# Farel — The Operating System for Airlines Source: / # The **Operating System** for Airlines One system for inventory, booking, check-in, and revenue - built for airlines that want full control. ## What full control actually looks like Legacy PSS vendors fragment your margin across booking, distribution, and ops. Farel is built as one, not stitched together. ### Control your distribution - 4× higher direct conversion - 30-50% lower distribution cost - No GDS constraints on pricing ### Capture every dollar - $15-25 additional EBITDA per pax - 2-3× higher ancillary attach rate - Monetize every touchpoint ### Run ops on your terms - Up to 90% self-service workflows - 50% fewer manual tasks per flight - IRROPS recovery in minutes ## The impact on your business Here's what our airline partners measure. ### Launch in weeks, not quarters Full PSS migration in as fast as 2 weeks. Not a typo. Our onboarding is designed for airlines that can't afford downtime. ### Higher margin per booking Airlines on Farel see 4× higher direct conversion and 30-50% lower distribution costs - margin you keep, not margin you share. ### Monetize every passenger touchpoint $15-25 additional EBITDA per passenger through ancillary sales embedded at every step - from first search to boarding gate. ### Operate lean at scale Automation reduces manual operational workload by up to 90% across commercial and airport workflows. ## Proven in real airline operations Live with carriers across 4 continents. Built on the standards that define what's next in aviation. ### Live on 4 continents From LATAM to Central Asia - airlines running live flights on Farel every day. - Live airline clients across 4 continents - 1M+ passengers processed annually - 99.999% platform uptime ### Certified & Secure Security built for airline payments and passenger data. - PCI-DSS 4.0 compliant - End-to-end encryption - GDPR compliant ### IATA-native Aligned with IATA One Order and built API-first for next-gen airline architecture. - IATA One Order compatible - NDC-ready distribution - API-first integration framework ## Backed by Y Combinator and leading global investors ## Airlines scaling smarter with Farel See how airlines use Farel to launch faster, increase margin, and operate lean. ### From greenfield to nationwide operations in just 8 weeks ### Turning charter operations into scalable retail revenue ### From offline bookings to a fully digital airline ## Everything your airline needs, in one place From inventory to check-in, see how each module fits together
to streamline your airline operations ## Works with your airports, your PSPs, your regulators Farel integrates with airports, payment providers, and regulatory systems out of the box, so you don't build middleware. ### Airport compatible Connects to any airport check-in and ground environment. - CUTE and CUPPS compatible - Integrates with any ground handler - Works with any airport infrastructure ### Regulatory connected Compliant data transmission to authorities worldwide. - PNRGOV message delivery - PAXLST transmission support - APIS reporting to any country ### Any payment provider Process payments through any PSP, any currency, any method. - Integrates with any PSP - Multi-currency and multi-method support - Supports SMS and notification gateways ## No surprises.
From pricing to go-live Transparent terms, fast onboarding, and support that doesn't disappear after signing. ### Transparent pricing Pay per boarded passenger. Features, training, regulatory transmissions - all included. Your cost scales with your traffic, nothing more. ### Predictable implementation Most airlines go live in 2-8 weeks with a dedicated onboarding team. We handle migration, testing, and training - on a fixed timeline. ### Low transition risk Proven migration playbook from legacy PSS. Parallel run options, rollback plans, zero-downtime cutover, and no long-term lock-in. ### Built for growth Add routes, fleets, and stations without re-platforming. Farel scales with your airline, from 2 aircraft to 200. --- # Platform Source: /platform/ # Built to run your airline end-to-end From flight creation to boarding gate, every module works together so your teams never switch between disconnected tools ## Everything your airline needs, in one place From inventory to check-in, see how each module fits together
to streamline your airline operations --- # Airline Inventory System Source: /platform/airline-inventory-system/ # Airline inventory built for real operations Manage flight schedules, seat availability, and fare classes in one system, synchronized across every sales channel and airport operation in real time. - Real-time seat availability - 100% channel synchronization - No ghost inventory - API-first architecture ## Why inventory problems show up everywhere else Disconnected inventory systems create operational conflicts, revenue leakage, and inconsistent seat availability across sales channels. ### Channel conflicts OTAs, agencies, and direct channels show different availability because updates propagate slowly. ### Ghost inventory Seats stay blocked or unavailable because systems sync in batches, not in real time. ### Manual flight management Routes, schedules, and aircraft configs require jumping between disconnected tools. ### Operational mismatch Inventory changes don't reach airport systems, causing boarding and reporting inconsistencies. ## Every lever that controls what you sell Manage flights, seat availability, fare rules, and ancillary inventory from a single operational system. ### Flight & schedule management Create flights, configure aircraft layouts, and manage routes from one interface. ### Seat availability control Set availability by channel, fare class, and booking window - updates propagate instantly. ### Fare classes & pricing rules Define fare classes and pricing rules per route and channel, without redeploying. ### Ancillary inventory Bags, meals, seats, and bundles managed in the same inventory as flights. ## When inventory changes, everything downstream knows Inventory updates automatically propagate to reservations, DCS, and passenger communications - seat sales, flight changes, and cancellations stay synchronized across commercial and operational systems. ## Set the rules for who sells what, and at what price Prioritize high-value channels, manage fare availability by class and booking window, and attach ancillaries like seats, bags, and priority boarding - all controlled from inventory. ## FAQ What airline ops and commercial teams ask before switching. ### How does Farel's inventory system differ from a traditional AIS? Traditional systems manage availability in isolation. Farel's inventory is natively connected to reservations, DCS, pricing, and distribution - every change propagates instantly with no middleware or manual exports. ### How does inventory prevent overbooking and ghost seats? Every booking, cancellation, and hold updates availability in real time across all channels simultaneously. There are no batch syncs or delayed updates. When a seat sells on the website, it's immediately reflected in the agency portal, API, and admin panel. ### Can we control which channels see which fares and availability? Yes. Inventory rules let you set fare access, seat allocation, and booking windows per channel. You can prioritize direct sales, restrict discount fares on OTAs, or allocate specific inventory to agency partners - all from one interface. ### How are schedule changes handled across the system? When a flight schedule changes, inventory automatically updates availability, reservations rebooks affected passengers, and notifications go out, no manual intervention required unless you configure agent review for specific scenarios. ### Does the inventory system support charter and ad-hoc flights? Yes. Charter flights, ad-hoc schedules, and one-off operations can be created alongside regular scheduled service. Aircraft layouts, seat maps, and pricing apply the same way across all flight types. ### How long does it take to set up and go live? Most airlines go live with Farel's full platform, including inventory - in 2–8 weeks. Schedule data, fleet configurations, and fare structures are migrated by Farel's onboarding team with parallel-run support. --- # Airline Reservation System Source: /platform/reservation-system/ # Bookings that stay in sync, search to gate Create and manage bookings across every channel from one platform. Automate changes,
and refunds, and passenger notifications, synced with inventory and DCS in real time. - Multi-channel booking management - Automated changes and refunds - Real-time inventory synchronization - API-first architecture ## What breaks when reservations live in silos When reservations span disconnected systems, manual work multiplies, data conflicts slip through, and passengers feel the gaps. ### Disconnected booking channels Separate systems per channel lead to duplicate PNRs, pricing mismatches, and inventory conflicts. ### Manual change handling Every cancellation, schedule change, and refund lands in an agent queue - one by one. ### Passenger communication gaps Flight changes happen. Passengers find out at the airport. ### Operational data conflicts PNL lists don't match, PNRGOV submissions lag, check-in staff work with stale records. ## Sell from anywhere,
manage from one place Every booking, whether from a passenger, agent, or API partner,
writes to the same record and syncs instantly with inventory and DCS. - IBE and Mobile app — Passengers search, book, pay, and manage trips on their own, including changes, refunds, and extras. - Agency platform — Agencies book and pay using their balance or credit line, with commissions and access controls you set. - Web services (API) — Connect OTAs, meta searches, and tech partners to real-time availability through developer-friendly endpoints. - Admin panel — Search, create, modify, and process payments - full booking control for call center and airport staff. - Direct payment links — Airline agents create a booking and send a secure link - the customer reviews details and pays at their convenience. ## When a flight changes,
the system handles the rest Schedule changes, cancellations, and refund requests trigger automatic rebooking, passenger notifications, and fare-rule processing - no agent queues, no manual steps. ## Turn every touchpoint
into revenue Passengers can add bags, seats, meals, priority, and bundles at every stage - booking, post-booking, web check-in, and airport counter. Not just one moment, every moment. ## From booking to border,
in real time Reservation data flows automatically to inventory, DCS, and regulatory systems. PNL/ADL lists stay current, PNRGOV goes out on time, and check-in staff always work with complete records. ## FAQ Answers to the questions we hear most from airline teams ### How does Farel's reservation system differ from a traditional CRS? Traditional CRS platforms handle bookings in isolation - separate from inventory, departure control, and distribution. Farel's reservation system is built as part of a single platform, so every booking automatically syncs with seat availability, DCS passenger lists, and regulatory systems like PNRGOV. There's no middleware, no batch imports, and no data lag between systems. ### Can we migrate from our current PSS without downtime? Yes. Farel supports parallel-run migration, where both systems operate simultaneously during the transition. Existing bookings can be imported, and the cutover happens on a fixed timeline - most airlines go live in 2-8 weeks. There's no long-term lock-in and rollback plans are built into every migration. ### How does the system handle IRROPS and involuntary rebooking? When a flight is cancelled or a schedule changes, the system automatically rebooks affected passengers based on configurable rules, processes fare-rule refunds, and sends notifications via email and SMS. Agents can review and override, but most cases resolve without manual intervention. ### Can agencies and API partners see different fares and inventory? Yes. Each distribution channel - agency portal, API, IBE can be configured with its own fare access, inventory availability, commission rules, and credit limits. You control what each partner sees and sells. ### What data is sent to DCS and border authorities? Passenger data syncs in real time with departure control systems via PNL/ADL messages. PNRGOV is automatically transmitted to customs and border authorities for international flights. If you use a third-party DCS, Farel delivers the same messages to their system automatically. ### Does Farel support ancillary sales after the initial booking? Yes. Passengers can purchase bags, seats, meals, priority boarding, and bundles at four stages: during booking, post-booking via email or self-service portal, during web check-in, and at the airport counter. Ancillary availability and pricing are managed centrally and apply across all touchpoints. --- # Departure Control System Source: /platform/departure-control-system/ # Ground operations, gate to gate Handle check-in, boarding, and flight close-out from one screen, with CUTE/CUPPS support and real-time sync to inventory and reservations. - CUTE/CUPPS compatible - Automated seat assignment - Ancillary sales at the counter - Real-time passenger sync ## Run the ground side of every flight Manage check-in, boarding, baggage, and flight close-out from a single DCS. ### Stale passenger data Check-in staff work from PNL snapshots, not live booking data - missing last-minute changes, cancellations, and seat swaps. ### Missed counter revenue Agents can't sell ancillaries at check-in because DCS doesn't know what the passenger already purchased. ### Manual compliance reporting PNRGOV and API-PNR submissions require manual exports or separate middleware to reach border authorities. ### Equipment change chaos Aircraft swaps mean manually rebuilding seat maps, re-checking passengers, and hoping nothing falls through the cracks. ## Runs on any airport infrastructure CUTE/CUPPS certified and compatible with every AEA device - gate readers, BRS scanners, bag tag printers. No proprietary hardware, no middleware. Works at any airport your airline flies to. ## Smart seating that
balances the aircraft Auto-seating considers paid and reserved seats first, then distributes remaining passengers for optimal weight and balance. Passenger preferences, families, and load optimization are handled in one algorithm. ## Operational after
15 minutes of training A new DCS operator can run the full check-in and boarding flow after a single 15-minute session. Proven in live operations, not a lab estimate. ## When something changes,
every system knows Seat sales, flight delays, and equipment swaps are mirrored between DCS, inventory,
and reservations in real time. Agents and passengers always see the same data. - Live seat maps and statuses — Availability, check-in progress, and boarding status update across inventory, reservations, and DCS simultaneously. - Equipment swaps update everything same — Aircraft change triggers new seat map, rebased seating algorithm, and passenger notifications across DCS and all channels. - Close-out feeds finance directly — Boarding totals, no-shows, baggage counts, and ancillary revenue publish to finance - no manual reconciliation. ## FAQ Answers to the questions we hear most from airline teams ### Does the DCS work at airports with shared CUTE/CUPPS infrastructure? Yes. Farel's DCS is CUTE/CUPPS certified and runs on shared airport workstations. No proprietary hardware required - it integrates with any airport ground environment. ### How does seat assignment work and can it be overridden? Seats are assigned automatically based on configurable rules (window preference, families together, premium placement). Agents can override any assignment manually at the counter. ### How are no-shows and close-out handled? At flight close-out, the system automatically processes no-shows, finalizes passenger counts, reconciles baggage, and publishes boarding totals to finance. Agents confirm and close - no manual data entry. ### What compliance messages does the system generate? PNRGOV and API-PNR are generated and transmitted automatically to border authorities via SITA, ARINC, or other configured channels. PAXLST and customs declarations are also supported. ### Can agents sell ancillaries and collect excess baggage fees during check-in? Yes. The check-in screen shows each passenger's current purchases and available extras. Agents add services with one click - bags, upgrades, priority, excess baggage, and payment is processed on the spot. ### What happens when an aircraft is swapped after check-in opens? The system automatically remaps the new aircraft layout, reassigns seats based on your rules, and notifies affected passengers. No manual rebuild required. --- # Airline Distribution Platform Source: /platform/distribution/ # Sell direct.
