Startups helped to take flight

START-UPS, “scale-ups” and digital disrupters have a chance to rev up their business idea through a joint project between Qantas and the Slingshot Accelerator service.

Applications are now open for the airline’s Avro Accelerator program, which is in its second year.

Under the program, Qantas looks to support innovations that could help the carrier and its employees.

Entrepreneur Chris Tippett completed the program last year and has launched a startup business, Aeroster.

With a pilot for a father, Mr Tippett said the family struggled to keep up with his roster and its various airline codes, international-date-line detail and other hard-to-read and often cryptic information.

“Drawing on my own experiences, Aeroster was founded to make complex technical rosters easy to understand and convenient to use, so pilots and cabin crew can share with their loved ones where they are and when they’ll be home,” he said.

Mr Tippett, a technology consultant, applied for and was chosen to participate in the accelerator program in Sydney.

He estimates there are as many as 22,000 Australian pilots and cabin crew who could make use of the app.

The app costs pilots and cabin crew and their extended families, who want to be able to share their roster, $4 each a month.

It is designed to be intuitive in the way it tracks times and dates and provides real-time flight tracking. Mr Tippett said the app was being used by all his family members.