Charter Quoting and Dispatch, Built for Part 135
Part 135 Charter Dispatch & Deterministic Quoting is part of AviationAlley. A Part 135 on-demand operator lives between two pressures: quote a trip fast enough to win it, and dispatch it legally enough to fly it. Most shops do both with a spreadsheet rate card, a charter agreement saved as a Word file, and a dispatcher who assembles weather, NOTAMs, fuel, and weight-and-balance by hand the morning of departure. AviationAlley is part 135 charter dispatch and quoting software designed to run that whole arc — a deterministic, auditable quote engine, a dispatch board with printable trip-sheet briefings, charter contracts with the rate card those quotes price against, and a close-out that turns the meters off the airframe into a draft invoice. AviationAlley is a pre-launch product opening to a founding cohort of operators; this is the Part 135 charter workflow being built with that cohort, not a generally available system operators run in production today.
The problem: quoting fast and dispatching legal, by hand
A charter quote has more moving parts than it looks. Occupied flight time and positioning (ferry/deadhead) legs price at different rates, a fuel surcharge rides on top, the customer expects a discount, and then the government layer lands on it — the Federal Excise Tax on taxable air transportation and the per-segment fee — plus landing, handling, catering, and overnight fees that aren't taxable the same way. Build that in a spreadsheet and the next person rebuilds it slightly differently, the excise tax gets applied to the wrong base, and you can't show a customer (or an auditor) exactly how the number was reached.
Dispatch is the same scramble at the other end of the trip. The day of departure, someone pulls METARs and TAFs for departure, arrival, and alternates, checks FAA NOTAMs, works out planned, alternate, contingency, and reserve fuel, and confirms weight-and-balance — then prints something the crew can actually sign and carry. After the trip, the Hobbs and Tach readings come off the airframe on a sticky note and have to become an invoice and instructor or pilot pay, which is where revenue quietly leaks.
- Quotes built in spreadsheets that each person calculates a little differently — no auditable trail of how the price was reached
- Federal Excise Tax and per-segment fees applied to the wrong base, or forgotten, because the pass-through math lives in someone's head
- Charter agreements saved as one-off documents with no link to the rate card the quote was priced from
- Dispatch briefings assembled by hand the morning of the flight — weather, NOTAMs, fuel, and weight-and-balance pulled from separate places
- Crew briefings that aren't printable or signable, so there's no clean trip-sheet record the crew carried
- Hobbs/Tach readings that turn into an invoice and pilot pay by memory, so billable time and pay accrual drift
How AviationAlley's charter quoting and dispatch are built to work
The quote engine is deterministic — straight, auditable rate math, not AI or surge-style dynamic pricing. The operator supplies the rates and percentages (occupied hourly rate, positioning rate, fuel surcharge, discount, the excise-tax rate, per-segment fee, and flat fees), and the engine itemizes the trip the same way every time: flight plus positioning plus fuel surcharge into a transportation subtotal, less the discount, plus the Federal Excise Tax and per-segment fees as clearly-labeled government pass-through, plus airport and handling fees. It reports the operator's own revenue separately from the taxes it merely collects, so a quote line by line is something you can hand to a customer or defend in a review. Each quote carries its own number and a tokenized customer accept-or-decline link, so the client can sign off without a login.
The dispatch board is the day-of view of the trips on the schedule, and each trip generates a printable trip-sheet briefing. The briefing assembles a crew block with captain, first officer, and dispatcher signature lines; a weather block with METAR and TAF for departure, arrival, and alternates; a NOTAMs block; a fuel-planning block covering taxi, planned, alternate, contingency, and reserve; and a weight-and-balance summary — with any estimated figure tagged as an estimate rather than dressed up as a live feed. Print styling strips the application shell so it comes out clean on letter paper as the document the crew signs and carries.
Charter contracts live alongside the quote that produced them. Operators keep reusable contract templates, generate a contract per trip or client, and send it for a tokenized customer signature without a login. The rate card the contracts and quotes price against is the operator's own — the hourly, positioning, surcharge, and fee inputs the deterministic engine consumes — so the price a customer agreed to and the contract they signed are built from the same controlled numbers instead of two documents that disagree.