Distribute everywhere. Launch a high-converting website and mobile apps, give agencies their own booking portal,
and connect OTAs and tech partners via API - all selling from the same inventory in real time. - No-code website builder - Native iOS and Android apps - Agency portal with credit management - Developer-friendly API ## The hidden cost of bolted-on distribution Separate tools for your website, agency portal, and API mean inconsistent pricing, disconnected inventory, and no clear view of what's selling where. ### Pricing inconsistencies Website shows one fare, agency portal shows another, OTA shows a third - because each channel pulls from a different source. ### No unified sales view Revenue per channel, conversion rates, and partner performance live in separate dashboards - if they exist at all. ### Slow time to market Launching or updating a website, app, or partner connection requires developer involvement and weeks of work. ### Fragmented self-service Passengers can book online but can't manage, change, or check in from the same place - pushing them back to call centers. ## Every channel your
passengers and partners use Manage direct sales, partner distribution, and API connections from a single platform. - Launch a website and apps without code — White-label website and native mobile apps with drag-and-drop customization, built-in analytics, and multi-language support. - Give agencies their own portal — Partners search, book, and pay from a branded B2B platform with balance management, credit lines, and configurable commissions. - Connect OTAs and tech partners via API — Developer-friendly REST endpoints with self-serve API keys, versioned contracts, and real-time availability from your inventory. - Let passengers manage their own trips — Search, book, pay, change, refund, add extras, and check in — all from your website or app without contacting an agent. ## Live in days, not months Launch a branded airline website and native iOS and Android apps with no-code customization: drag-and-drop sections, promo banners, SEO fields, theme controls, and scheduled content updates. Built-in analytics and A/B testing track what converts. ## Every language, every currency, every market Website, mobile apps, and agency portal support multi-language content and multi-currency pricing out of the box. Localization isn't a separate project - it's a setting. ## Know what's selling,
where, and why Revenue per channel, conversion rates, partner performance, and booking source - all in one view. No stitching together reports from five different tools. ## Same ancillary rules,
every channel Partners sell extras - bags, seats, upgrades, priority - under the same pricing, eligibility, and refund rules as your direct channels. No separate catalog, no manual sync. ## FAQ Answers to the questions we hear most from airline teams ### How much control do we have over the website without developers? Full control. Drag-and-drop sections, promo banners, SEO fields, theme colors, and scheduled content - all managed from an admin panel. No code required for layout changes, content updates, or localization. ### Can agencies see different fares and inventory than our website? Yes. Each partner can be assigned private fare families, dedicated seat allocations, and custom inventory access. You control what each agency sees independently of your direct channel. ### How do agencies pay for bookings? Agencies pay from their balance or credit line. You configure credit limits, multicurrency balances, and top-up rules. Statements and settlement views are available per partner. ### Can passengers manage their own bookings - changes, refunds, check-in? Yes. Passengers handle changes, cancellations, refund requests, ancillary purchases, and web check-in directly from your website or mobile app - no agent needed. ### Can OTAs and meta-search engines connect via API instead of the B2B portal? Yes. Farel provides REST API endpoints with real-time availability, booking management, and webhook notifications. Partners self-serve API keys and follow versioned documentation to go live. ### Do the mobile apps require separate setup and content management? No. Website and mobile apps share the same content, inventory, and booking engine. Updates made in the admin panel apply across all channels automatically. --- # Finance & Reporting Source: /platform/finance-reporting/ # Finance that closes
in real time Reconcile every channel and currency, then push to QuickBooks, SAP, or your ERP automatically. - Multi-channel reconciliation - Multi-currency support - Real-time financial reports - Direct accounting export ## Why airline finance teams close late Spreadsheets between systems mean stale numbers, drifted balances, and a finance team that's always one period behind. ### Reconciliation by spreadsheet Sales from IBE, agency, OTAs, and counter land in different systems. Finance exports, reconciles, and re-keys into accounting every period. ### Partner balances drift Agency wallets, credit limits, and commission settlements track in separate ledgers. Drift between systems means write-offs and disputes. ### Yesterday's numbers Reports built in BI tools or spreadsheets lag the operation by hours or days. Leaders make decisions on stale data. ### Multi-currency overhead FX conversions, partner settlements, and home-currency reporting require manual reconciliation every period. ## Every transaction, every currency,
one ledger Every booking, refund, settlement, and partner balance writes to the same record
- and reports in real time, in any currency. - Real-time reports — Financial KPIs, operational metrics, passenger data, flight performance - current to the minute, with unlimited retention. - Partner wallets and credit — Agency balances, credit limits, commission accruals, and settlement status - managed and reconciled in the admin panel. - Multi-currency — Settle in any currency, report in your home currency. FX rates, conversions, and settlement cycles handled automatically. - Accounting export — Direct integration with QuickBooks, SAP, and other ERPs. Automatic data flow, not CSV exports. The accounting system always has the current state. - Channel reconciliation — IBE, mobile, agency, API, and counter sales reconcile automatically. One source of truth across every distribution channel. ## Period close becomes a verification step,
not a reconciliation project Every transaction posts to the ledger when it happens - bookings, refunds, partner settlements, FX adjustments, tax provisions. By month-end, there's nothing left to assemble. Finance signs off on what's already there instead of pulling it together. ## IRROPS doesn't break
the books When a flight cancels, hundreds of involuntary refunds, fare adjustments, and partner settlements process at once. Each posts with the right account, currency, and tax treatment automatically. Finance doesn't reconcile after IRROPS - it's already in the books before the next flight closes. ## Before you decide Answers to the questions we hear most from airline teams ### What reports are available out of the box? Financial reports (revenue by channel, refunds, partner balances, FX exposure, settlement status), operational reports (load factor, on-time performance, cancellations), passenger reports (booking trends, ancillary attach, no-shows), and flight performance reports (revenue per flight, cost per seat). All available in the admin panel and exportable. ### How is revenue recognized? Revenue recognition follows IATA passenger revenue accounting standards - recognized on flight departure, not on booking. Unflown bookings sit in unearned revenue until the flight closes. Refunds and involuntary changes are processed against the same ledger automatically. ### Can we export reports to our accounting system? Yes. Direct integration with QuickBooks, SAP, and other ERPs - not CSV export. Revenue, refunds, partner settlements, and FX adjustments transmit automatically. Custom integrations to other accounting systems are part of onboarding. ### How does multi-currency work for partner transactions? Each partner can transact in their local currency. Conversions to your home currency happen at configured FX rates (live, daily fix, or contractual). Settlement statements show both partner currency and home currency, with FX gain/loss broken out. ### Who can access financial reports? Role-based permissions. Finance and executive roles see the full dashboard; commercial and operational roles see the slices relevant to their work. Permissions match the rest of the platform - no separate access system. ### Can we build our own reports? Standard reports cover most operational and financial questions. For custom analysis, every transaction is exportable via API or direct accounting integration - feed it into your BI tool of choice if you need something specific. --- # Airline Payments Source: /platform/payments/ # Every payment captured. Every ticket issued.
Every time Process payments through any provider, method, or currency. Automatic ticketing, instant refunds, and full PCI-DSS v4 compliance built in. - Any PSP, any method - PCI-DSS v4 compliant - Automatic ticket issuance - Real-time refund processing ## Why airlines lose money
between booking and ticket Payment failures, delayed ticket issuance, and manual reconciliation cost airlines revenue every day, and most don't even see it happening. ### Failed payments, lost bookings Payment errors go unretried, passengers drop off, and bookings expire before tickets are ever issued. ### Tickets issued late or never Delays between payment capture and e-ticket issuance create passenger complaints, operational confusion, and revenue gaps. ### Manual reconciliation Finance teams spend hours matching PSP settlements to bookings because payment data lives in a separate system. ### Limited payment options Passengers abandon bookings when their preferred method isn't available, especially in markets where cards aren't the default. ## One system for every
payment operation Process, track, refund, and reconcile payments from a single platform - connected to reservations, inventory, and finance. - Accept any payment, anywhere — Cards, bank transfers, QR codes, mobile wallets, cash references, and crypto through any global or local PSP. Add new methods without re-integration. - Automatic ticketing on payment — The moment payment clears, the e-ticket is issued. No queue, no delay, no manual trigger. Booking and ticket are always in sync. - Refunds that process themselves — Involuntary refunds, fare-rule cancellations, and partial refunds are calculated and sent back to the original payment method automatically. - Full transaction visibility — Every charge, refund, retry, and settlement in one admin panel. Filter by booking, flight, channel, or PSP - no switching between dashboards. ## Works with your payment providers - all of them Farel integrates with global and local PSPs out of the box. Switch providers, add regional methods, or run multiple PSPs in parallel without rebuilding your payment flow. ## PCI-DSS v4 compliant.
Card data stored securely End-to-end encryption, tokenized card storage, 3-D Secure authentication, and risk checks on every transaction. Loyal passengers can save cards for faster checkout without compromising security. ## FAQ Answers to the questions we hear most from airline teams. ### Which payment providers does Farel integrate with? Farel integrates with major global PSPs like Stripe, Adyen, and Worldpay, as well as regional processors and local payment methods. New providers can be added without rebuilding your payment flow. ### How does automatic ticket issuance work? When a payment clears, the e-ticket is issued instantly - no manual step, no queue. If a payment fails, the system retries based on configurable rules and notifies the passenger automatically. ### Are passenger card details stored securely? Yes. Card data is tokenized and stored in a PCI-DSS v4 compliant vault. Returning passengers can pay with saved cards for faster checkout. 3-D Secure authentication and risk checks run on every transaction. ### How are refunds processed? Refunds triggered by cancellations, fare rules, or schedule changes are calculated automatically and sent back to the original payment method. Partial refunds and ancillary-only refunds are also supported. ### Can we use different PSPs for different markets? Yes. Farel supports multi-PSP routing - you can assign different providers by region, currency, or payment method. Transactions route automatically based on rules you configure. ### How does payment reconciliation work? PSP settlements are matched automatically to bookings and tickets inside Farel. Finance teams see charges, refunds, fees, and net revenue per booking, flight, or channel - no manual exports or spreadsheet matching. --- # AI Copilot for Airline Ops Source: /platform/ai-copilot/ # The Copilot for airline operations Cancel flights, refund bookings, create reservations from a passport photo - in plain language. Live across every airline running on Farel, in five languages. - Operates flights and bookings - Creates bookings from passport scans - Confirms before every action - Five languages ## Most airline systems were designed to be clicked through Every refund is a screen. Every cancellation is a workflow. Every new hire is months of training on menus. ### Click-heavy workflows Refunds, cancellations, and changes each take minutes through legacy PSS UIs. At call center scale, that's the whole budget. ### Months of training per agent Dozens of screens, conditional flows, edge cases. Every hire restarts the curve. Every turnover resets it. ### English-only interfaces Most PSS UIs ship in one language. Your call center, airport staff, and ops control don't all work in it. ### IRROPS handled one-by-one A delay or cancellation hits hundreds of bookings. Agents process them one at a time, in sequence, while passengers wait. ## One Copilot. Every operation. Every role. Farel Copilot operates on the same data as the rest of the platform. Type what you want done - refund a booking, cancel a flight series, create a reservation from a passport photo - and the system shows you the impact, then commits. ## What Copilot does today Operational scope, in one place. Same data and permissions as the rest of Farel. - Flight operations - Cancel, reschedule, open or close sale, edit pax quota, edit departure time. One flight or every flight in a period. - Booking operations - Create, refund pax-segments, edit remarks, process involuntary changes. One booking at a time or many at once. - Booking from a passport photo - Upload an ID, get a full reservation in 20-30 sec. Replaces 2-3 minutes of manual field entry. - Bulk operations in one command - Refund fifty bookings, cancel a flight series, requote a season. One command does what a batch job or a queue of agents would handle elsewhere. - Plain-language targeting - "Next Tuesday," "this whole series," "all LAX flights this week." No filters, no query syntax. Copilot resolves the target and shows what it'll touch before it acts. - Five languages, more coming - English, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French. Agents type in their language; Copilot replies in the same one. ## Cancel a flight, every booking follows One command can target a flight series, a date range, or a single departure. Booking-side impact - involuntary operations, rebooking, notifications, remarks - flows automatically through the rest of the platform. ## From passport photo
to issued ticket in 20 sec Upload a scan; Copilot extracts name, DOB, document number, nationality, expiration. Agent confirms the flight and price; ticket issues. 2-3 minutes of typing collapsed into seconds. ## Nothing executes until you confirm Refunds show the exact amount per passenger and segment. Cancellations show every booking affected. Quota changes show the new inventory state. The system commits only after the agent confirms, and stamps the action with their user identity. "Cancelled by [name] via Assistant" appears on the operation log, exportable for audit. ## Holds context across
the session Look up a booking, refund it, then start on the next one - Copilot remembers what you were just working on. Multi-step flows don't restart at every command. At Asman, 168 sessions in a month completed end-to-end without falling back to the interface. ## Already running at scale Live across every airline on Farel. Used daily by call center, airport, and ops teams. ## Before you decide Answers to the questions we hear most from airline teams ### How is this different from a chatbot bolted onto a legacy PSS? Copilot operates on the same records as inventory, reservations, DCS, and payments. Legacy PSS chatbots query through APIs and middleware, which means they're limited to what those APIs expose and lag the underlying data. Farel Copilot has the same access as the interface - because it's the same platform. ### What happens if it misinterprets a command? Every destructive action - refund, cancel, IRROPS - shows the full diff before execution. The agent sees exactly what will change and confirms before commit. If the interpretation is wrong, the agent rejects it and rephrases. ### Who can use it, and what can they do? Same permission model as the rest of Farel. A call center agent has call center permissions in Copilot. An ops controller has ops permissions. Same access rules as the UI. ### How is this audited? Every operation logs user identity, timestamp, source, and before and after state. "Cancelled by [name] via Assistant" appears on the operation history. Exportable for internal review or regulator request. ### Which languages does it support? English, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French. Adding more on customer request. ### What operations aren't supported yet? Coverage is published and updated as scope grows. Today's gaps include flight creation, pricing edits at the flight level, and crew assignment - these stay in the schedule and flight interfaces. --- # Airline Revenue Management Source: /platform/revenue-management/ # A working RMS, included Rule-based fare-class optimization on live booking data, same platform as reservations and inventory, with analyst override authority on every decision. - Rule-based class management - Real-time inventory sync - Analyst dashboard and overrides - Included in the per-passenger fee ## Revenue management
