Frequently asked questions

ScheduleFlight is a flight-school scheduling add-on to FBO Director, built by Essinta Labs, Inc. It handles the day-to-day of running a flight school: a scheduling board for aircraft and instructors, pilot and instructor self-service booking, currency and document tracking, a staff approval queue, your own hours and closures, and reports. Essinta Labs has been building aviation software since 1992.

Flight schools and the FBOs that run them. If you dispatch training aircraft, schedule instructors, and need to know a pilot is current before they fly, ScheduleFlight is built for you - whether you are a single-location school or a busy FBO with a training operation on the side.

Today ScheduleFlight is a responsive web app that works right in the browser on any phone or tablet, no app store download to manage. It is built to fit a small screen, so pilots can book a flight, check their schedule, and add it to their calendar from their phone. On most phones you can tap "Add to Home Screen" and it opens like an app, full screen. Native iOS and Android apps are coming soon.

Yes. ScheduleFlight follows FBO Director, so a multi-location operation schedules each location's aircraft and instructors, and staff pick the location they are working. Each location keeps its own aircraft, instructors, hours, and closures.

Yes. ScheduleFlight is an add-on that runs on the very same database as FBO Director - not a copy, not an overnight sync. Your customers, aircraft, and instructors are shared instantly: a pilot or tail number you set up in FBO Director is ready to schedule the moment you save, and anything you change in ScheduleFlight is the same record FBO Director sees. Your staff use their existing FBO Director login - there is no second account to manage.

No. Because ScheduleFlight and FBO Director share one database, your pilots (your customers), aircraft, and instructors are already there - nothing to import and nothing to keep in sync. Add or update a pilot in either place and it is the same record everywhere; set up a new tail number in FBO Director and it shows up to schedule right away. One change, both places.

Yes. Each pilot gets their own login and books their own flights right from the schedule. The board checks for overlaps as they go, so the same aircraft or instructor isn't double-booked.

Yes. Instructors can schedule any pilot or aircraft, not just their own flights - useful for setting up lessons, checkrides, and stage checks on behalf of a student.

No. Add as many aircraft as your school flies - and as many instructors and pilots as you need. There is no per-aircraft or per-seat cap.

Yes. The scheduling board switches between day, week, and month views, so the front desk can work a single busy day or step back and see the whole week at a glance.

Yes. You can label and color-code reservations - for example a discovery flight, a checkride, or maintenance - and set what each color means in Settings. The board shows a legend so everyone reads the colors the same way.

Yes. When a flight has been invoiced in FBO Director, staff can open that exact invoice right from the reservation - the same PDF your front desk would print - without leaving ScheduleFlight or logging into FBO Director separately.

Yes. Anything that needs a second look lands in a staff Approvals queue. Your team approves or denies each one in a click - and can add a reason - rather than the booking being quietly dropped or silently confirmed. You can also set a policy to require approval for every booking if you want full control.

Yes. Currency is checked the moment a pilot books. If the pilot is current, the flight confirms right away. If a medical, BFR, or aircraft checkout is expired - or the flight trips a rule your school has set - the reservation is still created but routed to the approval queue instead of going through unnoticed.

Yes. Pilots are emailed when a flight is booked and again if it is changed, approved, or denied - so everyone is working from the same information without a phone call.

Yes. Every reservation has an "Add to Calendar" option that downloads a standard calendar file (.ics). It opens straight into Microsoft Outlook, and just as well into Google Calendar or Apple Calendar, so the flight shows up on the pilot's own calendar.

Yes. You set your open and close times for each day of the week. Turn on "Enforce hours of operation" and a booking outside those hours - say 8:45pm when you close at 8:00 - is refused before it lands on the schedule.

Add a blackout date for the holiday or closure. With enforcement on, the schedule won't take a booking on that day, so nobody shows up to a locked door. You can set as many blackout dates as you need, in advance.

Yes. Blackout dates can apply to aircraft, instructors, or both - so you can close the whole operation, pull just the aircraft for a maintenance day, or block instructors for a training event while the airplanes still fly. You can also require minimum notice, limit how far ahead pilots book, and set a buffer between flights.

ScheduleFlight tracks pilot currency, medicals, and BFRs with expiration alerts, plus per-aircraft checkouts that say which pilots are approved to fly which aircraft. Pilots can upload their own documents from the portal for your staff to review. Those records drive the booking check automatically - an expired document or a missing checkout is what sends a reservation to the approval queue, so nothing slips through on the schedule.

Your staff invite them, and each pilot and instructor gets their own login to a self-service portal - their schedule, their documents, the aircraft they are approved to fly, and booking. Staff keep the full operations view; pilots only see what is theirs.

Yes. ScheduleFlight is served over HTTPS with role-based access, so pilots, instructors, and staff each see only what they should. It is hosted on Microsoft Azure in the United States, encrypted in transit and at rest, with automated backups. See our Privacy Policy for details.

If you already run FBO Director, getting started is quick - ScheduleFlight shares your existing system and customer data, so there is no migration and no duplicate entry. Email support@essinta.com and we will turn it on and walk you through setup.

ScheduleFlight is a monthly add-on to FBO Director. For current pricing and to start, see our pricing or email support@essinta.com.

Email support@essinta.com and a real person on our team will help. ScheduleFlight is a product of Essinta Labs, Inc.