Fuel management software provider FuelerLinx has bolstered functionality for its subscribers with the announcement here at NBAA that it can now fully integrate flight planning capabilities from companies such as iFlightPlanner directly into its system. The new functionality will improve the validity of FuelerLinx’s fuel tankering calculator, which helps flight departments determine when it will pay for them to tanker fuel and when it will be less expensive for them to buy fuel at the destination to avoid ramp fees. “We have about 800 FBOs [in the U.S. and Canada] that participate with ramp fee avoidance data, to take into account in our tankering program,” said Fuelerlinx founder and president Kevin Moller. “The one missing link before was, we were calculating Great Circle routes with zero wind and ‘guesstimating’ what that burn was going to be.” Through the seamless integration of flight planning programs from providers such as iFlightPlanner, Fuelerlinx operators will receive custom data on domestic routes. “It gives them the ability to get surgically accurate fuel-burn profiles on a trip,” Moller told AIN, “the exact amount of fuel that is going to be consumed, so we can accurately run that against tankering and provide a very easily digestible suggestion on how much fuel to upload on every leg of the trip.”
The basic iFlightPlanner utilities, including detailed route planning, weather briefing, weight-and-balance calculations and flight-plan filing, are free to Fuelerlinx customers for domestic travel only, at the present. “In one seamless solution they can cross their Ts and dot their Is on those four preflight steps, along with knowing they are getting the best fuel prices as well as tankering strategies,” said John Burnside, iFlightPlanner’s co-founder and director of technology, who sees the integration with Fuelerlinx as a plus for his company. “We’re a newer name in the market, so what we’re able to do by offering our flight planning, modern interfaces and all the tools that we’ve built to is introducing Fuelerlinx customers to iFlightPlanner as a brand,” he said. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company, which will have representatives on hand at the Fuelerlinx booth (C9542), also offers an EFB app for the iPad, which communicates directly with the main iFlightPlanner system via two-way synchronization. “What that means for a corporate flight department is that they can have a central team that plans flights, and with one touch they can distribute that information to pilots in the field who have an iPad,” Burnside told AIN.
Moller stressed that Fuelerlinx, which was founded in 2008 to help flight departments identify the best available fuel prices and manage their fuel billing, is not getting into the flight planning business, but added that he wants to expand his company’s partnerships with other providers. “We realize that flight departments have a preference when it comes to flight planning systems,” he said. “It is our goal to develop integrations with those programs as we move forward.”
As it sees a rise in international trips among its clientele, which includes most of the U.S. Part 135 operators, Fuelerlinx has also formed a partnership with value-added tax (VAT) recovery firm Taxback International, which will automate the tax refund process for its subscribers. Moller, whose company currently tracks $38 million in fuel sales each month, told AIN this latest deal was spurred by requests from customers to help them keep track of their VAT expenditures. “Users who want to use their services for VAT recovery effectively can opt in,” noted Moller. “We will auto-generate a query that will push all the international trips to Taxback International, and they in turn will recover those taxes for a fee and return [them] back to the flight department.”
“We will be able to maximize our mutual customers’ VAT reclaim with minimal touch points for their employees,” said Joe Healy, the Ireland-based company’s director of strategic partnerships. Taxback will charge a contingency fee of between 30 to 35 percent for the service.
As a promotion, NBAA attendees who participate in a product demo at the Fuelerlinx booth and sign up for an annual subscription with the company or convert their monthly plan to a yearly subscription in the two weeks following the show will receive an electric Erover two-wheel, self-balancing scooter worth more than $300. o