doesn't belong in Excel Spreadsheet workflows lag the booking curve, can't be audited,
and don't scale past a handful of routes. ### Exports lag the booking curve Analysts work from yesterday's CSV. By the time the surge shows up in the spreadsheet, the seats are gone. ### Class moves get re-keyed by hand Decision made in Excel, re-entered into the PSS. Two systems, two records, two chances to get it wrong. ### No rules, every flight is manual Every class open, every bucket close, every fare deck change is a human action. The team caps at the number of routes one analyst can hold in their head. ### No audit trail Who closed class Y on ZZ-204 last Tuesday? No one knows. Spreadsheets don't log overrides. ## Live data, rule engine,
analyst control Farel RMS runs on the same database as inventory and reservations. The pace it sees is the pace right now - and every class move it makes lands in inventory the instant it's made. ## What the RMS
actually does Built into the platform, not bolted onto it. ### Fare classes and buckets Define them per route, flight, and season; the system applies them automatically. ### Rule-based class movements Open and close classes by booking window, load factor, or custom rule. Auto or analyst-reviewed. ### Real-time booking pace Live load factor, velocity, and bucket fill from the same database as reservations. No batch import. ### Analyst dashboard and overrides Override at the flight, route, or class level. Nothing is locked. ### Channel-aware pricing Different fares per route, channel, agency, and season. Edit and publish without redeploying. ## The RMS reads from your live database Standalone RMS systems import PSS data in batches - hourly, every six hours, sometimes once a day. By the time the system sees the surge, the seats are sold. Farel RMS doesn't import anything. It reads from the same records as reservations and inventory, so booking pace, load factor, and bucket fill are accurate to the second. ## Define a rule once,
run it on every flight Open class Y at 45 days out. Close class M above 75% load factor. Move a bucket down a class when the next one sells out. Rules are defined in plain logic per route, season, or fleet. The system applies them automatically; analysts handle exceptions. ## Overrides land in inventory instantly A class move in the analyst dashboard writes directly to the inventory record. No re-keying, no batch sync, no PSS round-trip. Channels - direct, agency, OTA, API - see the new availability the moment the analyst confirms. ## Before you decide Answers to the questions we hear most from airline teams. ### How does this compare to PROS or Sabre Revenue Optimizer? Different category. PROS and Sabre RM run O&D optimization with ML demand forecasting, designed for airlines with dedicated RM teams using them daily. Farel RMS is rule-based, leg/class-based, and built for airlines that don't have an RMS today and are doing class moves in spreadsheets. If you're already running a best-of-breed RMS and it's working, we integrate with third-party RMS through the platform's open API - the rest of Farel still runs on live data. ### Is this AI or rule-based? Rule-based today, with ML demand forecasting on the roadmap. The current engine runs on triggers and actions analysts define themselves - readable, predictable, and overridable at every level. The AI layer will sit on top of the same rule engine, not replace it. ### Can analysts override system decisions? Yes, at any level. Rules, classes, flights, individual bookings. Every override is logged but none are blocked. The system never locks an analyst out of their own pricing. ### What data does the RMS use? Live booking pace, current load factor, historical sales for the route, fare conditions, and the rules you've defined. All from the same database as reservations and inventory - no exports, no imports, no batch jobs. ### Does it work for charter and ad-hoc flights? Yes. The same rule engine applies. Aircraft layout, fare structure, and inventory rules work the same way for scheduled and unscheduled service. ### How long to go live? RMS goes live with the rest of the platform - 2 to 8 weeks. Your team defines the initial rules, fare structures, and class logic - they know the routes and the commercial intent better than anyone. Farel's onboarding team trains, supports, and configures the system around what you bring. --- # Aircraft Weight & Balance Source: /platform/weight-and-balance/ # Load control on live check-in data Calculate ZFW, TOW, and LDW against the certified envelope, auto-balance compartments, and issue an AHM-compliant loadsheet - synced with departure control in real time. - AHM 560/565 calculations - Real-time DCS sync - Auto-balance to target CG - One-click loadsheet ## How load control gets done
without a system Spreadsheets, paper trim charts, and standalone tools that never see live passenger data. ### Spreadsheet trim sheets Load controllers maintain per-aircraft Excel files. One wrong cell reference and the CG math is off - nobody catches it until the check fails. ### Stale passenger data Standalone load control tools work from PNL snapshots. Late check-ins, gate upgrades, and offloads mean re-keying counts minutes before close-out. ### Manual index math DOW, DOI, passenger and baggage indices computed by hand from AHM charts, per registration, per season. ### Loadsheets built in Word Formatted manually, signed on paper, filed in a drawer. No audit trail, no link to the flight record. ## Everything load control needs,
in one screen Built into the DCS, not bolted next to it. - Live passenger scope — Calculate on all booked or checked-in only. Counts, bags, and seat rows flow from check-in as they happen. - Compartment load planning — Baggage, cargo, mail, and ballast per compartment, with max-weight limits enforced per position. - Auto-balance — One click suggests the distribution that lands ZFW CG closest to your configured target. Review before applying, nothing commits silently. - Envelope check per phase — ZFW, TOW, and LDW plotted against the certified envelope with forward and aft limits. Out-of-envelope flags before the door closes. - Loadsheet in your language — AHM-format loadsheet generated in the airline's default language, with LMC section and signature blocks. ## Check-in feeds
the calculation, live When a passenger checks in, adds a bag, or changes seats, the W&B module already knows. Passenger counts by type (adult, child, infant), bag weights, and cabin seat distribution flow from DCS in real time - no exports, no re-keying at close-out. ## Auto-balance that
shows its work The system suggests a compartment distribution that brings ZFW CG closest to your configured target - and labels the result honestly, including when limits make the target unreachable. The controller reviews the full table and applies or edits manually. ## Every phase, checked
against the envelope ZFW, TOW, and LDW each computed with weight, %MAC, and envelope status. The breakdown panel exposes the underlying math - DOW, DOI, loaded index, passenger and baggage indices, fuel index. Nothing is a black box a controller can't verify. ## From calculation to signed
loadsheet in one click The generated loadsheet carries weights vs limits with underload, compartment distribution, passenger breakdown, cabin trim, per-phase %MAC and CG arm, warnings, and an LMC section for last-minute manual corrections - in the airline's language, ready for signature. ## Live for every airline on Farel Load controllers calculate, balance, and issue loadsheets on Farel today - on live flights, not demo data. ## Built on AHM, configured
per registration Load control runs on IATA methodology, with every aircraft-specific value held as configuration rather than code. - AHM 560/565 methodology — Index and CG calculations follow IATA AHM 560/565. Reference arm, MAC length, and index formulas per aircraft configuration. - Per-registration configuration — DOW, DOI, compartment layout with max weights, certified envelopes (forward and aft limits), and crew codes configured for each tail. New registration, no code change. - Seasonal standard weights — Summer and winter passenger weight sets applied automatically by season; adult, child, and infant weights configurable per airline. - Crew variants — Standard and alternative crew codes (e.g. P2C3) adjust DOW/DOI per flight without touching base configuration. - Real-time DCS sync — Passenger scope, bag counts, and seat rows read directly from the check-in record. A gate change or offload is in the calculation the moment it happens. - LMC on the loadsheet — Last-minute changes recorded in the dedicated loadsheet section for manual correction and sign-off, per standard load control practice. ## Before you decide Answers to the questions we hear most from airline teams. ### Which aircraft types are supported? Any type. Envelopes, compartment layouts, DOW/DOI, and index parameters are configured per registration during onboarding. The methodology is AHM 560/565, which applies across fleets. ### Where does the passenger and baggage data come from? Directly from Farel's DCS. Checked-in counts, bag weights, and seat distribution sync in real time - the controller chooses whether to calculate on all booked passengers or checked-in only. ### Can the controller override the auto-balance suggestion? Yes. Auto-balance proposes a distribution and shows the full per-compartment table before anything is applied. The controller can edit any load line manually - type, weight, and note per entry. ### How are last-minute changes handled? The loadsheet includes a dedicated LMC section for manual corrections and sign-off after the calculation is issued, following standard load control practice. ### What language is the loadsheet in? The airline's default language. The document follows AHM loadsheet structure - weights vs limits, load distribution, cabin trim, per-phase CG, warnings, and preparation signatures. ### Does this replace our standalone load control software? For airlines on Farel, yes - W&B runs on the same record as check-in and boarding, so there's no data transfer to a third-party tool. Loadsheets are generated, downloaded, and archived with the flight. --- # Pricing Source: /pricing/ # One fee. Every module. **No surprises.** One per-passenger fee covers every module, every release, every regulatory transmission.
No per-module licenses, no change orders, no surprise invoices at year-end. ## Why airlines move to Farel pricing Three differences that show up in the contract, not just the pitch deck. ### Predictable spend - Forecast your IT spend a year out, not a quarter in Legacy PSS contracts hide costs across module licenses, change orders, maintenance, GDS pass-throughs, and per-feature upgrades. The bill changes every quarter and your CFO can't plan around it. Farel is one fee per boarded passenger. You know what next year's platform costs the day you sign. ### Annual contract - Annual terms, not perpetual lock-in Most PSS vendors push multi-year contracts with auto-renewal and exit penalties that grow with tenure. Farel works on a simple annual contract. You renew because the product earns it, not because the paperwork makes leaving impossible. Data export rights and parallel-run periods are written into every agreement. ### Weekly releases - Every feature, every release, no change orders When IATA publishes a new standard, a regional PSP becomes worth integrating, or a new OTA changes the market, you get it without an RFP. Legacy vendors quote each change as a separate project. We ship every week. Your contract doesn't get more expensive when you adopt what we ship. ## Every contract includes everything No tier gates. No premium features. The smallest airline on Farel runs the same platform as the largest. ### Full platform PSS, RMS, DCS, IBE, native iOS and Android apps, agency portal, payments, and admin panel. ### Weekly releases New features, IATA standards, PSP integrations, and OTA connections shipped every week. No version upgrades, no migration projects. ### 24/7 support Dedicated team across all time zones. No tiered support plans. ### Hosting and SLA Google Cloud hosting with 99.999% uptime SLA, disaster recovery, and proactive monitoring included. ### Implementation and migration Dedicated onboarding team, data migration, parallel-run testing, and staff training. Most airlines go live in 2-8 weeks. ### Regulatory and integration coverage PNRGOV, PAXLST, APIS, PNL/ADL, CUTE/CUPPS certification, accounting exports, third-party integrations. ## FAQ Answers to the pricing questions airlines ask most. ### How does Farel pricing work? One fee per boarded passenger covers full platform access - every module, every release, 24/7 support. The exact rate depends on annual passenger volume and operational complexity. You get the number after a discovery call. ### Are new features extra? No. Every feature we ship - and we ship weekly - is included. No upsells, no premium tiers, no per-module pricing. When IATA publishes a new standard or a regional PSP becomes worth integrating, you get it without an RFP or change order. ### What's the contract length? Standard term is annual. You renew when the product earns it. Exit terms, data export rights, and parallel-run periods are written into every contract - no auto-renewal traps or lock-in tactics. ### What's covered by the implementation fee? Onboarding, platform configuration, integrations with your payment providers and regulators, data migration of active bookings, staff training, and go-live support. One-time and upfront - no recurring license fees, ever. ### What happens if our traffic drops? Per-passenger pricing means your cost drops with your traffic. If a route is suspended or a season is soft, you don't pay for capacity you're not flying. ### Can we migrate from a legacy PSS without downtime? Yes. Parallel-run migration is standard - both systems operate simultaneously during the transition. Most airlines go live in 2-8 weeks with rollback plans built in. --- # Book a demo Source: /request-a-demo/ # Your demo is one form away See the full platform live - tailored to your airline's operations, not a generic slideshow. Fill out the form, pick a time, and receive a transparent quote after the call. No commitment. - Get a live walkthrough of the platform and AI assistant - See how it fits your workflow (IBE, DCS, B2B/OTAs, reporting) - Get a custom quote based on your passenger volume ## From form to live demo in 48 hours Here's what happens after you hit submit. ### Schedule a video call Pick a time that works for your team ### Live demo See Farel + AI assistant on real workflows ### Hands-on sandbox Try the platform yourself - no commitment ### Custom proposal Receive a transparent quote based on your airline's size and needs --- # About Farel Source: /company/about/ # Where aviation meets innovation Headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Raleigh and remote hubs across seven countries. ## Helping people
travel everywhere Aviation runs on software built twenty years ago. Legacy PSS vendors fragment airline margin across booking, distribution, and operations, and charge enterprise prices for tools that barely work. Agents do manual reconciliation. Schedule changes don't propagate. Inventory lists go stale. Passengers find out about changes at the gate. Farel rebuilds the stack as one system: inventory, reservations, check-in, and revenue in a single platform, API-first and IATA-native. Founded in 2020 by a team that spent the prior decade building airline distribution software, we're live with carriers across four continents, processing more than a million passengers a year. ## Our core values Four principles that shape how we build, ship, and support airlines. ## From our founder Before Farel, I spent five years building Santufei - an online ticketing platform in Central Asia. We sold airline tickets, and the hardest parts of that business weren't on our side. They were upstream, in airline systems our team had to work around every day. I watched our ops team reconcile schedule changes by hand. I watched our support agents apologize to passengers for things our company had no control over. After Kaspi acquired Santufei in 2019, I spent a year talking to airline people - operators, revenue managers, IT leads - about what they'd want to replace the legacy stack with. Farel is what came out of those conversations. One platform, built API-first, shipped by people who've worked in airline distribution their whole careers. To the airlines who took a chance on us early, the team who showed up before there was a product, and the investors who saw it before most people thought change in this industry was possible - thank you. ## A team that knows aviation from the inside Engineers, product, design, and operations across 7 countries. Some of us spent a decade in airline distribution before Farel, selling tickets, integrating with legacy PSS, watching airlines fight their own software. ## Backed by investors who believe aviation software is overdue for a rebuild ## Live with carriers across
four continents Airlines trust Farel to run their core operations -
from a first flight in the Galapagos to nationwide scale. ## Built globally, close to our customers Headquartered in San Francisco with remote hubs across the Americas, Europe, and Central Asia. Our team lives in the time zones our airline customers operate in, so IRROPS coverage isn't a feature, it's a fact. ## Join us We're a small, flat team building software for an industry most companies are afraid to touch. If you've worked in aviation, airline distribution, or PSS integration - we want to talk to you. --- # Blog Source: /company/blog/ # The Latest & Greatest We love sharing our journey with you. Here, we regularly share our insights, Farel happenings, customer success stories, challenges, and all things to help airlines grow and succeed. --- # Launch a New Airline in 8 Weeks | Farel Source: /solutions/starting-a-new-airline/ # Launch your airline in **eight weeks** From contract signing to first commercial flight. Sales channels live by week three. Every integration - payments, CUPPS, regulators, distribution - handled by us. ## What slows down
every airline launch AOC dates are committed. Aircraft are leased. Routes are filed.
