Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Mobile App

Designing a Mobile Experience for Aviation's Largest Membership Organization.

Project Brief.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) represents the largest aviation membership organization in the world, serving more than 300,000 pilots across 75 countries. AOPA provides members with aviation news, advocacy, education, safety resources, events, and information pilots rely on throughout their flying lives.

AOPA logo mockup

Client Details.

  • Organization: Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Mobile App
  • Industry: Groups & Associations
  • URL: https://www.aopa.org/

Services Provided.

  • Strategic Planning
  • Experience Design
  • Application Development

Project Solution.

AOPA partnered with Ascedia across multiple digital initiatives focused on making its extensive resources easier for pilots to access and use. In addition to our work improving search on AOPA.org, Ascedia developed mobile applications designed to connect pilots with AOPA wherever their flying took them.

For the AOPA mobile app, Ascedia worked closely with AOPA to create a visually engaging, user-friendly experience that brought important content and aviation resources directly to members’ smartphones and tablets. The app extended AOPA’s digital presence beyond the website and created another meaningful connection between the organization and its membership.

AOPA serves a highly engaged audience that relies on timely information and frequently needs access away from a desktop computer. AOPA wanted to make it easier for members to stay connected to the aviation community and access useful content through a dedicated mobile experience.

The app needed to bring together different types of AOPA content and functionality in an experience that felt natural on a phone or tablet. It also needed the flexibility to evolve after launch as AOPA learned more about how members used it.

  • Collaborated closely with AOPA to create a visually appealing, user-friendly mobile experience
  • Developed the application to give pilots convenient access from smartphones and tablets
  • Created an experience centered on connecting members with AOPA and the broader aviation community
  • Supported continued refinement and enhancement after the initial release
The app brought several important AOPA resources together within one mobile experience, including:

 

  • Latest aviation news and articles
  • Videos and podcasts
  • Temporary flight restriction alerts and other important notifications
  • Aviation events and event information
  • Related content that encouraged further exploration

Later enhancements included automatically displaying related articles, adding event filters, improving content refresh functionality, and addressing usability improvements identified after launch.

 

The mobile app represents one part of a broader relationship in which AOPA trusted Ascedia to solve different digital experience challenges. From mobile application development to improving search across AOPA.org, the work shared a common objective: make AOPA’s extensive resources easier for pilots to find, access, and use.

The app was also designed to evolve. Subsequent releases introduced related content, improved event filtering, pull-to-refresh functionality, bug fixes, and other refinements. That ongoing enhancement strategy gave AOPA a digital channel that could respond to changing member expectations rather than remain a static application.

Source: Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, “Award-winning AOPA app reaches 10,000 users,” November 30, 2017.

Project Outcomes.

The AOPA app gained strong early adoption and earned industry recognition for the quality of the mobile experience. More than 10,000 aviation enthusiasts downloaded the app within months of its July launch, demonstrating demand for a dedicated way to connect with AOPA from smartphones and tablets.
  • Surpassed 10,000 downloads within months of launch
  • Earned a Silver Davey Award in the Mobile Apps/Sites, Lifestyle category
  • Received recognition in an international competition featuring more than 4,000 entries
  • Gave pilots convenient mobile access to AOPA news, videos, podcasts, events, temporary flight restriction alerts, and other resources
  • Established an evolving mobile platform that AOPA could enhance with new features based on member needs

AOPA Senior Vice President of Marketing Jiri Marousek credited the close collaboration between the teams, describing the result as a “visually appealing, user-friendly app” that made it easier for members to interact with the aviation community.