If you've spent any time around a flight department, you know the paperwork never really stops. Training sign-offs, flight releases, weight and balance calculations, crew briefings - even in 2026, a lot of that still lives on paper or in scanned PDFs that someone has to print, sign, and file away.
The FAA has a name for the alternative: OpSpec, MSpec, or LOA A025. It's the authorization that lets an operator replace wet-ink signatures and paper records with electronic ones, and it's built around FAA Advisory Circular 120-78B.
A025 covers three things: electronic signatures, electronic recordkeeping systems, and electronic manual systems. Together, they let an operator run its documentation entirely online, with a permanent digital trail instead of a filing cabinet.
The importance of A025 for operators
The appeal isn't complicated. Electronic signatures mean crew don't have to be in the same building, or even the same time zone, to complete a sign-off. Electronic recordkeeping means training records, flight releases, and weight and balance data are timestamped and searchable instead of buried in a binder. And the audit trail that comes with all of it makes life a lot easier when the FAA, or your own internal QA team, comes asking questions.
It's also becoming table stakes. As more operators modernize, the ones still running on paper start to look like the exception rather than the norm, especially for Part 135 and Part 121 operators scaling up crew count.
Where FL3XX stands: A025 ready
One important thing to understand about A025 is that the FAA doesn't authorize software. It authorizes operators. So no platform, FL3XX included, can be “A025 certified” in the way you might certify a part or an aircraft.
What a platform can do is build its systems to meet the technical standard the FAA uses to evaluate an A025 application, and then document that clearly enough for an operator to hand straight to their Principal Operations Inspector.
That's exactly what FL3XX has done. We publish a technical detail letter that maps our platform's signature and recordkeeping architecture against AC 120-78B, and we've built our own supporting documentation so operators pursuing A025 don't have to start from scratch.
In short: FL3XX is A025 ready.
Here's what that means in practice. AC 120-78B requires four things from an electronic signature system, and FL3XX's platform covers all four:
- Unique user authentication, so every signature can be tied to one specific, non-shared login
- Timestamped data authentication, so every record shows exactly when it was created or changed and by whom
- A deliberate signing method, meaning a signature only gets affixed through an intentional save or submit action, not passively
- Explicit intent capture, so the system distinguishes a routine edit from someone actually committing to sign something
On top of that, every signed record in FL3XX carries a permanent, auditable log. If something is changed after the fact, that change creates a new, separately logged event rather than quietly overwriting history, and every record stays fully traceable and retrievable for as long as it exists.
This applies across the records operators care about most: crew assignments, training acknowledgments, flight data, flight releases and re-releases, and electronic communications like briefings, fuel requests, and eAPIS filings. All of it runs on AWS infrastructure with geographically redundant data replication and permanent archiving, in an environment aligned with ISO 27001 standards.
Being upfront about our scope
We'd rather be precise here than oversell it. FL3XX's current documentation speaks directly to the electronic signature and electronic recordkeeping pieces of A025. The electronic manual system component, the part of A025 that covers distributing and revising manuals electronically, is explicitly called out as "out of scope" in our technical letter, and we haven't yet built out the compliance documentation for it. If that piece matters to your application, it's worth a direct conversation with our team before you assume it's covered.
That kind of clarity matters more than it might seem. An A025 application lives or dies on the quality of the documentation behind it, and a vague or overstated claim from a software vendor can end up creating more work for an operator, not less.
What this means if you're evaluating platforms
If you're weighing whether your current systems, or a platform you're considering, would hold up under an A025 review, the questions to ask are pretty concrete. Ask any vendor for a written mapping of their signature architecture against AC 120-78B's four required elements. Ask whether that documentation is something you could actually hand to your POI. And ask how they handle tamper-evidence and long-term record retrievability, not just whether they “support e-signatures” in the abstract.
FL3XX has answers to all three, and we're happy to walk any operator through exactly what our documentation covers and where it stops.
If you're pursuing A025 authorization and want to see the technical letter for yourself, you can download it directly from our Trust Center at trust.fl3xx.com, or take a look at our knowledge base article on the subject.