Then the PSS conversation starts, and everything moves in slow motion. ### Five vendors, five contracts Legacy PSS, separate RMS, separate DCS, separate IBE, separate payment integration. Five SLAs, five timelines, five teams pointing at each other when something breaks. ### No team to wire the integrations Payment gateways, CUPPS at every airport, PNRGOV and APIS to your regulator, SMS, accounting exports. Startup airlines don't have the integration engineers, and most vendors don't include it. ### Legacy timelines kill runway Traditional PSS implementations run 12-18 months. Most startups can't afford a year of burn before generating revenue. ### AOC date is fixed. Your vendor's isn't Your launch date is committed to a regulator, to lessors, to passengers. When the vendor slips, you slip, and the slip is invisible until it's too late. ## How we start Three steps to a signed contract and a launch date you can plan against. ### Discovery call Thirty minutes. We walk through your stage, fleet, routes, and target launch dates. By the end of the call we know whether the timeline is feasible and what lead-time items - CUPPS access, regulatory approvals - need to start moving. ### Detailed scoping We gather the technical and operational details that determine cost and timeline - payment providers, airport infrastructure, regulators, distribution channels, and the full integration list. Every dependency surfaced before we quote. ### Proposal Fixed timeline. Fixed implementation fee. Defined deliverables and milestones. Sign-off and you're on the calendar. ## Before you decide Answers to the questions we hear most from startup airline teams. ### We don't have AOC yet. Can you still work with us? Yes. We've worked with airlines at every stage from formal AOC application to post-certification. The eight-week timeline starts at contract signing, regardless of where you are in certification. We'll match the build schedule to your AOC and route launch dates. ### What does "every integration" actually include? Payment service providers (Stripe, regional PSPs, mobile money), CUTE/CUPPS at your airports, regulatory messaging (PNRGOV, APIS, PAXLST, PNL/ADL), SMS providers, accounting software, OTAs and metasearch, and GDS if needed. We map your specific list during scoping and contract them into the implementation. No change orders. ### What if our launch date slips because of AOC or aircraft delivery? The Farel timeline is built around your launch date, not against a generic schedule. If your AOC slips or aircraft delivery moves, we can shift the operations launch phase accordingly. The sales launch phase can also be brought forward - selling tickets ahead of AOC is often advantageous. ### Who handles training for our staff? We do. Booking agents, customer support, finance, and airport ground staff all receive role-specific training - online for the platform-side roles, on-site for airport staff working with DCS and ground equipment. Most users are operational after a single 15-minute session. ### What happens at go-live? Two weeks of hypercare with accelerated-response support starting the day of your first flight - dedicated channel, sub-hour response on critical issues. After that, standard SLA: 24/7 critical support with 10-minute to 2-hour response, and 90% of all tickets closed within two business days. ### Can we name customers you've launched this way? Asman Airlines launched as Kyrgyzstan's national carrier on Farel - full system go-live in 8 weeks, 13 routes at launch. --- # Aer Arann Islands — Case Study Source: /customers/aer-arann-islands/ # 56 years of paper, replaced in **one go-live** How Ireland's Aran Islands carrier moved from a single paper booking book to online sales, live availability at every station, and electronic manifests, cutting inbound phone calls 30–40% in the first month. ## The bus to the mainland, flown Aer Arann Islands has connected Connemara Airport in County Galway to the three Aran Islands, Inis Mór, Inis Meáin, and Inis Oírr, since 1970. Flights take under ten minutes gate to gate, which makes them some of the shortest scheduled routes anywhere. The service runs under a Public Service Obligation contract with the Irish government. For islanders this is not a scenic hop, it is the connection to the mainland. In 56 years of safe operation, the airline had never had a reservation system. ## Running an airline on one paper book Every booking, change, refund, manifest, and load sheet was done by hand. ### All availability in one book Seat availability lived on paper at a desk in Connemara. Three agents taking three calls queued for it, one at a time. ### Island stations worked from stale paper Remote stations had no copy. Handwritten tickets flew out with the passengers and the paper came back on the return flight. ### Weight and balance by grease pencil A rotating cardboard centre-of-gravity disc and a laminated load sheet, wiped clean after every flight. Seats were assigned at the aircraft steps by eye, by weight. ### No online sales, no demand signal Passengers phoned to ask whether seats existed. When a flight was full, that demand left no trace. ## How Farel answered,
point by point A full airline system in weeks, without a multi-year IT project. ## A full airline system, not a booking form Everything that went live on July 13, including platform features we built for this operation that did not exist in Farel before. ### Website with integrated IBE Real-time availability and online payment. Passengers stopped calling to ask whether seats existed. ### Native iOS and Android apps Published under the airline's own brand, live the same week as the booking engine. ### Reservations and inventory Schedules, availability, changes, and refunds in one record, shared by every station. ### Departure control and electronic manifests Check-in, boarding, and manifests generated from live booking data, with per-passenger weights. ### Payments and passenger messaging Card payments through the airline's acquirer, plus email and SMS on a registered Irish sender ID. ### Actual passenger weight at check-in Agents record each passenger's real weight during check-in and it flows into the electronic manifest. On a nine-seat Islander, that number is not a formality. ### PSO passenger categories Elderly island residents receive a set number of free government-funded tickets each year, then move to a resident discount. Students have their own fares. Residents and tourists are separate categories. Farel manages eligibility, free-ticket counters, and discounts natively. ### "Notify me" on sold-out flights When a flight has no seats left, passengers register interest instead of leaving. The commercial team sees pent-up demand by date and segment, with contacts to reach out to, and can add a rotation when the numbers justify it. ## The first month on Farel Measurable change across calls, data, and revenue, with more metrics to follow as the data lands. ## Could this work for your airline? Farel fits carriers that need to replace manual operations end to end, without an in-house tech team. ### Runs on paper or spreadsheets Bookings, manifests, and load sheets still done by hand. ### Operates small aircraft where every passenger counts Load control that depends on actual weights, not averages. ### Serves PSO or subsidised routes Entitlements, resident fares, and free-ticket counters that standard PSS platforms don't model. ### Needs online sales and a mobile app Direct channel live in weeks, under the airline's own brand. ### Works across multiple stations Remote bases that need the same live data as the main office. --- # Asman Airlines — Case Study Source: /customers/asman-airlines/ # From greenfield to **nationwide** in 8 weeks How Kyrgyzstan's national flag carrier launched a full commerce platform - inventory,
reservations, DCS, and direct sales - in 8 weeks, and reached 400,000 passengers in year one. ## Kyrgyzstan's national flag carrier A greenfield airline with no legacy systems and no experienced operations team. Asman needed to launch fast, run lean, and scale with government-backed ambitions, connecting remote mountain communities today, targeting Europe tomorrow. ## Starting an airline from zero was a challenge They had aircraft arriving. They needed an airline to run them. ### Government timeline State-owned carrier under pressure to launch fast, on a fixed public deadline. ### Scale from day one 11 domestic routes planned at launch. No runway to start small and iterate. ### Limited airline experience An operations team without deep PSS or DCS background. ### Unproven airport infrastructure New facilities, untested ground operations, no institutional muscle memory. ## How Farel answered,
point by point Every constraint Asman faced had a direct product response -
shipped in weeks, not quarters. ## The 8-week playbook What "launch-ready in 8 weeks" actually looked like. ## A full end-to-end airline system, not a project One commerce platform covering every surface Asman needed to sell, operate, and scale. ### Offer & Order-based architecture IATA-native commerce foundation, including DCS. Built on the standards defining what's next in aviation. ### Website + mobile apps iOS and Android, live at launch. Passengers search, book, pay, and manage trips end to end. ### Booking, payments, manage reservation Self-service changes, refunds, and extras without agent queues. ### Travel agency network + OTA integrations Agencies and global tech partners connected through a single distribution layer. ### Seat selection & ancillaries Bags, seats, meals, priority, and bundles at every touchpoint - booking, post-booking, check-in. ### Departure Control API-based DCS at every station. No CUTE, no middleware, no legacy ground dependency. ## 12 months on Farel Measurable outcomes across commercial, operational, and digital performance. ## Could this work for your airline? Farel fits airlines that need to move fast, run lean, and scale without re-platforming. ### Launching from scratch or rebuilding operations Greenfield, startup, or major reset. ### Needs to go live fast Government timelines, fleet delivery pressure, fixed launch dates. ### Operates with a lean team Automation instead of back-office growth. ### Runs nationwide or multi-airport operations Domestic scale, regional connectivity, multiple stations. ### Plans fleet or route expansion Turboprops today, narrow-bodies tomorrow. --- # ESAV Airlines (Ecuador) — Case Study Source: /customers/esav-airlines/ # From email bookings to **65% online** in a year How a family-owned Ecuadorian air taxi in the Galápagos went from cash, calls, and PayPal links to a full e-commerce airline, opening a direct sales channel and a new ancillary revenue stream without adding staff. ## Regional airline operations, digitized A family-owned Ecuadorian airline flying inter-island routes across the Galápagos in Ecuador, ESAV is Farel's live airline customer in Latin America (LATAM). Before Farel, every booking, payment, and passenger handoff was managed manually - email, phone, cash, bank transfers, PayPal links. ESAV needed to structure operations, open a direct sales channel, and introduce new revenue streams, all without growing the team. ## Running an airline without a system was a challenge Operations fully dependent on manual coordination. ### Manual bookings Every reservation handled by email or phone. No availability check, no real-time inventory. ### Fragmented payments Cash, bank transfers, and PayPal links handled case by case. No reconciliation, no audit trail. ### No direct sales channel No website, no online booking. Passengers had to find ESAV before ESAV could sell to them. ### No ancillary revenue No baggage, seats, or transfers sold. Every booking generated only the base fare. ## How Farel answered,
point by point A digital airline in weeks, not a multi-year IT project. ## What changed,
function by function The same airline, run a different way. ## A full end-to-end airline system, not a process One commerce platform replacing email threads, phone calls, and PayPal links. ### Inventory and booking system Schedules, availability, and reservations in one place. Every team works from the same record. ### Website with integrated IBE Direct online sales live in weeks. Passengers search, book, and pay without contacting the airline. ### Payment integrations One processor across every channel. No more PayPal links or manual reconciliation. ### Passenger management Self-service changes, refunds, and trip management. No phone calls for routine requests. ### Ancillary services Bags, seats, and transfers offered at every booking step. New revenue from existing passengers. ## 12 months on Farel Measurable outcomes across distribution, revenue, and operations. ## Could this work for your airline? Farel fits airlines that need to digitize fast, open a direct channel, and unlock new revenue without growing the team. ### Operates regional or charter routes Inter-island, short-haul, or seasonal flying. ### Runs on manual booking and payment processes Email, phone, fragmented payment methods. ### Wants to launch direct online sales (IBE) A website where passengers can find, book, and pay without phoning in. ### Seeks to introduce ancillary revenue Bags, seats, transfers, and extras. ### Needs to move to a digital operating model Without a multi-year IT project or in-house engineering team. --- # Red Sea Airlines — Case Study Source: /customers/red-sea-airlines/ # A 4-aircraft scheduled carrier, run by **one person** How Red Sea Airlines moved from spreadsheets to a full commerce platform - automating regulatory compliance, opening a direct sales channel, and doubling its fleet without doubling its team. ## Egypt's **charter pioneer** Launched as a charter carrier with a clear ambition: becoming a full scheduled airline. Headquartered in Cairo, Red Sea connects Red Sea resorts to leisure travelers across Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East - 14+ countries, four Boeing 737-800s, and a fleet that doubled in a single year. ## Starting on spreadsheets was a challenge Doubling the fleet required a system. ### No central system Flights, bookings, and passengers managed manually across teams, with no single source of truth. ### Regulatory warnings API/PNR transmissions handled by hand. Penalties and route restrictions were a question of when, not if. ### No direct sales channel 100% dependent on tour operators. Zero ancillary revenue, zero passenger relationship. ### Couldn't scale operations What worked at 2 aircraft was already breaking at 4. ## How Farel answered,
point by point Every constraint Red Sea faced had a direct product response -
shipped in months, not years. ## What changed,
function by function The same airline, run a different way. ## A full end-to-end airline system, **shipped to a charter operator** One commerce platform replacing spreadsheets, manual processes, and missing infrastructure. ### Central commerce platform Inventory, reservations, and passenger data in one place. Every team works from the same record. ### Automated regulatory compliance API/PNR messaging on every flight, every passenger. No manual submissions, no warnings. ### Website + IBE with localized payments Direct sales channel live in weeks. Localized currency, localized payment methods. ### Tour operator integration Native integration with CIS tour operator platforms. Charter blocks, allotments, and package distribution flow into one system. ### Departure Control Automated PNL/ADL generation, check-in, and no-show handling. No manual airport coordination. ### Ancillary-ready architecture Payment infrastructure already wired for bag, seat, and meal sales as the direct channel matures. ## 12 months on Farel Measurable outcomes across operations, compliance, and commerce. ## Could this work for your airline? Farel fits airlines that need to professionalize fast, automate compliance,
