Sept. 12, 2025
NBAA’s recent Thought Leadership Webinar: Predict. Prevent. Perform: The New Era of Bizav Maintenance Intelligence explored the challenges and advantages of digital tools and how they can help aviation maintenance operators mitigate many of today’s most significant issues.
“To understand the full impact of maintenance intelligence, you have to think about it the same way you think about business intelligence,” said Kyle Sale, the webinar’s moderator and senior account executive for its sponsor, Veryon.
“It’s not just about capturing data,” he explained. “Maintenance intelligence is also about using that data to make smarter decisions.”
Digitalization can reshape maintenance operations by creating more efficient workstreams and better organization, noted industry veteran Reaves Worrell, who now serves as a maintenance record consultant with Aero Review LLC.
“Digitalization reduces the massive amount of paperwork we traditionally used in aviation maintenance and puts it all in one easily accessible place. Also, if the parts person puts in correct data, the mechanic doesn’t have to redo that research because the computer system carries all that over,” he said.
“That creates a system that saves technicians time, builds processes that are quicker and more efficient to complete, and reduces errors,” Worrell added.
Digitalization also simplifies the compliance process. Referencing Veryon’s new 2025 Aviation Maintenance Benchmark Report, which surveyed more than 800 industry professionals, Sale said 78% of operators flagged compliance complexity as a major issue, largely due to manual processes, outdated documentation and language barriers in logbooks from international aircraft.
“Digital tools make it easy to upload your work the moment it’s completed. Now you’ve got all your tracking and records, and it can be managed from anywhere in real time,” Sale said.
“Adding a mobile component is essential. This allows you to document non-routines on the fly, get faster responses for maintenance control, quicker dispatch and increased awareness for procurement,” he said. “The list goes on and on, but mobile access really comes down to the ability to identify the issues quickly, automate processes, make the lives of your teams easier and enable those teams to work smarter to mitigate maintenance risk and increase availability.”
Access to real-time data and analytics also powers predictive maintenance, Sale said. “Operators use historical data, reports and technician insights to identify trends and combine that with the knowledge and experience of their technicians to prevent or minimize unscheduled events and streamline repairs,” he explained.
He added that while only 17% of the 2025 survey’s respondents had fully integrated artificial intelligence or predictive maintenance tools into their operations, those that had reported a 30% reduction in recurrent defects and unscheduled events.
Veryon’s survey also highlighted another industry trend, with 72% of respondents saying that they experience significant pain points when adopting maintenance software.
“Change from the traditional ways of performing maintenance may not be readily accepted, but people have to realize that the benefits far outweigh the effort,” noted Worrell.
Those benefits are remarkable, added Sale. “Digital tools, especially when integrated with AI, allow you to talk to your fleet and your fleet to talk to you. This is more than picking software off the shelf,” he said.
“This is a cultural shift. You can pick up a tablet and simply ask, based on the mission schedule, what the most critical AOGs are and what you should focus on today, and the system will instantly read out the tails that must be returned to service first,” sale added. “This isn’t science fiction: it’s here and it’s available right now.”
International Business Aviation Council Ltd.