New things in OpsGroup – gocrow, new alerts, Daily Brief, George 2, Foxes – International Ops 2023

Hello!

Summer – for those of us in northern parts, at least – is progressing, and so are we. I’m excited to tell you about a whole bunch of new things we’ve built for OpsGroup, to make your life easier (which is why you’re in the group in the first place, yes?)

Here’s the game changer: We’re starting to reach a point where you and your fellow members are reporting things to the Team every day, at a level that means we’re really covering most of the important operational news out there. Now, we are working on better ways for you to find it … read on.

Not a member yet? We LOVE welcoming new members to the group

Choose a plan – JOIN OPSGROUP

GoCrow

As the crow flies – pop in your departure and destination, and get all the information that we have for your route – Planning data – distances, times, fuel, Ops News and Alerts, Permit requirements, Airport Spy reports.

What’s new?

New tabs for NEWS, PERMITS, AIRPORT SPY
Sort News by last 7 days, 30 days, 3 months, year
Permit information for each country you overfly or pass near
Drag and change route – just click the yellow line, all info is recalculated
OPSGROUP Airport Spy reports along your route
Change underlays
now works on iPad

New underlay options, show different maps under your route (more coming).

Airport Spy reports are automatically pulled for your route.

Customized news report for your route.

Get country by country permit information.

New Dashboard

What’s new?

Re-designed and improved look
A notifications tab for Ops Alerts and new Airport Spy reports.
A live map of alerts, toggle 7 days/ 1 month / All, searchable news feed
Daily Brief archives in publications
FSB Blog posts now appear here also
Report it tool

New Alerts Window

All ops-alerts issued by FSB for the group now have their own home at https://ops.group/ops-alerts. You can also find them in slack in the #ops-alerts channel, which will push notifications to your phone.

Each alert now has a category, validity dates, active marker, and link to more information:

George

You know George from before, but we sent him for remedial training in North Korea and now he’s back, smarter, sharper, and better. George is a bot. We can’t call him AI, because he’s not that intelligent, but he understands a whole load of new commands: permits, weather, ICAO codes, airport names, countries, keyword searches. Go to the #george channel in slack to test him out.

OpsFox

OpsGroup has set up a trusted network of spies: Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, Dispatchers, and Ops Specialists – that can report directly into our system, adding categorized reports, based on what they see and know at their home base, or visited airport. We call this network OpsFox.

You can view the live map, or search for a specific country, or location:

Daily Brief

We love that you all love the Daily Brief! It’s been the most popular feature of the year – and we are happy to bring you daily updates every morning.

See those little fox badges? When we get a report from a Fox, we’ll mark it like that on the Daily Brief. If you’re a ground handler, and want to have your name listed as a reporter, then tell us and we’ll credit you for any reports you file – so that our members can contact you directly for more.

Also, as a fox, you earn points. Here’s the current Top 5!

We really hope you enjoy the new features! We listen to what the members want, and we build it – so keep your ideas coming to us. And of course, when you hear about something new:

Please! whether you’ve just checked in to the Holiday Inn at Teterboro, or are enroute with some fancy satcom wi-fi, let the other members know when you hear something important: