Neos, a pioneering airline with the oldest Italian AOC, has taken a significant step in transforming its operational efficiency and safety with the help of Web Manuals. With a global reach, 16 aircraft, and over 1,100 employees, Neos faces the challenge of maintaining strict compliance with ever-evolving international regulations. The adoption of Web Manuals has been a game-changer, as expressed by Daniele Albanese, Lead Auditor in Compliance Monitoring and Quality, and Simone Bovi, Ground Services Manager.
The Old Way: Managing Compliance with Disjointed Tools
Before implementing Web Manuals, Neos relied on disjointed tools like FrameMaker and Microsoft Word to manage their manuals, leading to inefficiencies and errors. Daniele, who has been part of the Web Manuals project since its inception in January 2022, recalls how the transition was crucial for compliance: “Before using Web Manuals, we didn’t have a specific system because some of the manuals were written using FrameMaker while the majority of them were produced in Microsoft Word (…) this was a very long and very unreliable way of performing compliance”.
One of the most significant challenges was maintaining regulatory compliance across the vast number of documents required for operations. With regulations spanning thousands of pages, Daniele explains how the manual processes Neos used previously resulted in mistakes that would be flagged by their aviation authority. “I think that we save 90% of the time that we use for preparing the compliance report, because now it’s simply a matter of clicking a button, extracting the Excel file already filled in automatically by the system.”
A Game-Changer: How Web Manuals Revolutionized Operations
Since the adoption of Web Manuals in January 2022, the benefits have been clear. The simplicity of the system has been fundamental in the easy implementation by the Neos team. Thanks to automatic modules, they have been able to drastically increase operational efficiency. “The software is very easy to use because the interface is very similar to Microsoft Word, while it has all the automatic ways of performing the manual preparation (…) For example, having the List of Effective Pages automatically calculated, having the Table of Contents automatically produced, having the Records of Revision, which is almost automatically prepared has helped us a lot.”, explains Daniele.
Web Manuals has also allowed Neos to centralize all their documentation and link their manuals directly to the relevant regulations. This has highly reduced human error and saved hours of manual labor. “Web Manuals notifies us of the fact that there is a new revision, and the most important part is that there is the comparison between the old and the revised” Daniele says. “That’s a very big positive thing that we use over Web Manuals, and also our editors appreciate”.
Simone Bovi, who manages ground operations and dangerous goods transport, echoed similar praise for the system. Initially skeptical, he found Web Manuals easy to use right from the start. “Since day one, the Web Manuals system was really straightforward to use. I discovered that even apart from the initial training, the system was really easy to use, and it helped me a lot in order to align all the documentation and saved me a lot of time for other commitments”, Simone admits.
A new way to prepare for IOSA Certification Renewal
One notable success story involves Neos’ preparation for their IOSA (IATA Operational Safety Audit) certification renewal. IOSA certification is crucial for ensuring the safety and operational reliability of airlines, and Neos must meet rigorous standards to maintain it. Preparing for this audit used to be a massive undertaking, with multiple departments involved in creating the necessary documentation.
However, Web Manuals streamlined the entire process. Daniele shares, “now that we are preparing the IOSA renewal audit, the process is actually much quicker, because that requires a couple of reports to be prepared before the IOSA audit performance, and these reports can be automatically performed by Web Manuals (…) I think 60-70% of the work already done automatically by Web Manuals”.
The complexity of audits increases when manuals need to be revised during the process, which often means headaches for the team trying to keep up with changes without altering the current revision under audit. As Daniele explains, Web Manuals has developed a solution to ease this challenge. “Web Manuals provides what they call partial revisions of manuals which is actually very effective for our purpose (…) you just have to click and remove that page from the PDF export but you keep your revisions, so that the next revision in which these changes shall be inserted in the manuals are already present, simply saved in the background. This actually helps us in not losing any part of manuals that we already revised, but it was not inserted in that manual.”
Alignment across documents and departments
One of the standout features for Simone has been Web Manuals’ ability to update procedures across multiple departments in real time. The ability to easily manage the entire documentation ecosystem as an interconnected network is enhancing collaboration and alignment within the company. “We cannot write, edit, or update one manual standalone; we have to communicate with each other, with the compliance department and the safety department. So, having the possibility to track and keep the manual updated can reduce mistakes and misinterpretations.”
For example, Neos’ refueling procedure involves ground operations, compliance, safety, and flight operations. Simone explains how keeping all the manuals updated is now seamless: “With Web Manuals, we turn from standalone to live manuals, because in this case, every time that I make some changes on my procedure, those changes will be notified immediately to other departments.”
Neos’ shift to digital documentation has created a culture of shared responsibility across departments, articulating editors of the manuals with the compliance department in a clear, unified process.
Looking Ahead: Scaling Web Manuals Across Neos
Neos isn’t stopping with document management. The airline plans to extend Web Manuals to distribute operational manuals to their flight and cabin crews by 2025. Simone mentions how the company is already seeing improvements in document management on their internal platform and believes that integrating Web Manuals will solve some remaining issues.
Additionally, as Neos continues to expand—adding new destinations in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Colombia, and potentially increasing its fleet—the airline is considering broadening the scope of Web Manuals. They aim to include third-country regulations in their documentation to ensure compliance across their global operations.
Both Daniele and Simone agree that digitization through Web Manuals has transformed the way they manage documentation, saving time and reducing errors while increasing compliance and safety—a vital achievement for a fast-growing airline in an intensely regulated industry.
As Daniele reflects, “We were very proud of our paper-based systems before Web Manuals, but the time we’ve saved by going digital is huge. In aviation, time is everything. With Web Manuals, you will save a lot of time by digitizing the manuals, by digitizing your processes.”
For Neos, Web Manuals has been more than just a software implementation—it’s a strategic tool that ensures the airline continues to soar safely into the future.
