Flying School vs FareHarbor
FareHarbor is genuinely good at what it does - selling seats on tours and activities to the public, with strong distribution and a polished booking flow. Plenty of flight schools land on it because trial introductory flights look like a tour product. They are, right up until the customer says they want to learn to fly.
Where FareHarbor is the better choice
Selling joy flights and scenic flights to the public, especially through distribution partners.
Side by side
Flying School and FareHarbor
| Flying School | FareHarbor | |
|---|---|---|
| Australian built and supported | Built in Sydney | ✗ |
| Data hosted in Australia | Sydney region | United States |
| AUD-native pricing | ✓ | Multi-currency |
| GST and ABN on tax invoices | ✓ | Partial |
| Xero with account and tax-rate mapping | ✓ | Not advertised |
| Purpose-built for flight training | ✓ | ✗ |
| CASA syllabuses included | 10 programs | ✗ |
| Grade units of competency at checkout | ✓ | ✗ |
| CASA-format logbook hours | ✓ | ✗ |
| Maintenance-due Hobbs blocks bookings | ✓ | ✗ |
| Instructor ratings enforced on booking | ✓ | ✗ |
| AI reads CASA licences and medicals | ✓ | ✗ |
| Document expiry reminders | ✓ | ✗ |
| Prepaid hour packages with drawdown | ✓ | Partial |
| Billing from Hobbs time flown | ✓ | ✗ |
| Student portal with online booking and payment | ✓ | Partial |
| Aircraft and instructor utilisation reporting | ✓ | Partial |
| AI assistant across the whole system | ✓ | ✗ |
Verified August 2026 from publicly available information. "Not advertised" means we could not confirm the capability, not that it is absent. FareHarbor pricing model: Booking fee taken on each online booking. Confirm the details with the vendor.
The cliff
Everything after the trial flight
FareHarbor
An activity platform sells a ticket to a timeslot. It has no concept of a student who is 14 hours into a PPL, a unit of competency that is not yet proficient, a Hobbs meter, an instructor rating, or a logbook.
- No student training record
- No logbook
- No instructor ratings or aircraft currency
- No syllabus
Flying School
The trial flight is a booking like any other - and when that person enrols, they already exist. Register them on the RPL or PPL program and every subsequent lesson updates their competency scores, their logbook, and their package balance.
- Trial flight and PPL student in the same system
- Ten CASA programs to enrol them on
- Logbook and competency record from the first lesson
Cost of sale
A percentage of every booking, forever
FareHarbor
Booking-fee pricing is comfortable at low volume and expensive at high volume. On a training school's revenue - where a single student might spend the price of a small car - a percentage taken on bookings is a serious annual number.
Flying School
Flying School charges a subscription. Card processing goes directly to Stripe at Stripe's rates. We do not take a percentage of what your students spend with you.
- Flat subscription
- No platform take on your revenue
- Your Stripe account, your rates
Aircraft
An aircraft is not a tour bus
FareHarbor
Activity platforms model capacity as seats. They do not model a maintenance-due Hobbs reading, an instructor who is not rated on multi-engine, or the fact that VH-BQS cannot be in two places at once with two different instructors.
Flying School
Aircraft are first-class resources with a category, an ICAO type, live Hobbs and tach, and a maintenance-due figure that blocks bookings. Instructor aircraft-category ratings are enforced when the booking is made.
Why schools move from FareHarbor
Your trial flight customers become students
One record from the first joy flight through to the licence.
Stop paying a percentage on training revenue
A subscription instead of a fee on every booking.
GST, ABN, and Xero handled here
Australian tax invoices and a properly mapped Xero connection.
Common questions
Can Flying School still sell trial introductory flights to the public?
Yes. Trial flights sit in your catalogue with their own durations and prices, are bookable and payable online through your portal, and can be sold as gift cards.
What about distribution through OTAs?
This is a genuine strength of activity platforms and we do not compete with it. If reselling seats through third-party marketplaces is central to your revenue, some schools run FareHarbor for public joy flights and Flying School for training.
Other comparisons
See it with your own aircraft and syllabus
Start a free trial and your CASA training programs, lesson catalogue, and aircraft are ready to go. No card required.