Shift in Flight Planning Strategy

Welcome back to Jump Seat. In this article, we’d like to share some information about a new direction for our flight planning product. Based on customer feedback we have been developing a new flight planning interface into the ARINCDirect iPad application. Our iPad application has historically focused on flight execution, providing you capabilities such as filing, weather, NOTAM, weight & balance, runway performance, and the eNavLog. The inclusion of the flight planning feature within the iPad application will expand the capabilities of the app to handle all three phases (pre-flight, flight execution, and closeout). 

Initial Features 

ARINCDirect Flight Planning capabilities have expanded over the years on the web. In developing the original web interface many years ago, we started by delivering a regional flight planning capability and quickly expanded it to handle long-haul international flights. Further expansion included the integrations that you are accustomed to today with features such as weight and balance, safety, and much more. We are taking a very similar approach as we develop flight planning in the app. The first major release, planned for early 2026, will offer the ability to create, store, and file a regional plan. You will have access to many of the flight planning features that are currently available for these types of flight plans, such as, various route options, the ability to create and/or edit a custom route, the ability to replan/recompute a flight plan and integrations with existing features on the iPad including the map, weather, NOTAM, and flight plan filing. We are targeting early 2026 for the first release of flight planning in the application. 

Expanding Capabilities 

Beyond the initial release, we will be developing the features required for long-haul international flight planning such as ETP, ETOPS, EDTO, and more. In addition to offering these advanced features, the plans created on the iPad app will be compatible with those created on the website which will enable the ability to replan a flight plan created on the app from the legacy web interface. As more enhancements are delivered in the app to align with feature set available on the web, replan capabilities will expand to allow plans initiated on the web to be replanned in the app as well.  

Key Enhancements 

In parallel with these advanced features, we’ll be continuing development beyond the initial features to bring you key enhancements. We have heard from you the importance of features such as MRO (multiple-route options) and integrated Weight & Balance, and these will be some of the additional features that we plan to incorporate into the flight planning workflow as we continue to enhance the capabilities. In addition to these highly requested features, we will also develop new features that serve to better inform your decision making, such as suggested alternates and suitability checks, monitoring and alerting, for both the airport and en route environments. 

Sunset of NextGen Flight Planning  

You may have noticed we discontinued further development on NextGen flight planning early in 2025. That decision was made based on customer feedback and a shift in strategy to move away from the web as being the primary interface for flight planning. In preparation for flight planning being delivered in the app, we will sunset the NextGen flight planning interface on December 3rd, 2025. We look forward to delivering a modern, intuitive, flight planning capability in the app and will look to your feedback to assist us in prioritizing the features that are most important to our user community.  

Feedback Driven Roadmap 

Throughout this development process, we remain open to your feedback. We will offer a Beta version of in-app flight planning prior to the initial release to the live environment; this will allow you to interact with the flight planning feature and provide feedback. As we release subsequent iPad flight planning versions, we encourage you to share your thoughts via the feedback feature within the application.