What Must Be in Your Aviation Operations Manual: FAA Part 135 Requirements

Your General Operations Manual is the operating contract between leadership, crew, and regulator expectations. It defines how your operation controls risk, authority, and execution.

The goal is not document length. The goal is procedural clarity backed by records and training.

Manual sections generally cover organizational structure, operational control, dispatch and flight release procedures, training framework, emergency processes, and records controls. Supporting manuals should align and cross-reference where procedures split by function.

You can map each section to requirement IDs inside Navlyt Compliance to reduce interpretation drift across departments.

Frequent gaps include outdated role responsibilities, procedures that no longer match tools in use, and missing distribution acknowledgements. Another common issue is duplicating a policy in two manuals and updating only one copy.

A controlled source-of-truth and change log are essential.

Update frequency should reflect regulatory changes and operational changes. At minimum, run quarterly review checkpoints and immediate revisions after significant process or fleet changes.

Keep revision packages consistent: summary of changes, impacted sections, stakeholder approvals, and crew acknowledgement evidence.

Use semantic revision numbering, immutable prior versions, and document ownership. Publish a revision index that allows inspectors to trace what changed and why.

If your team still manages revisions in email, this is usually the highest ROI area to modernize. Compare options in aviation compliance software comparison.

Navlyt ingests your manual set and links each section to relevant obligations so you can spot coverage gaps in minutes. It does not replace legal review; it accelerates operational control.

Explore AI mapping in Navlyt AI Product and start from the free-trial pricing page.