Recently in Pro Category

Today marks the final switch off of our long-serving Air Transport Intelligence service, as it's effectively replaced by Flightglobal Pro.

ATI was first launched way back in 1997 (several years before Flightglobal even had a free-to-air website).

For many years there was no other service like it - partly a real-time news wire for the commercial aviation world, partly a comprehensive database on airlines and airports, and partly a collection of handy tools and datasets that help professionals within the industry do their jobs.

And like a true classic it very much stood the test of time, with the classic interface and approach to usability proving a winner over the years.

However, even classic cars need a retune every now and then, and by developing Flightglobal Pro, we've taken all the best bits of ATI and reworked them onto modernised interface.

The Pro Dashboard acts as your starting point for accessing the ATI (now Pro) news and data, with controls to perform searches and quickly find the information you need, set up and edit current email alerts, and access your account information.

Features:
 

• Latest news listings
• Quick news search
• Airlines, airports and MRO company profile search
• Quick fleet search
• Quick route search

For those ATI stalwarts that are using Pro for pretty much the first time, you may want to take a second to read the "Getting started on Pro" guide.
 
It gives you the first quick steps in finding your way around and helping you get on with the most common tasks.

There's also a set of FAQs, which go into a bit more detail about the various searches and profiles pages available within the Pro environment.

For those subscribers that would like a more personal touch to getting orientated, our customer support team are happy to talk you through any teething issues over the phone or arrange a free training session to help you get the most out of Flightglobal Pro.

Customer support contact details:

• Americas: +1 866 348 4503
• Europe and Middle East: +44 1788 564800
• Asia Pacific: +65 6780 4315
  
• Alternatively email prosupport@flightglobal.com

So we're finally live with the new flightglobal.com and with Flightglobal Pro (our paid-for subscriber service).

Thanks for your patience over the last 24 hours or so while we work our way through the inevitable bugs and stability issues that go hand in hand with a code release of this magnitude.

The new site is the culmination of over 12 months of development work, and far longer in terms of planning.

Here's a check list for hot topics at the moment:

• People experiencing bugs should email details to: webmaster@flightglobal.com
  
• People wanting to give general feedback on the new site should email me: Michael.targett@flightglobal.com. However it's probably worth reading this post about some of our changes first.
  
• A few people have contacted me to say that they miss viewing news articles in a simple list format. This experience is still available on Flightglobal but is part of our Flightglobal Pro package. To take a free instant trial of Pro please go here, select which service you'd like to trial and follow the signs to Free Taster
  
• And finally, we've made some changes to our article categorization system so, while we're going through and checking the various news channels, if you spot any oddities (e.g. a military news article appearing in the Airlines channel) email them through to webmaster@flightglobal.com and we'll correct the issue.

2010 was a year which saw Flightglobal gear up its mobile offering, grow its strong offering on the Social Web and introduce Pro - a premium service offering and expert level of news and data.

2011 - will be a year building upon those foundations.

Going social

As digital social interaction gains ubiquity across the planet, we'll be plugging all activity into the Social Web.

This means you'll be able to move neatly between your favourite Flightglobal content - news, blogs, images etc ... - and your favourite social services - Twitter, Facebook, Youtube etc ... with greater ease than before.

Going Pro

Flightglobal will continue to launch new professional services this year designed to facilitate professional decision-making within the industry.

These Pro services will be integrated throughout Flightglobal as well as accessible via a personalized dashboard.

Going mobile

The lightning-fast growth of the smart phone and tablet market means that more and more of our million-strong audience want us to develop apps, updates and feeds to stay in touch with the industry while out and about.

We'll be continuing to develop in this space in order to keep pace with demand.

Going all show business

Our industry-leading event coverage has transformed the way people have been staying in touch with air show and exhibition news.

In 2011, we'll be at more shows than ever, with more reporters producing more content, publishing more iFlight magazines and more mobile updates, and producing an unrivalled digital experience for anyone who's serious about aviation ... you get the idea.

Happy New Year.

Michael Targett

Today we've deployed a new-look MRO channel page to replace our old-style Maintenance channel page.

It's our first major code release to the main part of the site since October 2009.

So why has it taken so long to jazz up one channel?

Well, the new MRO channel (and associated articles and article listing pages) represent the first significant step towards a new vision for Flightglobal.

That is to combine the popular free content (which has helped attract over 1.2 million visitors each month) with our world-class professional news and data services (some of which are currently under different brands or on separate websites).

We are going to bring them all together in one place in order to build an experience for visitors and members of Flightglobal that is tailored exactly to their needs, be that entertainment, information or business critical analysis.

The professional side of the site will come under the brand Flightglobal Pro, with the orange Pro logo representing content and services that are paid for and subscriber-only.

Where the MRO channel fits in is that it's the first of our channels to have the Pro news content switched on. As we go along we'll be introducing the Pro experience to other channels and also more stuff to Pro, like Pro data, more functionality and greater personalisation options.

We understand that mixing up free and paid-for content has the potential to confuse visitors to the site who are or aren't entitled to see Pro content.

To try and sidestep that usability issue, visitors to the MRO channel will now start to see a series of icons (purple for free content, orange for Pro content) which will help guide them to other stuff they might like or find useful, as well as indicate what they can access or what they've paid for.

So today is more than just a fresh look for the MRO channel; it's a beta launch for a brand new Flightglobal which includes a beta launch for Flightglobal Pro.

As one British mobile telecoms outfit says: The future is bright, the future is orange ...