Aviation Operations Manager Job Description

An Aviation Operations Manager runs the working side of an aviation services business. That business might be the fixed base operator on the field, the repair station in the big hangar, the charter company dispatching jets, or the flight school putting trainers in the pattern. The job joins output and compliance: aircraft need to be fueled, towed, inspected, repaired or flown on schedule, and much of that work happens under an FAA certificate that someone in the building has to answer for.

The certificate behind the job

Federal rules name the positions that carry that responsibility. A Part 135 certificate holder must have qualified personnel serving as director of operations, chief pilot and director of maintenance, or in equivalent positions the FAA approves. A certificated repair station must designate an employee as its accountable manager. Depending on the company, the operations manager may hold one of those titles, report to the person who does, or supervise the staff who fill them. In each case the operations manager turns the manuals, training programs and inspection procedures those positions sign for into what actually happens on the ramp and in the shop.

A day across the operation

At an FBO, the morning starts with the fuel farm: sump checks, truck inspections, the arrivals list and how many line technicians are on shift. Quick-turn requests from transient crews, hangar space for overnight aircraft, rental cars and catering orders all compete for the same people. At a repair station the focus shifts to open work orders, parts on backorder, an aircraft on ground waiting for a component, and the inspector who signs the return to service. At a charter operator it is crew scheduling, duty and rest tracking, aircraft availability and the trip quote sales just promised a client.

Across all three, the manager handles staffing gaps, budgets and the customer who is unhappy about a delay. Labor scheduling, fuel purchasing, parts inventory and equipment upkeep are the cost lines to watch, and the manager prepares the monthly report that explains them to the owner or general manager.

Safety as a managed system

Safety in this role is a structured program with paperwork behind it. Incident and near-miss reports get logged, investigated and closed with corrective actions. Hazards from a new aircraft type, a new ramp layout or a new fuel product get assessed before the change goes live. Federal rules give that work a precise definition: 14 CFR Part 5 describes a safety management system as "the formal, top-down, organization-wide approach to managing safety risk and assuring the effectiveness of safety risk controls," and it requires an accountable executive who is the final authority over operations conducted under the certificate.

Tools of the trade

The software depends on the business. FBOs run point-of-sale and fuel management systems that tie each fuel ticket to a tail number and a customer account. Repair stations work out of maintenance tracking and work-order systems. Charter operators rely on scheduling and flight management platforms that track crew duty, aircraft status and trip costs. The operations manager selects, configures or audits these systems, because the records they hold are what an FAA inspector asks to see.

No single license defines this job, and the route in depends on the kind of operation. Some managers come up from the ramp, some from the hangar floor, some from the cockpit, and some from the business side of an aviation company.

Education

A bachelor's degree in aviation management, business administration or a related field is a typical starting point, and aviation programs with coursework in airport and FBO operations, aviation law and safety management map directly onto the job. Managers who come up through line service or maintenance sometimes hold an associate degree or a technical school credential instead and pick up finance and supervision on the job.

Experience

As a rough guide, candidates for a full operations manager role bring 5 to 10 years in aviation operations, with at least a few of them supervising people. Useful stops along the way include line service lead, maintenance controller, charter coordinator, dispatcher, chief flight instructor and assistant general manager. What matters is time spent owning a schedule, a crew and a budget at the same time.

FAA certificates and association credentials

The title itself has no license attached, but certificates add credibility with the staff being managed and can qualify the manager for a required management position:

• Mechanic certificate with airframe and powerplant ratings (A&P), issued by the FAA, valuable at a repair station or any shop with its own maintenance staff.
• Commercial pilot or airline transport pilot certificate, issued by the FAA, valuable at charter operators and flight schools.
• Ground instructor certificate, issued by the FAA, useful at flight training organizations.
• Certified Aviation Manager (CAM), awarded by the National Business Aviation Association, aimed at managers in business aviation.
• NATA Safety 1st Training Program, from the National Air Transportation Association, which offers ground handling training and certifications for FBO line staff.

Skills that carry the job

• Regulatory reading. Comfort with 14 CFR Parts 91, 135 and 145, operations specifications and the company's own manuals, plus the judgment to know when a question goes to the FAA.
• Budget control. Building a labor schedule that fits demand, reading fuel margin and parts inventory reports, and defending a capital request for a new tug or fuel truck.
• People leadership. Hiring, coaching and disciplining a mixed crew of hourly line staff, salaried mechanics and pilots who each answer to different rules.
• Customer handling. Calming a frustrated owner whose inspection ran long, and telling a charter client the truth about a maintenance delay.
• Safety practice. Running hazard reports, investigations and corrective actions as routine work rather than paperwork done before an audit.