and open new revenue channels without growing the back office. ### Operates charter or leisure routes Seasonal demand, international flying, flexible scheduling. ### Works with tour operators Charter blocks, allotments, and package-based distribution. ### Faces growing operational and regulatory complexity API/PNR requirements, multi-country compliance, airport coordination. ### Wants to increase revenue without adding staff Automation instead of headcount growth. --- # Aer Arann Islands Goes Digital After 56 Years of Paper Source: /company/blog/aer-arann-islands-launch/ # Aer Arann Islands Goes Digital After 56 Years of Paper ## Key takeaways - Aer Arann Islands, the Irish airline serving the Aran Islands since 1970, went live on Farel on July 13, 2026. - For 56 years the airline ran every operation manually: bookings, changes, refunds, check-in, manifests, and weight and balance. All seat availability lived in one physical book. - Passengers can now book online with real-time availability. Island stations see the same data as the mainland for the first time. - Farel extended the platform for PSO passenger categories: free government-funded tickets for island residents, resident discounts, and student fares. - Aer Arann Islands is the first airline to go live on Farel in the European Union. Three phone calls came in at the same time. Three agents needed to check seat availability. There was exactly one place to check it: a large paper book on a desk at Connemara Airport. So the agents formed a line. The first one found the flight, wrote down the passenger, and passed the book to the next. The staff have a name for it. Not "the reservation system." Not "the ledger." Just The Book. I watched this happen in June 2026, standing in the office of an airline that has flown safely for 56 years. It is the kind of scene most people in airline software assume died out decades ago. It didn't. It just moved somewhere quiet. ![An Aer Arann Islands agent updating flight records by hand in the paper booking book at Connemara Airport, before the airline's move to Farel.](/media/blog/aer-arann-islands-launch/inline-1.14cbc36c.jpg) ## Who is Aer Arann Islands? Aer Arann Islands is an Irish airline that has connected Connemara Airport in County Galway with the three Aran Islands - Inis Mór, Inis Meáin, and Inis Oírr - since 1970. The fleet is three Britten-Norman Islanders. The flights take less than ten minutes, gate to gate, which makes them some of the shortest scheduled routes in the world. The airline carries more than 45,000 passengers a year, and the service operates under a [Public Service Obligation contract with the Irish government](https://gov.ie/en/department-of-rural-and-community-development-and-the-gaeltacht/news/our-rural-future-49-million-air-service-contract-for-the-aran-islands/), because for islanders this is not a scenic hop. It is the bus to the mainland. ![Two of Aer Arann Islands' three Britten-Norman Islander aircraft inside the maintenance hangar at Connemara Airport.](/media/blog/aer-arann-islands-launch/inline-2.4d4388bd.jpg) And in all those 56 years, the airline never had a reservation system. Bookings, passenger lists, refunds, changes, notifications, check-in, manifests, weight and balance - all of it was done by hand. ## How do you run an airline on paper? Carefully, and with a lot of patience. All availability lived in The Book. If a passenger wanted to know whether there were seats on Friday's flight, they called, and an agent checked the page. If three passengers called at once, they waited for each other, because the agents were waiting for each other. The islands had it harder. Remote stations had no copy of The Book, so island staff couldn't always see who was booked, who was on the waitlist, or what had changed since the morning. Tickets were often written out by hand at Connemara, flown out with the passengers, and the paper came back on the return flight. Weight and balance ran on a dedicated instrument: a rotating cardboard disc and a laminated load sheet. Passenger weights, baggage, and fuel went in with a grease pencil, the needle showed whether the load was safe, and after the flight everything was wiped clean and started over. Seats weren't assigned in a system either - staff stood at the aircraft and pointed each passenger to a seat based on weight, to keep the Islander balanced. ![Aer Arann Islands' manual weight and balance tools: a rotating BN Islander center-of-gravity calculator disc and a handwritten load planner sheet.](/media/blog/aer-arann-islands-launch/inline-3.1ba1cb48.jpg) To be clear: this worked. For decades. The airline's safety record over 56 years speaks for itself. But "it works" and "it scales" are different sentences. ## Why change after 56 years? Because the plans got bigger than the paper. Aer Arann Islands is expanding: a fourth Islander is expected by the end of summer 2026, new islands and routes are on the table, and flights to Galway - the nearest major city - are a real prospect. A new generation of the team also arrived, and for them a single physical book holding the airline's entire availability was not an acceptable operating model. Not everyone agreed at first, and I understand why. Some of the staff have been with the airline for 20 or 30 years. Their processes were built over decades and they worked. Then the new generation shows up with a plan to move everything online, and of course there was stress and pushback. That part is normal. What mattered is what happened after people actually sat down with the system: the resistance faded, and the team started asking for more. A lot of credit here goes to Darragh Fallon, who led the project on the airline's side. He flew from island to island training staff, wrote internal instructions, and fed us a steady stream of detail about how the operation really works - the edge cases no demo ever shows you. That knowledge is why we could adapt Farel to their model instead of forcing their model into software. ## Two weeks next to the runway For the implementation I lived for two weeks beside Connemara Airport, running training sessions and configuring schedules, fares, and ancillary services with the team. ![Farel training session at Aer Arann Islands: staff at laptops in the Connemara Airport meeting room with the Farel bookings screen on the wall display.](/media/blog/aer-arann-islands-launch/inline-4.8da425b0.jpg) The mood in those sessions told me everything about how ready this team was. People are so tired of The Book that at an all-hands meeting, CEO Peter McKenna joked that once Farel was live, they would burn it in public. It was a joke. Probably. Nobody has scheduled the ceremony yet, but I have asked to be invited. Even the bus drivers told me the company had needed this for years. When the drivers are lobbying for a reservation system, the change management is going to be fine. ## What changed on July 13? Aer Arann Islands now runs on Farel: an airline website with online sales and real-time availability, [reservations](/platform/reservation-system/), check-in, [departure control](/platform/departure-control-system/), electronic manifests, and ancillary services. Passengers no longer call to ask if there are seats. They look, they book, they show up. For island operations this is the biggest shift. Every station now sees the same live data: who bought a ticket, who is on the waitlist, who has checked in, what bags and extras they paid for. The paper tickets flying back and forth are gone. Ancillaries went online too, and not just bags: the bus between Connemara Airport and Galway is now bookable with the flight - free for eligible islanders, paid for tourists, and the drivers see a live list of who to pick up. ![Passengers checking in at the Aer Arann Islands desk at Connemara Airport, where staff now see live bookings, waitlists, and paid services in Farel.](/media/blog/aer-arann-islands-launch/inline-5.6fc228fc.jpg) Some of what Aer Arann Islands needed didn't exist in Farel before this project, so we built it: - **PSO passenger categories.** Elderly island residents receive a set number of free government-funded tickets per year, then switch to a resident discount. Students have their own fares, and residents and tourists are separate categories. Farel now manages all of this natively - eligibility, free-ticket counters, discounts. - **Actual passenger weight at check-in.** Agents record each passenger's real weight in the system during check-in, and it flows straight into the electronic manifest that replaced the printed one. On a nine-seat Islander, that number is not a formality. - **"Notify me" on sold-out flights.** When a flight in the booking engine or mobile app has no seats left, passengers can register their interest instead of giving up or settling for a worse date. The commercial team sees that pent-up demand by segment and date, and has the contacts to reach out. When your entire fleet is three nine-seat aircraft, sold out is a daily event - and if enough people wanted that Friday flight, the team can simply put another rotation on the schedule and go tell them about it. ## What's next? The most interesting one: paid seat selection, including the co-pilot seat - the most honest premium seat in aviation. Aer Arann Islands won't sell it until the automated weight and balance module fully replaces the disc, because on a nine-seat Islander, balance is not a detail. Once the system confirms a load is safe, the seat next to the pilot goes on sale. Beyond that: the fourth aircraft, new island routes, potential Galway flights, and a longer-term ambition to move to electric aircraft. The goal on our side is to keep extending the platform until the manual processes are gone entirely - not most of them, all of them. Aer Arann Islands is the first airline to go live on Farel in the European Union, and I can't imagine a better first: 56 years of history, a team that knows exactly why it wanted to change, and an operation that keeps three islands connected to the rest of the country. Thanks to Peter, Darragh, Mragakshi, and the whole team for trusting us with it. The Book has been retired. The bonfire is pending. ![The Farel and Aer Arann Islands teams in front of a Britten-Norman Islander at Connemara Airport after the Farel go-live.](/media/blog/aer-arann-islands-launch/inline-6.211140fe.jpg) If your airline still runs on paper, spreadsheets, or a book with a name, [book a demo](/request-a-demo/) - we have done this before. --- # What DCS common-use certification actually takes Source: /company/blog/dcs-common-use-certification/ # What DCS common-use certification actually takes ## Key takeaways - A departure control system (DCS) can't run on shared airport check-in and boarding hardware until it's certified against the common-use platform that hardware speaks to. - Farel, a cloud-native airline operating system, passed RESA's CREWS CUPPS (CUTE) certification - the Paris lab on 1 June 2026, then live validation at Tallinn Airport (TLL). - Common-use certification is an invisible barrier to entry, and part of why the list of real DCS vendors stays short. - The certified piece is the integration layer, pinned to a fixed runtime, so Farel recertifies on a 2–3 year cycle and ships every airline partner the latest version at no extra cost. - Watch the airport network: it's often run by a third party (SITA or ARINC), not the airport, with a separate agreement and a monthly fee airlines have to budget for. Most software only has to satisfy a screen. A departure control system has to satisfy a wall of printers, scanners, and boarding-gate readers it has never met, at an airport it has never seen, speaking protocols it doesn't get to argue with. That wall is the real reason a DCS is hard to build. A DCS checks passengers in, prints boarding passes and bag tags, and boards the aircraft. At most airports it doesn't get its own hardware - it shares the desks and gates with every other airline through a common-use platform. And that platform doesn't care how good your software is until you prove you speak its protocols, exactly. Farel is a cloud-native airline operating system, and our DCS just cleared that bar. We passed RESA's CREWS CUPPS (CUTE version) certification in two steps: the lab in Paris, next to CDG, on 1 June 2026, then a live test at Tallinn Airport. Here's what each step took, the one airport cost nobody warns you about, and why it matters to airlines more than the word "certification" lets on. ## What is common-use certification, and why does every DCS need it? Common-use means the check-in desks and boarding gates are shared infrastructure. Instead of every carrier bolting its own kit to every station, airlines run their software on a common-use platform that drives the shared peripherals. RESA's platform, CREWS, runs check-in and boarding at more than 300 airports. Two standards govern it. CUTE (Common Use Terminal Equipment) is the old one, and still everywhere. CUPPS (Common Use Passenger Processing Systems, IATA Recommended Practice 1797) is its successor. Plenty of airports still run CUTE, so certifying for the CUTE interface is what gets you onto real desks today. This is the invisible barrier to entry. A booking engine you can judge on a screen. A DCS only counts once it drives physical hardware correctly, every time, with nobody stranded at a gate. That's a big part of why the list of vendors who can actually run airport departure control is so short. ## Why does certification happen in two steps? Because a lab and an airport test different things. The lab proves protocol conformance - your software talks to the platform and its devices correctly in every state the standard defines. The airport proves it on the real hardware, the live airport network, with real agents at the desk. Lab first, then the airport. ## What actually broke in the lab? We booked the slot in early March 2026. The test ran at the end of May. You don't just walk into one of these. Thanks to RESA for the slot - and, accidentally, for the timing: late May in Paris is Roland Garros. As an active tennis player and lifelong fan, I won't pretend I minded. I caught a few of the greats between builds. Then the actual work. Over the week of 25-29 May we shipped 18 builds. Build 18 is the one that passed. ![Farel's check-in screen on a common-use workstation during certification, connected to IER bag-tag printers and a document scanner.](/media/blog/dcs-common-use-certification/inline-1.30e792c8.jpg) It's deliberately bare-metal. You get an SDK to reach the platform and the AEA 2009/2012 specs for the devices, and after that the platform is the only source of truth. Every loop looked the same: upload a build, ask RESA for the logs, find exactly where we'd offended the protocol, fix it, go again. No simulator to hide behind. None of the hard part is the happy path. It's locking and unlocking devices, handling each one online, offline, and powered off, paper jams and empty trays, connection time-limits, and running a stack of devices at once. Some are only allowed at check-in, like passport and document scanners; some only at the gate, like boarding-gate readers - and the software has to know the difference. The final configuration covers bag-tag and boarding-pass printers, document and magnetic-stripe readers, barcode scanners, and boarding-gate readers, up to 16 at once, on Windows 10/11. The most expensive lesson was the most ordinary one. Early on we did the modern thing and updated our frameworks, the bundled Chromium included, to the latest versions. Then nothing ran. RESA's environment is 32-bit, and the latest Chromium isn't. We rolled back to Chromium 116, the build that still ships 32-bit, and that's exactly what the certificate pins. One line that sums up the whole exercise. The environment doesn't bend to your stack; your stack proves it fits the environment. ![The Farel and RESA teams at RESA's office in front of the RESA CREWS and CUPPS product banner.](/media/blog/dcs-common-use-certification/inline-2.355d4f81.jpg) Jérôme Elineau and Sophan Quach at RESA ran us through it - sharp on the hardware, patient with our edge cases. Sophan signed the certificate. ![RESA certificate confirming Farel's DCS complies with CREWS and CREWS CUPPS (CUTE) specifications, dated 1 June 2026.](/media/blog/dcs-common-use-certification/inline-3.daa7bb83.png) ## Step two: did it hold up at a live airport? Yes, and faster than the lab. We validated at Tallinn Airport (TLL) with the airport's ground-handling team, a RESA engineer on site, and NYX Air on a test flight. Check-in and boarding ran on the real common-use hardware, on the real network, with the certified build doing exactly what it did in Paris. Quick and clean. ![Live boarding test of Farel's DCS at a common-use gate at Tallinn Airport, running on RESA CREWS hardware.](/media/blog/dcs-common-use-certification/inline-4.5a20782a.jpg) A lab can't reproduce everything a working airport throws at you. That's the point of step two. And the one real surprise had nothing to do with our software. ## Who actually provides the network at the gate? Here's the cost nobody puts in the headline quote: the network at the desk and gate often isn't the airport's. At a lot of airports it's run by a third party, usually SITA or ARINC (now Collins Aerospace), and the airline signs a separate contract and pays a monthly fee to use it. At Tallinn, that's SITA. The number that stopped us was about $1k a month for a 128 Kbps line, before setup and a multi-year minimum. For one airport. That's less bandwidth than a home DSL line from 2005, at four figures a month per station. It's a small line item that says something true about the business. Airlines run on thin margins, and the costs hide in places like this. If you're planning a new station, price the connectivity before you sign - it's rarely in the airport's headline number. ![The Farel team with Tallinn Airport's ground-handling lead and a RESA engineer at the boarding gate after the live airport validation.](/media/blog/dcs-common-use-certification/inline-5.59357a71.jpg) ## What does common-use certification mean for airlines? This is the part that outlives the milestone. On legacy departure control systems, recertification and upgrades are a recurring, usually billable cost, and airlines often end up several versions behind because of it. On Farel it works the other way, by design. The certified thing is the common-use integration layer - the piece pinned to that fixed runtime, down to the exact browser and platform versions. Touch that layer and you recertify. Everything else, the rest of the DCS and the wider platform, ships continuously and leaves it alone. | | Legacy DCS (e.g. Amadeus Altéa, Sabre SonicW) | Farel | | -------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | Recertification cadence | Recurring, vendor-driven | Every 2-3 years, Farel-run | | Who pays for recert and upgrades | Typically the airline | Included | | Version airlines run | Often several releases behind | Always the latest | | New product features | Tied to the upgrade/recert cycle | Ship continuously; don't touch the certified layer | So we recertify roughly every 2-3 years, mostly to refresh backend frameworks and close vulnerabilities - the deliberate, tested kind of update the Chromium rollback shows you can't skip. Airline partners don't pay for recertification or upgrades, and they're always on the current version instead of waiting on a release cycle. The certification covers Farel's [departure control](/platform/departure-control-system/) module - one part of the wider operating system airlines run on Farel. --- # Shaping $600B with technology: What’s really the next big thing in aviation? Source: /company/blog/whats-really-the-next-big-thing-in-aviation/ # Shaping $600B with technology: What’s really the next big thing in aviation? Hey again, I'm Askhat. I'm helping the future of aviation by building a lightning-fast, modern Operating System for fast-growing airlines to manage inventory and boost sales. Previously, I built and sold a successful online flight booking platform. I religiously follow aviation news and love chatting about what's emerging at the forefront of our industry. I also spend a lot of time talking with representatives of fast-growing airlines. They have an infectious optimism about the future of travel and are keen on leveraging new technology to rewrite the rules. I want to share some of my most recent industry findings and what I see next. A research team at NASA recently released a novel [report](https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/ram/) on the emerging opportunity for the complete disruption of the aviation industry through technology. NASA painted an incredibly vivid picture of the future, where aviation rivals cars in convenience and flexibility for mid-distance trips between 50-500 miles. Currently, the aviation industry maximizes efficiency on long flights, hub airports, and gigantic