Charter dispatch software: what to ask before you buy

Most charter dispatch software is evaluated on the same short list: scheduling calendar, quote templates, client portal, maybe Avinode integration. Those features matter — but they are table stakes. The decision that actually matters is whether the software has a compliance gate. Not “do they mention 14 CFR 135?” — whether the software will actually block an illegal quote before it reaches a client.

The baseline question: what does it do when a crew is over limits?

Ask any vendor: “What happens when I build a quote with a pilot who has exceeded their 135.267 quarterly flight time cap?” There are three possible answers:

1. Nothing. The software does not know. It has no duty/rest engine. This is most scheduling tools sold as “charter software.”
2. It shows a warning. The dispatcher sees a yellow flag and can proceed anyway, with or without logging the reason. This is better, but the gate is soft.
3. It blocks the quote, with a citation. The finding names the regulation (135.267(a)(1): 500-hour quarterly cap), shows the crew member's current total, and requires an operator override with a documented reason. This is the gate doing its job.

Anything less than option 3 means your human dispatch desk is still the only check between an illegal trip and a client signature.

Questions to ask every vendor

• Does the system track cumulative flight hours by quarter, two-quarter period, and year? Does it check all three simultaneously?
• Does it enforce the 10-hour rest gap between duty periods, including across calendar days?
• Does it check 135.247 currency (90-day day/night landing requirements) per pilot role (PIC vs SIC)?
• Does it allow operator override? If so, is the override logged, with reason, and visible on the dispatch release?
• Can you upload your GOM/OpSpecs limits, and will the system apply whichever is stricter — your limits or the FAR floor?
• Does the dispatch release PDF include crew certifications, aircraft airworthiness status, and FRAT band?
• What happens to the log if you cancel your subscription?

Red flags

Be skeptical of any vendor who:

• Cannot name the specific CFR sections their compliance engine enforces.
• Shows a demo where the DO approves a quote by clicking a green button with no citation shown.
• Claims an LLM “handles compliance.” Language models do not reliably enforce arithmetic rules. The compliance gate should be deterministic code, not a model response.
• Does not produce a dispatch release — only a quote PDF. A dispatch release is an operational control document; a quote PDF is a sales document. You need both.

What “audit-ready” actually means

A compliance-forward dispatch tool produces a paper trail that answers the FSDO's first question in any audit: “Show me the pre-dispatch compliance check for this trip.” That means: what crew was assigned, what their duty hours were at assignment time, what the compliance finding was, and whether an override was issued and why. If you have to reconstruct that from spreadsheet exports and email threads, you don't have an audit-ready system.

The build-vs-buy question

A number of Part 135 operators run on custom spreadsheets or scripts. These can work, but they have a failure mode: the person who built them leaves, and what looked like a compliance check turns out to be a cell formula that no one has verified against the FARs. A commercial product with a named regulation-to-code mapping is easier to audit, update, and hand off.