask the right questions, and deliver as they promise. They know how to describe technical concepts to a non-technical audience, and they’re willing to help with whatever is needed to make the team successful.

Product Manager II

Universal Weather & Aviation

The Result

Following 18 months of development, Universal launched FSS at its user conference, held in tandem with the 2016 National Business Aviation (NBAA) Schedulers and Dispatchers’ Conference in San Jose, CA. FSS is now used by both US- and internationally-based corporate flight departments.