planes. For most passengers today, air travel is often associated with traffic jams at the airport, stressful security lines, unpredictable rescheduling, and unexpected cancellations. In addition to the higher cost, it's no wonder why most Americans prefer road trips over flying shorter distances; just 1.6% of all trips between 50-500 miles are taken by air. However, many tasks, even daily ones, require a better transportation solution. Some examples are: - Daily commuting (~4M Americans travel >90 minutes each way by car daily) - Short-haul flights (~50% of the world's flight routes are shorter than 500 miles) - Cargo delivery - Entertainment, training flights, agriculture, as well as many other tasks. ![Concept render of an electric short-haul aircraft cruising over a coastline](/media/blog/whats-really-the-next-big-thing-in-aviation/inline-1.d64ea059.jpg) In the near future, most flights won't be on massive 787s but carried out by a fleet of smaller, nimbler planes. Several startups, such as Odys Aviation, are far advanced in the development of electric airplanes, and a few airlines are already operating smaller, electric airplanes with distinctive features: - Cost-effective (reduced energy, maintenance costs with electrified propulsion). - Reduced noise levels (allows airports to be closer to populated areas). - Range of 50-500 miles (sufficient for most tasks mentioned above). - A smaller capacity (10-20 people) reduces registration and landing times. - Simplified aircraft controls (remote piloting, autonomous operations). What’s most interesting about this is that a ready-made infrastructure for an intelligent decentralized network of small aircraft already exists. The United States currently has over 5,000 public-use airports within 10 miles of 60% of its population and 25 miles of 95% of its people. I recently had the opportunity to experience flying on a 9-seater from San Carlos to Los Angeles. This was by far my best 300-mile flight. The entire process was incredibly smooth. I arrived 10 minutes before departure and parked at the terminal entrance. I landed before I could even finish the latte I bought on the way to the airport. At the right price, this is possibly the best medium-distance transportation option. As regional aviation grows, consumers will start seeing amenities expected from larger hub airports available at local airports, such as long-term car parking, lounges, and food and beverage options. The experience will feel more like a VIP jet service but accessible for far more people. ![Aerial view of small private jets parked at JetCenter Los Angeles](/media/blog/whats-really-the-next-big-thing-in-aviation/inline-2.1e23c30f.jpg) Further, regional airports can serve as hubs for alternative energy generation and storage, such as solar and hydrogen, and for ground vehicles, community users, and electric aircraft. 146 airports across the country have already started 225 renewable energy projects. For example, the largest airport-based solar farm utilizes 183 acres at the Indianapolis International Airport. It produces 36.1 million kilowatt-hours per year, enough to power 3,650 homes. And while companies leveraging underutilized infrastructure will reap enormous benefits, so will companies that radically rethink how planes operate. The next thing that limits the growth and might be significantly optimized in the industry is the "manual control" behind the air traffic control desk. Just as "switchboard operations" and "cab dispatchers" have become relics of the past, so should the idea of the "air traffic controller." Human intuition can be augmented by intelligent systems with millions of sensors, machine learning, and neural networks. At any given moment right now, there are about 10,000 airplanes in the sky, and 10,000 dispatchers are needed to monitor them (1 aircraft for each dispatcher). Advances in technology increase this ratio by 10 or even 100 times greater. Automated systems, lightning-fast interfaces, and neural networks will allow one dispatcher to coordinate dozens of airplanes simultaneously. With $600B in the air, it’s no surprise we’re seeing such an emergence of new ideas. And just like the smaller airlines I speak with, technology is rapidly helping new players rewrite the rules. Tesla redefined a conservative automotive industry. Now every automaker is playing catch up. Electric-powered aircraft is also well poised to change how we travel mid-distance fundamentally. There will be significantly more demand for flights and a fantastic opportunity for new airlines to emerge, especially micro and small sizes. A powerful OS will be needed to coordinate and handle all the logistics, and at Farel, we are incredibly excited to contribute to a greener and cleaner future. --- # Future Building with FlyArystan Managing Director Adrian Hamilton-Manns Source: /company/blog/future-building-with-flyarystan-md/ # Future Building with FlyArystan Managing Director Adrian Hamilton-Manns The modern airline leaders need to keep a close eye on the potential for technology to improve every aspect of their business, but few can say they’ve actually spent time in the tech industry too. Fresh from a stint leading airline software company Radixx’s Asian business, Adrian Hamilton-Manns last year returned to an airline — continuing a passion for the sector he’s loved since he was a child and worked in his whole adult life. Just as the pandemic was shaking up the industry, he took on the task of running FlyArystan, a recently launched regional airline based in Kazakhstan and serving the low-cost market in Central Asia. Charged with doubling the company’s size to 19 aircraft and reaching a target of serving 8 million passengers across Central Asia by 2024, Adrian sees personalization technology as a key factor in how it will reach this goal. What does he mean by personalization? “It can take many shapes,” he says. “The introduction of continuous pricing — the ability to flexibly adjust prices for different passengers by operators like Lufthansa — is one example, and naturally retail is affected too. It’s all about knowing your customer and being able to present them with something that’s suited specifically to them. “The ultimate vision is remembering each passenger’s preferences: where they go, who they travel with, where they like to sit, and what they like to buy. The easiest analogy is that it’s like autofill on a website form, but for the entire flying experience.” ## Automation for the people “There are opportunities to use automation to enhance personalization, too. The speed and efficiency of a chatbot means it can pull up and communicate personally relevant data to customers far faster than a human, for example.” Adrian explains that automation means you can offer a reliable, repeatable product to your customers time and again. > _“It’s like with McDonald’s,” he says. “You know exactly the hamburger you’ll receive when you order because they’ve spent decades refining the delivery and automation of that product. It’s this approach that airlines need to engage with.”_ But to personalize, you need to know your customer by owning the relationship with them, which is difficult in an industry full of intermediaries. To tackle this, FlyArystan is developing a subscription program through its app to create an in-house picture of who its passengers are so it can build a direct relationship with them. ![FlyArystan Airbus A320 in red and white livery taking off from a runway](/media/blog/future-building-with-flyarystan-md/inline-1.66bcc495.jpeg) ## Learning from Amazon In the fiercely competitive low-cost airline market, Adrian is philosophical on the topic of using technology to boost revenue growth. “Historically, airline ticket prices have gone down while inflation has gone up, meaning the real price of aviation keeps decreasing. So technology won’t give you revenue increases; what it will do is prevent revenue erosion,” he says. “Airlines can chase increased revenue, but the moment that happens you get into a commoditized product where the goal is to offer the lowest price. So, mostly technology is about protecting what you have.” Again, Adrian says personalization is key here. “If an airline knows a passenger’s preferences and the exact experience they want from travel, they might not be swayed as easily by a lower fare from a rival.” He points to Amazon, and how its customers will often choose a product with Prime delivery over a cheaper option because they know they can expect a particular level of service and speed. “People put a lot of value on their time. Look at how we went from lengthy YouTube videos to really short TikTok videos — people’s attention spans are getting shorter. If you can respect people’s time and give real value in the little time they have you’ll likely protect your revenue when competitors enter the market.” The fact that airlines haven’t already learned this from Amazon is a problem, Adrian believes. “This industry has a habit of not learning from how technology is used elsewhere. Airlines are traditionally very conservative with technology; they don’t want to be the leader with innovation, and often when they do move fast it’s more for a PR opportunity than to drive real value in their businesses.” But Adrian is clear that there’s no single technology, or combination of technologies, that can solve everything for every airline. “You need to put different technologies together to get the best possible outcome for the customer, but the exact best blend of technologies is different for every airline.” ![Crowd of press and passengers boarding a FlyArystan A320 via airstairs at the apron](/media/blog/future-building-with-flyarystan-md/inline-2.62ecd9f3.jpeg) ## The customer of the future The need to respect the customer’s time reflects a broader shift Adrian sees in the airline customer of the future. “They will be savvier than they are now. They only have a limited amount of time to pay attention to your product. You’ve got a limited amount of time to impress that customer; a limited amount of time to make them understand why they should give their money to you. They’re far more aware of their options and opportunities.” So a savvier customer base is going to expect more than just a personalized experience that remembers their preferences when they buy a ticket and choose their in-flight meal. This could present a challenge for airlines and opportunities for technology companies that can help address it. > _“Personalization is the bare minimum these customers expect,” Adrian explains. “They don’t expect to be treated like a number, they want to be treated as an individual. But going beyond the basics to delight them is a challenge. There, you’re getting into the really long tail of differentiation.”_ Adrian sees trust as a key challenge when you get down to such a granular level; how much does each individual customer trust an airline? “That can be influenced by things way beyond your control,” Adrian says. “Maybe one customer saw a bad review on TikTok and their opinion of you began there. It’s very hard to know how the customer’s opinion will be shaped. So, there’s a real challenge ahead to address that much more granular level of personalization.” ## Personalizing the entire flight experience To truly make the most of personalization, Adrian believes airlines need to look beyond their typical areas of focus. “There’s a disconnect where airlines will sell you an in-flight experience, but won’t worry about your airport experience, which is itself a big part of traveling. To the airlines, you’re almost like a ‘non-person’ until you get to the gate. “So, using technology to enhance the customer experience across their whole journey from start to finish is something airlines really need to work on.” For example, could airlines work with airports to provide a smoother journey from check-in to the gate? Adrian says technologies like facial recognition and near-field communication (NFC) could be deployed to assist here. “The airport of the future can keep track of you with NFC or similar technology, so you have the least possible number of pauses on your journey, without having to be stopped by security and other checks.” Of course, general aviation is complex, so changes like this aren’t going to happen quickly. But Adrian thinks that in a few years we’ll be surprised how far things have come. “When I began my career, passengers bought tickets from travel agents with physical offices. Those offices weren’t replaced overnight — it was a gradual process. So, while we’re not going to see the hyper-personalized airline experience emerge in one fell swoop, if we look back in 10 years, we’ll see just how much more focused on customer experience the whole industry will have become.” ![Empty cabin of a FlyArystan A320 with blue and orange leather seats](/media/blog/future-building-with-flyarystan-md/inline-3.70debc0a.jpeg) ## Keeping a firm focus on the customer’s experience Few in aerospace will have upbeat things to say about how the pandemic affected their business in 2020 but taking the reins at an ambitious new airline amid lockdowns and ever-shifting travel rules presented a particular challenge to Adrian. FlyArystan didn’t adjust its ambitious goals in the face of the pandemic. “What changed was how we got there,” says Adrian. “We had initial plans to focus on the domestic network in Kazakhstan. But with closures and Covid restrictions, things were really fluid. That meant we had to dynamically move capacity around. Sometimes we’d be flying domestically and others we’d have to start flying internationally.” For an airline CEO, there’s something of a similarity between riding the waves of technological change and coping with the pandemic. “We’ve needed to be very adaptable; staying on top of the opportunities as they present themselves and trying to manage that within the Covid-19 environment.” As Adrian’s experience shows, embracing change and innovation while keeping a firm focus on the customer’s experience is a great way for modern airline executives to navigate their way through the challenges of the 21st century. --- # A few closing thoughts from World Aviation Festival 2021 Source: /company/blog/waf-quick-thoughts/ # A few closing thoughts from World Aviation Festival 2021 As thousands descended upon ExCel London for the World Aviation Festival’s first in-person event since 2019, the excitement and emotions were palpable. From the myriad of vendor booths, keynotes, and presentations, the conference covered every industry issue and theme one could expect. Pent-up traveler demand is real. Embrace better technology. Sustainability is critical. Innovation must be scaled. Greater customized offerings around the customer. Loyalty is a gamechanger. And so on and so forth. As our first industry event (but certainly not our first conference), we were keen on jumping in on these conversations, sharing what we’ve been building over the past 14 months, and connecting deeper with other innovators and industry tastemakers. ![Farel booth S39 at World Aviation Festival 2021 with "Your airline on autopilot" signage and demo laptops](/media/blog/waf-quick-thoughts/inline-1.5f2baf97.jpg) So we booked tickets from San Francisco (WAF generously gave us free exhibitor passes), printed some business cards, created slick leaflets, and put together an easily digestible demo of the Farel system. Our signage “Put Your Airline on Autopilot” attracted a lot of attention and inquiry. It served as provocatively vague enough to invite further discussion. These discussions were overwhelmingly validating from both airlines and other vendors. By estimation, we spoke with around 150 people from airlines, airports, and other travel techs. Most of the questions/feedback can be summarized around the following three themes: 1. Is this really a **real** product? 2. Did you build all this in **one year**? 3. Seems very **simple** to use. By the end of the conference, we were able to combine these questions into a neatly packaged response. “This is actually a real, all-in-one solution, built over a year that’s insanely easy to use. Can I show you how it works?” By combining several different applications within one single platform with the speed and intuitiveness demanded by the 21st century, airlines took note. Positive feedback from FlyDubai, Lufthansa, and Emirates showed us that the future will look much more like Farel — simplicity, scalability, analytics, UX clarity, and flexibility. ![Selfie of the Farel team meeting industry colleagues at the World Aviation Festival booth](/media/blog/waf-quick-thoughts/inline-2.2a00eed7.jpg) So in reflection, the conference was a success and was well represented by team Farel. We considered this the first public unveiling of our solution. Ultimately, we’ve been emboldened by where the future of the industry is headed and extremely excited to see what more can be unlocked through the power of software. We look forward to the future and extend a big thank you to the organizers of WAF for putting together such an event amidst such uncertainty. ![Exhibition floor at ExCel London during World Aviation Festival 2021 with vendor booths and attendees](/media/blog/waf-quick-thoughts/inline-3.0f8378d6.jpg) --- # See You in London at the World Aviation Festival! Source: /company/blog/farel-at-world-aviation-festival/ # See You in London at the World Aviation Festival! The World Aviation Festival is one of the largest events in the aviation/airline industry. This year, the event will be held in-person from Dec 1-2 at the ExCel Center in London. The sprawling two-day event features 250+ speakers and will bring together leaders and innovators across airlines, airports, tech providers, travel, and more. This year’s theme is **“Rethink, Rebuild, Recover”** and much focus will be on exploring the boundaries of how technology can enhance retailing and the customer experience. **2021 has become a crucial year for the aviation industry to ensure its survival and get back to some semblance of normality.