From Paper to Real-Time: Blue Grass Airport Modernizes Airfield Operations

The Challenge

Blue Grass Airport (LEX) in Lexington, Kentucky serves a mix of commercial carriers and general aviation traffic, operating under the constant compliance demands of FAA Advisory Circular 150/5200-18. For years, the airport's operations team relied on paper inspection forms, spreadsheets, and shared email threads to manage daily airfield checks, FOD walks, work orders, and wildlife activity logs. During peak periods — particularly during University of Kentucky event surges — the manual workload created bottlenecks that delayed reporting, made audit preparation stressful, and increased the risk of documentation gaps.

Airport leadership recognized that a fragmented, paper-heavy system was not sustainable as traffic volumes grew and FAA scrutiny of Part 139 compliance intensified. They needed a unified digital solution purpose-built for airport operations — not a generic maintenance platform adapted to fit.

The Approach

After evaluating several platforms, Blue Grass Airport selected Aerosimple for its airport-specific design and modular flexibility. The implementation team worked closely with LEX operations staff to configure workflows that matched existing inspection routes and reporting requirements, enabling a smooth transition with minimal downtime. The airport deployed the following Aerosimple modules:

• Airfield Inspections — Digital daily and night inspection forms tied directly to FAA Part 139 requirements, completed on mobile devices in the field
• Work Orders — Technicians receive, update, and close work orders from the ramp, eliminating radio-to-desk relay delays
• FOD Management — Structured FOD walk logs with location tagging, enabling trend analysis across runways and taxiways
• Wildlife — Standardized wildlife strike and hazard reporting integrated with FAA Wildlife Strike Database submission requirements
• Safety — Centralized safety event reporting that feeds directly into the airport's SMS documentation and corrective action tracking

Results

Within three months of going live, Blue Grass Airport saw measurable improvements across every deployed module. Inspection documentation time dropped by approximately 68%, freeing operations staff to focus on airfield conditions rather than paperwork. Average work order closeout time improved by roughly 22 minutes per ticket as field technicians eliminated the back-and-forth between the ramp and the operations center. Notably, FOD events logged tripled — not because conditions worsened, but because structured digital prompts made reporting faster and more consistent, giving the team a clearer picture of airfield cleanliness trends than they had ever had before.

The operations team now walks into Part 139 audits with complete, timestamped digital records readily exportable from Aerosimple, replacing the annual scramble to compile paper files. For LEX, Aerosimple didn't just digitize old processes — it set a new operational standard.