BLS does not count aviation operations managers on their own. ONET's job title file lists Airport Manager and Flight Operations Manager under Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers, and BLS counted 1,980 of those managers in Support Activities for Air Transportation in May 2025. For the occupation as a whole, ONET projects faster than average growth, 5% to 6%, from 2025 to 2035, with about 18,300 openings a year on average. Those projections also cover logistics, warehouse and fleet managers, so they describe the occupation rather than aviation services businesses.

A safety deadline for charter operators

Charter managers face a fixed date. 14 CFR Part 5 gives any company that already held Part 135 authority before May 28, 2024 until May 28, 2027 both to have a working safety management system in place and to file a declaration of compliance with the FAA. The FAA's SMS guidance page lists new Part 135 applications submitted on or after May 28, 2024 as needing an SMS upon certification. For an operations manager at a charter company, that means hazard identification, risk assessment and safety assurance processes staffed, budgeted, documented and owned by named people before the deadline arrives.

The fuel farm is changing

FBO managers face a fuel transition. The FAA's Transition Plan to Unleaded Aviation Gasoline, Version 1.0, issued in July 2026, says Congress in 2024 directed the FAA to work with the EAGLE initiative to transition to unleaded avgas by the end of 2030 outside of Alaska and by the end of 2032 in Alaska. The same plan quotes the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 provision that bars an airport owner or operator from restricting the sale or self-fueling of 100LL, if it was available there during 2022, until the earlier of December 31, 2030 or the date the airport or a retail fuel seller there makes available an FAA-authorized unleaded fuel that meets the law's other criteria. In practice, an FBO may be selling 100LL and an unleaded grade from the same field, which means tank space, trucks, labels and line training for both.

The technician pipeline

Repair station managers hire from a labor pool with a clear age profile. The 2026 Pipeline Report from the Aviation Technician Education Council and Oliver Wyman, which draws on FAA certification and employment data, says the FAA issued a record 11,103 new mechanic certificates in 2025, and that the average FAA mechanic is 55 years old. The same report says repair stations employ about 73% of all technical personnel and almost half of all certificated mechanics. Apprenticeships, school partnerships and in-house training are tools an operations manager can use to build a bench of future technicians.

Data tools at the FAA

The regulator is changing how it looks at safety data. The FAA Safety Briefing for Fall 2026 says the agency is aggressively integrating artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning to mine massive volumes of data generated across the National Airspace System, and it describes a newly established Aviation Safety Management Office. The same piece states that "AI doesn't replace human judgment; it amplifies it."

Where the ladder goes

From operations manager, next steps include general manager of an FBO, director of operations or director of maintenance at a charter operator, accountable manager of a repair station, or regional roles at companies that run several locations.

Dear Ms. Alvarez,

Please consider me for the Aviation Operations Manager opening at Ridgeline Aviation Services. For the past four years I have been assistant general manager at a single-location FBO and Part 145 repair station at a busy regional airport, and I am ready to run the whole operation.

My days already cover most of what your posting describes. I build the line service schedule each week, approve fuel orders, and sit in on every morning maintenance meeting so I know which aircraft are waiting on parts and which customers need a call before lunch. When our general manager was out on leave last winter, I ran the facility for six weeks, including a surveillance visit from our FAA Flight Standards District Office. We closed the two findings from that visit with corrective actions the inspector accepted on the first submission.

Safety is where I have spent the most effort. I rebuilt our hazard reporting process so that line technicians can file a report from a tablet on the ramp, and I started a short monthly safety meeting where each report is reviewed and closed in front of the team. People now report the small things, like a frayed grounding cable or a confusing fuel truck label, before they turn into incidents.

I also understand the business side. I track labor hours against fuel volume and hangar revenue every week, and I renegotiated our ground equipment lease when the old terms came up for renewal. I hold an FAA mechanic certificate with airframe and powerplant ratings, which helps when I am talking through a schedule problem with our inspectors.

Ridgeline's plan to add a charter certificate is a big reason I am writing. I would welcome the chance to help build the operation, the safety program and the team that it will need.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, Jordan Pike