** As travel continues to bounce back, many airlines have begun to fundamentally rethink what retailing means and shift to a more customer-centric approach. Here at Farel, we’ve also done a lot of **rethinking** as we’ve designed an operating platform that provides real-time information seamlessly around all customer touchpoints. In a field dominated by legacy systems built in the 1990s, airlines can no longer afford to be restricted by the inertia of their current systems. So, we’ve **rebuilt** an operating platform for the 21st century. Based on the latest technology, UX/UI, and cutting-edge SaaS cloud analytics baked right in, we’re giving airlines back full control over their business, their distribution partners, and more. Lastly, as our first time exhibiting and in the spirit of **recovery**, please stop by stand S39 to meet our team and learn more about Farel! We're looking forward to meeting you next week! With best regards, the entire Farel team. --- # Selling as an Enterprise Startup with no Product Source: /company/blog/selling-as-an-enterprise-startup-with-no-product/ # Selling as an Enterprise Startup with no Product If you survey 100 enterprise software startup founders on what they would consider the most challenging aspect of growing their business, 95 of them would probably say an excessively long sales cycle. Farel is certainly part of that overwhelming majority. Our industry (airlines) is notoriously fickle and sluggish in regards to adopting new ideas and innovation. The typical airline sales cycle (from initial contact to contract close) is around 12-18 months. And while the pandemic forced many airlines to temporarily ground, over 100 new airlines were launched with new routes and optimism. Selling into such a moated industry with no finished product, not even a demo presented a lot of challenges. So with an understanding that business comes first, the first person to join Farel had experience in early-stage custdev and within a few months helped validate the idea and gather enough requirements for the direction of the product. During the height of the pandemic, we logged over 200 Zoom hours from industry professionals who generously accepted cold, Linkedin outreach and put time on their calendars. In parallel, I began assembling the product and engineering teams to begin development. Software, especially for mission-critical applications, cannot be hastily shipped or have corners cut. Realizing that it would take at least a year to develop the first version, we decided to engage with the market anyways and “sell” what we have. ## Selling air to the airlines So what did we have? We had a vision and in that sense, we began selling “air.” A majority of our early conversations revolved around where the industry was headed, driving trends, and how software, much like when applied to other legacy industries like logistics and manufacturing, could unlock powerful new growth opportunities. Based on our cumulative experience in the industry and validated by numerous insights and benchmarks collected during our early custdev convos, we packaged this “future” into a presentation. We started first with our own professional network. With over a decade of working in the space, we were already connected to a dozen airlines. The pandemic affected different markets in different ways. While the US and Europe experienced a steep drop in passengers, other markets like Russia and Kazakhstan saw a boost in domestic travel, with some even hitting pre-COVID levels of passengers flown. So our focus shifted to these markets that were open for business. With each airline “no” we refined our pitch. When we began connecting to airlines out of our network, we relied heavily on referrals and Linkedin cold outreach. You’d be amazed how open people can be with the right message and tone. Most airlines didn’t want to chat for a multitude of reasons. We continually refined our outreach messaging and segmentation. For the airlines that were open to chatting, we dived very deep into their pain points. Soon, evident patterns began to emerge. We articulated these patterns into specific functionalities of the Farel system: 1. **Automation**: A lot of airlines are simply drowning in the volume of manual labor for routine tasks. The simplest example is refunds which can be painstakingly laborious and thus costly. 2. **Data-Driven Decision-Making**: Airlines, especially smaller ones, largely base their decision-making on employee anecdotes or outdated benchmarks. Further, they are often at the mercy of their vendors. Bottomline, real-time data is something of a rarity in the space and the inability to plan and react based on data is an increasingly burdensome position. 3. **Retailing**: In the future, it’s not enough to sell a seat from point A to point B. Airlines must be able to additionally sell services and products (ancillaries) at the time of booking, before departure, during the flight, and even upon arrival. Once a passenger is boarded, the airlines have a captive audience for the duration of the flight. The ability to offer much more than just a sandwich is a missed opportunity. ## An industry as (hyperbolically) old as time Such patterns aren’t unique to the airline industry. Many other industries have gone and are going through seismic transformations. Consider the banking sector 10-15 years ago as an example. Purposeful investments in new technologies have allowed banks to not only become product-led businesses that can hyper-personalize their offerings but also iterate more nimbly to changing consumer trends. Banks now are analyzing volumes of existing customer data to better understand their customers and meet them where they are — on their smartphones. Mobile banking has exploded in the past 5 years and will only continue to do so with even more innovative experiences. This is a great case study for the airline industry as well. ## It’s never too early to chat with the market Most of our outreach efforts are met with either “when you guys have a product, come by then” or “you guys are too early to engage the market, focus on building product first.” We respectfully disagree with both statements. Finding product-market fit relies on continuous conversations with customers and potential customers as much as possible. And the process of converting a conversation from a “no” into a “yes” has become a worthy challenge, a non-computer system that needs to be hacked. For the minority, the possibility of co-innovation is still highly attractive. We recently had a great conversation with the CEO of a Mexican airline that understood where the industry is headed and expressed a strong interest in cooperation. Yet, even if companies agree to cooperate there’s still a long way to go before closing (negotiations, legal, compliance, etc.). Gathering insights from airlines, OTAs, industry bodies, and experts gives us increased product depth, breadth and interactive cadence. We can now demo a working prototype with an airline, gather feedback, and two weeks later incorporate that feedback into an improved version. Additionally, our sales motion has refined over time. We understand that airline COOs and CFOs tend to focus on the cost benefits of our platform. CIO and IT executives tend to get more into the technical weeds. CEOs are more focused on revenue generation. Communicating with prospective customers is an exercise in timing and the earlier the outreach the warmer the leads become. Another critical part of our sales is finding an internal champion within a company. This person can wield extraordinary influence and/or be a gatekeeper. And certainly this doesn’t always have to be upper management. Simply asking “Who might also be interested in seeing our product” can open unseen doors and keep the conversation alive. For Farel, we’ve developed some great internal partners with previous backgrounds in software and IT. This heightens the understanding of our system and dive deeper into an airline's needs. ## The future of air travel is brighter than ever & lessons learned Fast-forward to now (August 2021), we have 10 committed partner airlines that are actively involved in our product development, testing, and providing valuable user feedback. Our working framework is such: we demo application layouts or ready-made modules and give user access. The airline tests and provides feedback. We then circle back and discuss that feedback and incorporate that into the next iteration. We send updates every 6 weeks and track our improvements so progress is visible and shared. We also disseminate product updates with prospective customers to nurture warm leads and keep the channel open for potential future cooperation. The pandemic opened more doors than it closed both in the short-term and in the long-term. As travel roars back, airlines are now more than ever seeking to upgrade their legacy systems and better adapt to customer needs. Taking a step back, I’d like to share three key takeaways from our experience selling “air” and building a world-class product: - **Early-stage enterprise sales is hard but not impossibly so.** Engaging with the market fast and early built a strong base for future engagement. And while it may seem like you’re selling “air” what you’re really doing is getting a clearer picture of your customer’s problems and the industry landscape. - **No such thing as a closed door.** During your process, there will be significantly more “No” and “Yes”. Developing thick skin and handling objections are great skills to develop. But more broadly, don’t internalize every “no” as irrevocably consequential. Either find a different way into the conversation or table and revisit later. Keep moving forward. - **Communicate to existing AND potential customers.** We regularly share our roadmap with our existing partners. However, we developed a separate communication for those airlines who didn’t agree to cooperate just yet. We keep this door open intentionally and welcome such feedback as well. I could share more about our experience but I’ll save that for the next post. In the meantime feel free to follow our stories and updates on our [LinkedIn page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/flyfarel/). With best regards, The entire Farel team. --- # How to Build a Team into a Startup Source: /company/blog/how-to-build-a-team-into-a-startup/ # How to Build a Team into a Startup In this post, I’d like to share my experience and lessons learned around talent, motivation, and the early-stage challenges of building the Farel team. Over a year ago, I found myself accepted into YC and going through their program. My former company (Santufei) was successfully acquired and former employees were onboarded to the acquiring company (Kaspi). At that moment, I found myself in an interesting position — I had the idea for Farel, but no team. And with no team, there’s no startup. So I got down to work… ## Business comes first For many startups, the first hires are engineers. This makes sense, as with no engineers, no product, no sales, and so on and so forth. However, in Farel’s case, the first two hires were actually business development professionals. The question asked then, why not engineers? The airline business is often described as a tough racket. Gaining a deeper understanding of the market, its trends, players, and forging meaningful connections and relationships is vitally important. So I reached out to Louis, an American who spent a number of years working between the US and Kazakhstan. Louis brought not only global business experience but a bridge between two different cultures. Yerbol, who previously worked at Santufei was brought on as well. His business development experience spanned multiple Russian-speaking countries. Louis and Yerbol worked in tandem to introduce our vision to prospective customers all over the world. Louis worked primarily with English-speaking markets and Yerbol focused in the CIS, in which we considered our homefield advantage. Adding another challenge was that face-to-face meetings were nonexistent during the height of the pandemic and building rapport via Zoom was and still is very difficult. Regardless, we connected with airlines from Auckland to Austin. Moreover, early conversations with airlines yielded actionable insights into their struggles, hopes, and dreams that helped inform our product development. And all these conversations were annotated and now form the bulk of our internal knowledge center (promising markets, airlines, vendor timetables, etc). So why didn’t I just do it myself? I spent a lot of time in the YC program, registering the company, and generally navigating the waves of the pandemic. Of course I also talked with airlines, but it came down to multipliers. I wanted 10X the amount of information from the market. Outside of our home market our reach was limited. In those early days we relied on the generosity of those interested in emerging technology and the next big thing. And while we probably logged over 400 hours of Zoom calls, not each call was necessarily fruitful. And so an enormous amount of outbound effort was needed to lay this groundwork. With a deeper understanding of the market, it became abundantly clear that a product manager was needed. I reached out to my former marketing manager, Yar, who previously worked at Santufei and decided not to join the acquiring company. In my mind, I began to understand that marketing and product management share a lot of similarities. Both require customer empathy, communication, and strong project management and execution skills. With that, I offered him to become our first product manager. He joined and immediately began systeming our tacit knowledge and putting processes in place. Why not bring in an outside product manager? In many ways, this was my bet that previous successful collaboration and direct and adjacent skillsets, would be more fruitful than have a singular experience as a product manager. ![Farel team working together with laptops around a long table in the early days](/media/blog/how-to-build-a-team-into-a-startup/inline-1.0420390e.jpg) ## A founder’s worst nightmare I recall a startling statistic that was shared among my YC batchmates — that each year, 4-5 startups have their technical co-founder leave before demo day. I remember thinking to myself that’s borderline fatal. I struggled to wrap my head around how that was even possible, let alone at Y Combinator company. And yet, in a twisted irony of fate, I too became part of that statistic. Our first CTO decided to leave Farel before demo day. No amount of previous resiliency could shake my feelings at the time. The brunt of our technical expertise in reservations and ticketing, evaporated in an instant. I would’ve fallen entirely into despair had there not been the crushing urgency building towards presenting our progress for demo day. So I had to look for a new CTO, which wasn’t an easy order. I started by compiling a list of everyone who I shared deep professional experience with since university. After some time, this list ended up with 15 names. I then began working through the names, speaking to about 10 people and each time asking for whom they might recommend for this important role. And as it unfolded, I reconnected with an old highschool classmate of mine — Asset, who’s been living in Poland for about five years and working at EPAM. At the time, I couldn’t quite understand his willingness to join Farel from his cushy corporate job, but now I can see. The influence and ownership of projects and processes is minimized in a large company. Farel offered an exciting opportunity to not just influence a product but also help redefine an entire category. Asset shared the same view that I did and was genuinely excited about the challenges and opportunities that Farel could offer. And with that, we found our new CTO. ## Rounding it out I assumed that engineers would soon need to be recruited so I invited Maria, an HR manager to the team to help in this process. It was also convenient that Maria was formerly the HR manager at Santufei and had deep experience in blitz hiring (hiring for multiple roles at once). She helped lay the groundwork and build the candidate pipeline. Together with Asset, they played a crucial role in assembling a world-class engineering team, primarily from personal networks. And on the topic of personal networks, our UX/UX designer also came highly recommended — as she also plays the other mission-critical role of being my wife. With the engineering team in place, we were itching to build something but needed a technical direction. We were at point zero. If the MVP is 1, then there’s some space between 0 and 1. So we decided to start smaller and validate our hypotheses with a POC (proof of concept). There’s a famous ski resort nestled at the base of Almaty which can only be reached by an electric car of “environmentally friendly” public transport. The POC we built was a transportation management system that directed traffic flows. We deployed this system on a “miniature airline,” which was in reality a Tesla (and a lot of fun to drive). The POC helped clarify our existing knowledge and reevaluate a lot of our working assumptions. Based on this exercise and the insights it yielded, we ultimately decided to completely alter our entire tech stack, which was a major inflection point. And while this would be completely unheard of in a large corporation (or take years), in startups such is the case. You can spend months building a part of a product only to have the need iterated away and made irrelevant. Demoralizing indeed. ![Farel team posing together at the ski resort near Almaty during the POC trip](/media/blog/how-to-build-a-team-into-a-startup/inline-2.f433bb60.jpg) ## Hiring rules After building profitable businesses for over the past 12 years, I’ve developed a few guiding rules for selecting the right people for a startup. Earlier in my career, I used to think that the nature of startups was patently obvious. Work hard, play hard, grind mode, etc. As it turns out, it’s much more nuanced than that. The problem with building new teams is that you have insufficient time and resources to thoughtfully vet and interview each potential team member. There are constraints and factors that are critically more valuable than purely credentials. It’s akin to observing the finish line of a marathon and hiring the first top finishers. At a cursory glance, they may seem like the best athletes in the race. But looking at their pacing would reveal vast differences in how they maintained their speed. Thus success in a startup also comes to consistency. Aspiring entrepreneurs also share another problem — access and ability to attract top talent. My contention is that there’s no need to pursue “star performers”. In addition to costs, oftentimes