AISmartPlan: From proof-of-concept to multi-year commercial agreement through the IAGi Accelerator

When Nicolas Grondin learned that aircraft maintenance planning was still heavily reliant on spreadsheets, whiteboards and manual task allocation, he was surprised. The Australian entrepreneur had already built workforce planning software used in the field service industry. Looking at the challenges airlines faced, he immediately saw similarities.

“In 2024, while discussing the airline industry with an insider, I learned that they still handle much of the maintenance planning manually. I realised the platform I already had could solve some of these issues.”

Less than two years later, that idea evolved into a commercially deployed aircraft maintenance production planning solution at Aer Lingus, part of International Airlines Group (IAG).

The journey from concept to deployment was supported through the IAGi Accelerator, which gave AISmartPlan direct access to airline planners, engineers and operational teams who helped shape the platform around real-world requirements.

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The challenge: modernising aircraft maintenance planning

For Grondin, aviation had always been more than just another industry vertical. “Aviation has always been a passion,” he says. “I got my pilot's license at age 16, so it seemed a natural conclusion that I would end up helping automate maintenance planning for the industry.”  

At the time, he had already developed Redback, a workforce planning platform which had been proven in the field service industry and Grondin believed could be adapted to tackle the complexities of aircraft maintenance.

Aircraft maintenance planning sits at the intersection of multiple competing priorities. Airlines must balance maintenance requirements, aircraft availability, engineer rosters and operational constraints while ensuring aircraft remain available for service.

AISmartPlan was designed to address this challenge by ingesting operational data and automatically generating maintenance plans.

From demo to real-world testing

Grondin first connected with Aer Lingus Maintenance Production Planning Manager Lucas De Almeida Ramos Faria in early 2025. Following initial demonstrations of the platform, Aer Lingus suggested AISmartPlan apply to the IAGi Accelerator to help fast track testing in a live operational environment.

“The accelerator gave us something that’s incredibly difficult for an early-stage company to access – deep operational engagement with an airline that was willing to test the market fit, challenge and co-create the solution with us,” Grondin said. “Aer Lingus’ feedback directly shaped the product and proved its market fit in aviation.”

Over three months, Aer Lingus maintenance and engineering teams worked directly with AISmartPlan to refine the platform’s automation logic, usability and visual planning tools.

“We spent months in that process,” Grondin explained. “We would meet, review how the system worked in practice, gather feedback from the operational teams, then implement changes and improvements almost immediately.”

“When you’re a start-up, you’re on the ground level, so being able to have a major airline that is willing to give valuable time and test the system and work with me to make it work is exceptional.”

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Human-centred AI

One of the key learnings during the accelerator was that maintenance production planning was not just an automation challenge: the bigger challenge was ensuring planners could trust the recommendations the platform produced.  

As a result, much of the development work focused on improving how plans were visualised and presented to users.  Today, the platform combines automated planning logic with visual tools that allow teams to understand, interrogate and adjust the schedules through intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces.

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From concept to commercial partnership  

Following the success of the accelerator project, AISmartPlan has signed a multi-year commercial agreement with Aer Lingus, with the potential to scale across other IAG airlines in future.

“The way maintenance tasks were allocated to our engineers in the past was highly manual and time-consuming, which limited how far ahead we could plan,” explains Lucas De Almeida Ramos Faria, Maintenance Production Planning Manager at Aer Lingus. “What used to take hours each day can now be done in minutes, and with far greater confidence in the outcome.”

The tool brings added value through much more efficient planning and freeing up time for higher value tasks.  

For AISmartPlan, the collaboration helped strengthen the product, validate market fit and secure a long-term commercial partnership.

Start-ups interested in helping solve operational aviation challenges can learn more about the IAGi Accelerator here:  www.iaginnovation.com/accelerator

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