- Deterministic quote engine — occupied flight, positioning, fuel surcharge, discount, FET, per-segment, and flat fees itemized the same way every time, never AI or dynamic pricing
- Operator-controlled rate card — every rate and percentage is an input you set, so quotes are auditable rather than a black box
- Government pass-through handled correctly — the Federal Excise Tax and per-segment fees shown as clearly-labeled pass-through, with operator revenue reported separately from the taxes collected
- Tokenized customer accept/decline and contract signature — clients approve a quote or sign a charter contract without an account
- Dispatch board plus printable trip-sheet briefing — crew and signatures, METAR/TAF, NOTAMs, fuel planning, and weight-and-balance on one document, estimates labeled as estimates
- Reusable charter contract templates generated per trip or client, kept beside the quote that priced them
- Print-clean output — the briefing and contract strip the app shell so they print as real cockpit and customer paperwork
What's included: close-out that turns meters into a draft invoice
When a charter trip is done, the dispatch close-out is designed to take the airframe meters — Hobbs or Tach, whichever the operator bills on — and turn them into money without re-keying. From the close-out the operator enters the out and in readings on the chosen basis; the engine computes billable time, shows a live go-to-invoice preview as you dial in the meters and rates, and is built to create a DRAFT invoice tied to the booking plus a pilot-pay accrual from the same readings, so billable time and crew pay come off one set of numbers instead of two. Because the draft is tied to the booking, billing the same trip twice resolves to the existing invoice rather than creating a duplicate.
This meter-to-invoice close-out, the pilot-pay accrual, charter contract e-sign, and the deterministic quote engine are part of the founding-cohort build. Some of these surfaces depend on a schema migration that is pending for the founding cohort, so until it is applied they degrade cleanly to an empty state rather than showing fabricated numbers — they are real, prod-safe code being finished with the first operators, not a system generally available in production today. AviationAlley is pre-launch; pricing is not public, and the Part 135 workflow on this page is what is being built with the founding cohort.
- Dispatch close-out reads Hobbs or Tach out/in on the operator's chosen billing basis and computes billable time deterministically
- Live go-to-invoice preview as the operator dials in meters and rates, before anything is committed
- DRAFT invoice created against the booking, with re-billing the same trip resolving to the existing invoice instead of duplicating it
- Pilot/CFI pay accrued from the same meter readings, so billing and pay come off one source of truth
- Founding-cohort status: some close-out and contract surfaces depend on a pending schema migration and degrade to an empty state until it is applied
- Pre-launch and honest by design — no public pricing, no fabricated trips or customers, estimates and roadmap items labeled as such
Frequently asked questions
Is the charter quote engine AI or dynamic pricing?
No. The quote engine is deterministic — straight, auditable rate math. The operator supplies every rate and percentage (occupied and positioning rates, fuel surcharge, discount, the excise-tax rate, per-segment fee, and flat fees), and the engine itemizes the trip the same way every time. There is no AI, no surge or dynamic pricing, and no black box: the same inputs always produce the same quote, and operator revenue is reported separately from the taxes that are merely collected and passed through.
How does the dispatch close-out turn meters into an invoice and pilot pay?
At close-out the operator enters Hobbs or Tach out/in on whichever basis they bill on; the engine computes billable time and is built to create a DRAFT invoice tied to the booking plus a pilot-pay accrual from the same readings, with a live preview before anything commits. This auto-bill and pay accrual are part of the founding-cohort build — some surfaces depend on a pending schema migration and degrade to an empty state until it is applied, so they are real, prod-safe code being finished with the first operators rather than a generally available feature today.
What's on the printable trip-sheet briefing?
Each dispatched trip generates a printable briefing with a crew block (captain, first officer, and dispatcher signature lines), METAR/TAF weather for departure, arrival, and alternates, a NOTAMs block, fuel planning (taxi, planned, alternate, contingency, reserve), and a weight-and-balance summary. Any estimated figure is labeled as an estimate rather than presented as a live feed, and print styling strips the app shell so it comes out clean on letter paper as the document the crew signs and carries.