Crew Ready Notification & Enhanced Calendar

Crew ready notification — automatic flight briefing for your crew#

When you set a flight to READY, Quick Release now automatically sends a complete flight briefing to your pilot and crew — no manual communication needed.

Choose between email or WhatsApp as the delivery channel, and configure exactly what information to include.

What the crew receives#

The notification includes:

• Flight details: date, period, meeting time, takeoff time, location
• Balloon and crew: assigned balloon, pilot, ground crew
• Flight tags: any tags assigned to the flight
• Crew comments: per-flight instructions for the crew
• Passengers (optional): contact names and passenger counts — no phone numbers or email addresses for privacy
• Trajectory map (optional): a static map image showing the predicted flight path with start and end markers

How to configure#

Go to Settings > Operator Settings > Crew and find the new Crew ready notification section:

Email delivery#

• A single email is sent to all crew members assigned to the flight
• The operator is always in CC, so you receive a copy
• The email includes a formatted HTML layout with all flight details

WhatsApp delivery#

• Each crew member receives a text message with all flight details
• If trajectory is enabled, the map image is sent as a separate message with a caption

Trajectory image lifecycle#

The trajectory map image is automatically managed:

• Generated when the flight is set to READY
• Deleted when the flight is ended, cancelled, or rescheduled back to scheduled
• Regenerated if the flight is set to READY again (reflecting updated weather data)

Modification warning#

If you modify flight details while the flight is in READY status and crew notifications are active, Quick Release shows a warning reminding you to inform your crew about the changes.

Enhanced crew calendar#

Crew members now see more relevant information in their calendar view, controlled by new operator settings.

Operator events#

Enable Share calendar events with crew in crew settings to make your operator events (holidays, company events, maintenance days) visible to crew members in their calendar.

Flight tags#

Enable Share flight tags with crew to display flight tags as colored chips in the crew calendar view, giving crew members context about the type and requirements of each flight.

Meeting time#

When a meeting time offset is configured, crew members now see the meeting time alongside the flight time in their calendar, so they know exactly when to arrive.

Crew comments#

A new crew comments field on the flight detail form lets you add per-flight instructions that are visible to crew in the notification and ICS calendar feed.

ICS calendar feed improvements#

The ICS calendar subscription has been enriched with:

• Meeting time and flight time
• Balloon name, region, pilot, and crew names
• Flight tags (when sharing is enabled)
• Passenger details without phone/email (privacy improvement)
• Trajectory image link (when available)
• Crew comments

How to get started#

1. Go to Settings > Operator Settings > Crew
2. Enable the sharing options you want (events, tags)
3. Choose a notification channel (Email or WhatsApp)
4. Configure what to include (passengers, trajectory)
5. Add any standing crew instructions
6. Set a flight to READY and your crew will be automatically notified