star performers simply don’t perform. But when you hire an average person who has a burning desire to create something valuable inside, he/she turns out to be an excellent colleague. So in the beginning, hire those who can learn quickly and are ready to immerse themselves in their work. With such people, you can run up the numbers, and hire senior specialists later. Good founders will perform well with an average team; you don't have to have stars right away. Look for people who are passionate about their work, people who know how to get pleasure from this, from the process itself and the results. ## What’s ahead Farel now employs 15 people. Engineering and product represent 11 people and this ratio reflects our product-first orientation. We’ve been extremely intentional about our growth to avoid arbitrarily ballooning in headcount or spending excessively. In the beginning, and by the nature of a global pandemic, we wanted to work in a distributed environment. We soon came to realize that the cultural and productivity benefits by being in close proximity far outweigh anything else. Most of our team now resides in Turkey in a comfortable office that allows us to tightly work together across engineering, product, and design. There is a huge grain of truth in the fact that the success of a startup depends a lot on the team. A strong team can do the impossible. The hardest challenge is assembling the right team with the right mindset and motivation. The Farel team was built brick by brick and with each layer, became more cohesive, productive, and supportive. I hope sharing my experience and insights can help you along your own startup journey. ![Farel team gathered around a kitchen table at the office, smiling at the camera](/media/blog/how-to-build-a-team-into-a-startup/inline-3.790486d7.jpg) With best regards, The entire Farel team. --- # How to Quickly Test Your Business Idea: The Case of Farel Source: /company/blog/how-to-quickly-test-your-business-idea/ # How to Quickly Test Your Business Idea: The Case of Farel In this post, I’d like to share how I tested the idea of Farel, validated market demand, and share what we’ve achieved over the past year. By sharing practical insights, I hope my experience can be useful for other B2B startups currently at the idea stage. Farel started with a simple hypothesis: airlines need simple and easy-to-use software for their operations. In April 2020, I finally decided to study this direction in further detail. For over a year, the idea drilled my mind incessantly. You know that feeling when an idea comes up and you cannot sleep or think of anything else? I’ve built three businesses from the ground up before, and they all started the same way. It was a strong, positive signal for me, but still not enough to become completely obsessed with starting a new business. First and foremost, I wanted to figure out whether my hypothesis was just mere delusion. What if airlines were comfortable with their current software? What if industry inertia simply made them afraid to change? I thought to myself, “Okay, I can devote some time to validate this idea.” My current business, at that time, was also involved in the traveltech space. We were a large online travel agency in the CIS and engaged directly with the software used by the airlines. So what was the initial problem? There are only a few players on the airline software space, like Amadeus and Sabre, which essentially control the entire market. The problem is that their software was created a long time ago and has since devolved into becoming archaic. Yes, the companies are developing new features, but they are based on an old core that has not been changed for decades. The state of affairs can be compared to that of the automotive industry. Although combustion engines dominate the market today and manufacturers are still investing in improvements, it is clear that this is an outdated technology, and the future lies with electric drive systems. What are the other inefficiencies? For example, these solutions have a command-line interface. ![Screenshot of a legacy airline reservation system showing a dense command-line interface](/media/blog/how-to-quickly-test-your-business-idea/inline-1.03b4acae.jpg) To perform even the simplest actions, users must know a special syntax and enter hundreds of commands to get results. And this is happening in the age of intuitive web interfaces! For comparison’s sake, let us look at the past, when to create even a simple website, one needed to know HTML. Now, you can create a website using a constructor by rearranging blocks and designs exactly as you want. In addition, current software is not cloud-based, meaning that a separate configuration is made for each customer and is then supported individually. Back in the day, if a business needed computing resources, they had to buy servers and build an infrastructure for their operations — an extremely costly and time-consuming task. Today, AWS has essentially made this function obsolete. Further it’s extremely difficult for airlines, especially smaller ones, to have any kind of specialized solutions developed by software manufacturers. For example, why is getting a ticket refund not as simple as buying one? What is the problem of having it done in a few clicks? Today, ticket refunds or exchanges are a manual process for most carriers and there is almost no alternative to the current software. In fact, the market is oligopolized, and airlines have almost no say in it. They also need to maintain good relations with suppliers, otherwise they run the risk of unfavorable commercial terms in the next contract. A vicious cycle. Another simple example is check-ins. ![Outdated airline check-in web form asking for passport number and date of birth](/media/blog/how-to-quickly-test-your-business-idea/inline-2.4b987db7.png) Why do airlines never offer travelers their favorite seats onboard? Instead, travelers must manually enter their personal details and select the same seat every time they travel. I have been doing so for 15 years now and I have no idea when it might change. Airlines today are more like e-commerce companies, much more than ones focused on transportation. The internet technologies supporting them are more important for airline companies than the airplanes themselves. We have seen how companies disappeared after failing to adapt to the modern requirements of the users, not the passengers, even while having super-modern aircraft in their fleets. The aviation industry is in need of significant changes. Shopify has managed to completely transform the process of creating and managing online stores. Why not try to do this with airlines and create a convenient, modern service tailored for them? A vertical SaaS platform specifically designed for the needs of airlines. Having the necessary knowledge of the industry, I decided to go on and validate my hypothesis. How could I check the viability of the idea? It would have been logical to ask the airlines themselves. So, I started writing to contacts on LinkedIn working in airlines to share my idea and get their feedback. My first message was akin to something like this: ![LinkedIn message exchange where Askhat introduces Farel to Amar Abrol and gets a positive reply](/media/blog/how-to-quickly-test-your-business-idea/inline-3.46b8f7c0.png) Although the message lacks any details, surprisingly, I received positive responses about 30% of the time from contacts willing to discuss the matter. Among them were many C-level managers who were ready to discuss my idea. For example, Amar Abrol, CEO of AirAsia India, answered me. He has since left the company to found his own startup. Surprisingly, top managers were ready to spend hours discussing aviation software. They talked about the problems of current systems, why they do not work, what needs to be fixed, and so on. They complained that they did not have any leverage as customers that would allow them to change anything. I have touched upon a very important topic for them. I felt that they are very displeased with the current state of affairs. If I came to them with a proposal for onboard catering, I am sure that only a few would have answered me. The reaction was different here. Some were impressed with the idea and had started asking questions, sharing their thoughts. Some were skeptical, as they did not believe that it was possible to defeat the giants. In any case, there was interest in the idea, which means that there is demand for it on the market. Despite the fact that I was already sure that the idea was worth dedicating the next 10 years of my life to, I felt the lack of a magical kick. At that moment, I had an active, rather large business, and I really like working in a focused way on one thing at a time. I also had a long-term dream of getting into the Y Combinator. And so, I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to get some additional validation. It was incredibly interesting for me to get their opinion. I applied and was able to get distracted for a while. Ten days later, I got an answer and was invited for an interview. Another 2 weeks later, I was accepted into the batch. ![Y Combinator welcome email confirming Farel's acceptance into the S20 batch](/media/blog/how-to-quickly-test-your-business-idea/inline-4.807de6cd.png) While preparing for the interview, I found a buyer for my existing business, and by the start of the batch, I could fully focus on Farel. I think this is an almost ideal format for how startups should be launched, from idea to validation and then to Y Combinator. In my case, it is also a successful exit. At first, I could not believe that this was real and it was happening to me. After receiving the first investment from YC, I did not start working on the software straight off. I had to figure out where to start. When you are a startup, it is better to be a needle than a mallet. After hearing this phrase at one of the YC events, it dawned on me that the platform should not be made for everyone together taken, but that focus should be directed at small, regional airlines. They do not have the complex operations that major airlines do, so it is easier for us to design our solution. These airlines have a number of features specific to them. For example, there is no dedicated personnel responsible for strategy formation and the planning of company development for 5-10 years, since they are faster in making decisions. Often, the business of small airlines is supported by 3-4 top managers. They do not have that many resources. Such airlines live in their own isolated world, they do not fear much competition from large airlines because of the structure of their fleets, as it simply unprofitable for them to compete on regional routes. It seemed that working with small airlines would be difficult. However, in reality, this segment is deprived of attention. Amadeus and Sabre target major airlines. We managed to establish working relations with seven airlines and they became our partners. At first, we talked a lot with airlines from the Eastern Europe, since this market is historically closer to us. But now we are communicating with companies from the US, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. We want to have 1-2 partners in each local market. Basically, all of the companies have common problems, but there are some specifics. The main challenge is finding a person within the company who is interested in innovation. That person will become your guide in your account and will organize your workflows with the relevant departments. Our partner companies have also gotten involved rather actively in our work process. The cooperation is structured like this — we take on a certain function, for example, creating a flight schedule and the people in the company tell us how their processes are built, and about their pains. We start working on this feature and build as we see it, and they give their comments and corrections. We deploy new functions about once a month and ask for feedback. Why are the airlines so involved in helping us? First of all, it is because they are interested in change. Secondly, we work closely with the employees who work with the software in the airlines. They are interested in seeing something new and participating in the creation process. Another important factor is progress. When they see progress every month that exceeds their expectations, their interest grows. Our service can cover about 70% of the needs of small airlines. During the summer, we plan to move on to active implementation. But we already have clear evidence that airlines need a simple and convenient cloud service with site templates, fast schedule changes, the ability to create mobile applications in two clicks and so on. But the most important thing is that with such a service, the time-to-market indicator will be a week, and not several months, as it is now. We were lucky, since the initial idea hit the market well and found early adopters and contribution partners. But many entrepreneurs are also confident in their ideas and rush headlong into development, spending money, bringing them to the market, but in the end, it turns out that no one needs their products. Take your time right from the start to validate your idea with people in the industry that you are targeting. You may be thinking in the right direction but communicating with industry representatives will help you better understand the market. Moreover, you will receive additional motivation and find partners who will help you develop your project. Try applying to Y Combinator and other top accelerators, as this is the best way to start your transformation from idea to business. Of course, during the development process and greater immersion into the problem, your idea will change, you will prove its viability by traction, test a bunch of hypotheses, but this is a separate topic, perhaps one for the next post. ![Farel team in matching blue T-shirts and face masks holding up branded merchandise](/media/blog/how-to-quickly-test-your-business-idea/inline-5.d244b948.jpg) With best regards, The entire Farel team. --- # A Rising Tide Lifts All Planes Source: /company/blog/a-rising-tide-lifts-all-planes/ # A Rising Tide Lifts All Planes Hi, I'm Askhat, Founder & CEO of Farel. 12 years ago, I founded my first transportation startup. Our company helped optimize large corporate fleets to reduce costs and improve driver safety. For the transport industry, efficiency is key. Companies need to move goods from point A to B as quickly, cost-effectively, and safely as possible. Given the offline nature of our clients, we introduced innovative practices and proprietary tech that could be considered ahead of its time. With an understanding of how technology can fuel new business opportunities, I set my sights to the sky, literally. In 2014, I started Santufei, an online travel agency that sold airline tickets across Central Asia. At the time, almost all airline tickets in these markets were purchased via slow, traditional channels. The Santufei platform (taking a page from Expedia) offered consumers a convenient way to search and compare prices in real-time and book instantly. Within a short time, Santufei grew to nearly $30M GMV thanks to world-class engineering talent and obsessive customer support. And, in a bittersweet moment, I successfully sold my company to Kaspi Bank, a $6.5B fintech company with over 8M monthly users. ![The Santufei Team](/media/blog/a-rising-tide-lifts-all-planes/inline-1.c7149b97.jpg) After nearly a decade working in travel, I noticed the paradoxical nature of the airline industry. Outwardly, airlines appear super-advanced, operating large fleets of modern aircrafts built from highly engineered composite materials. Yet, when you pull back the fuselage, their IT architecture is extremely outdated and slow (like banking software in the 2000s). Not built for adaptability or fast-changing customer demands. Thus, when COVID-19 hit, it pounded the airlines. More than 20 years of passenger traffic growth was erased in just 9 months. And as easy as it was to book airline tickets online in a few clicks, issuing refunds for millions of passengers was a nightmare. However, it didn’t have to be — the underlying technology simply wasn’t built for customers. We can go on and on about the archaic nature of the airline industry and the flagship carriers that transport billions of annual passengers. For smaller, regional airlines the access divide to resources and technology is even more apparent. Limited budgets, sparse headcount, and a different business model don’t afford these airlines much in terms of world-class software. Their options are either an expensive legacy system, a bargain platform that underwhelms and underdelivers, or excel spreadsheets and call centers. Yet these airlines play a vitally important role in the global travel industry, providing critical domestic and regional routes to tourists and businesses alike. Regional airlines should have another option — a simpler and more effective retailing platform that’s built and priced specifically for their needs. No expensive setup, no hidden contract fees/penalties, no bullshit. Thus, Farel was born. ![Farel team posed together in the office, celebrating the launch of the company](/media/blog/a-rising-tide-lifts-all-planes/inline-2.534381b3.jpg) In a market dominated by slow-moving giants like Amadeus and Sabre, we’ve taken a product-first approach. We’re building out a truly world-class platform entirely in-house and from the ground up. Our deep experience in software development and travel allows us to have an insightfully fresh look into the airline industry and take an objective approach to questions and the status quo. And as the industry reshapes itself and begins to embrace new technologies and new thinking, we’re confident Farel will meet and support many airlines along the way. Launching a travel startup amidst a global pandemic isn’t easy. But what was lost in localized, in-person contact was made by a global, virtual community of mentors, supporters, and friends. We’re just getting started and there’s still a lot more to come. We invite you to join us along the way. If you’d like to help, support, and just connect, our doors (Zooms?) are always open. P.S. In the next post, I’ll be sharing more about the Farel system and our unique development approach. With best regards, the entire Farel team. ---