NBAA Thought Leadership Webinar: Beyond Compliance, How Documentation Protects Bizav Operations

Aug. 5, 2026

Documentation is much more than a compliance mechanism. In Tuesday’s NBAA Thought Leadership webinar, “Beyond Compliance: How Documentation Protects Operations,” experts detailed how documentation now touches every aspect of business aviation. It shapes how teams communicate and determines how quickly operational changes are implemented. It also helps with navigating audits, changing regulations and day-to-day challenges.

This growing need for concise, up-to-date and accurate documentation highlights the need for operators to digitize and standardize their manuals and safety protocols, noted the webinar’s panelists, Craig Erickson, safety program manager at Solairus Aviation, Execaire Aviation’s director of flight operations Patrick O’Brien and Robert Rufli, director of operations at Schubach Aviation.

“As operators change and scale, they must look to digitize or update their manuals or update their entire document warehouse,” said Erickson. “That can seem a challenging and overwhelming responsibility, but I can say at the end you will look back and say, ‘Wow, look how much more efficient we are; look how much more time we have instead of looking for documents or looking for manuals or trying to update and send out those changes,’” Erickson told webinar moderator Justin Raymond, director of operations at Web Manuals.

Raising the Bar on Audits

Digitization enables operators to centralize all their documentation and quickly access it, which improves the audit process, said Rufli. “Audits are part of business aviation. Whether it’s a regulator, an industry standards organization or your vendors, you must be able to reference your documentation and, at times, show that it is accessible across the organization. Digitized documentation provides that ability and shows the auditor that you are organized and know your content,” he observed.

That accessibility is paramount for today’s business aviation industry, Rufli continued. “It’s important that people are sent the right documents, but it’s just as important that you know they’ve read the document,” he said. “At times, you might have to prove that you have distributed the correct information and that it was received and understood. Emailing PDFs isn’t enough; you must be able to verify receipt and acknowledge that the document was read.”

‘A Foundational Change’

Digitization can facilitate a more open discourse between management and employees and help ensure documentation is read and adhered to, said O’Brien. “Today, everyone can be involved in building documents, manuals and safety protocols because we now have the ability to engage people in the creation and amendment process digitally,” he said.

“This has been such a foundational change for me, because we can now bring people together to communicate their thoughts and, in the end, that produces better outcomes. And, if people are part of the document building and amendment process, they are more likely to act on what the document says,” O’Brien added.

‘If It’s Not Written Down, It Doesn’t Exist’

The panelists also discussed the growing demand for documentation among the modern workforce. “In the past, you might have left institutional knowledge out of a manual, but today, the younger generations consider it essential to have the rules written down. For them, if it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist,” said Rufli. This approach is beneficial, the panelists agreed, as it ensures that rules are more likely to be followed as written and removes the problem of tribal knowledge, where essential information is assumed to be known and not codified.

Digitizing documentation also opens greater possibilities, especially as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into business aviation operations. “AI is more than a buzzword; it has significant use cases. It won’t be flying airplanes or running operations, but AI is a tool for targeted implementation,” O’Brien explained. “Maintenance tracking, helping employees find what they need, and one day an AI agent might even be able to help with audits. But for this to happen, AI needs good data, and we can do that with digital documentation.”