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By the end of this guide, you will have generated trip cost estimates, configured rate cards, compared estimates across aircraft, and shared quotes with owners or customers.
The Operations module must be enabled for your workspace. You also need the appropriate operations permissions. Contact your workspace administrator if you cannot access these features.
You need the dispatch.read permission to view estimates and dispatch.update or financial.update to create or modify them.

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Prerequisites

  • A trip must exist with at least a departure airport, destination airport, and aircraft assignment (or candidate aircraft for comparison estimates).
  • Aircraft performance profiles should be configured with fuel burn rates. See Manage Aircraft.
  • Rate cards should be set up if you use standardized pricing. See Configure Flight Settings.

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Open the estimate

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Generate a cost estimate

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Configure rate cards

Rate cards define the standard rates used to calculate estimates. They allow you to maintain consistent pricing across trips without manual entry each time.
Review and update rate cards quarterly. Fuel prices, FBO fees, and landing charges change frequently. Accurate rate cards produce estimates that closely match actual costs, reducing the gap between quoted and actual trip expenses.

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Compare estimates across aircraft

When evaluating which aircraft to assign to a trip, use the estimate comparison feature to see costs side by side.
The comparison uses the same rate cards and airport-specific overrides configured for each aircraft. Ensure rate cards are up to date for all candidate aircraft before running a comparison.

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Share an estimate with owners or customers

When sharing estimates with charter prospects, include a validity period in your message (e.g., “This estimate is valid for 7 days”). Fuel prices and vendor rates can change, and an expired estimate may not reflect current costs.

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Track estimate accuracy

After a trip is completed, the Estimate tab shows a comparison between the estimated costs and the actual expenses logged: Reviewing variance data helps you refine rate cards and improve estimate accuracy over time. The Ops > Reports > Financial section includes an Estimate Accuracy report that aggregates variance data across all trips.
Estimate accuracy depends on the quality of your rate card data and the completeness of expense logging after trips. Encourage crews and dispatchers to log all actual expenses promptly so the variance analysis is meaningful.

Create a Trip

The trip creation wizard includes an initial estimate step.

Log Expenses

Record actual costs after the trip for variance tracking.

Handle Accounting

Reconcile estimates with invoices and owner statements.

Manage Catering

Catering order totals feed into the estimate automatically.
Last modified on April 11, 2026