Hull firm aiming to help the aviation industry go paper free plans to double turnover in next three years

The firm’s sister company, Keyzo IT Solutions, is also aiming to invest to expand its range of “next generation” human resources and health and safety software solutions, which it supplies to a range of business sectors.

Shane Spencer, CEO of both businesses, said he was plotting a course for “significant growth” for both firms.

He said: “Currently our airline side dominates the business and accounts for about 80 per cent of what we do. One of our missions is to balance that out so we are working to restructure Keyzo and scale that side of the business.”

Keyzo was founded by Mr Spencer in 2009 and it moved into the aviation industry with the acquisition in 2014 of Bytron, where he had previously spent more than four years as a software engineer and project manager.

He brought both businesses together at Bytron’s offices in Kirmington, near Humberside International Airport, and the organisation expanded to a second site at The Deep Business Centre in 2019.

Since then, the group has made key appointments across the UK, Europe and Canada and now serves around 140 customers across 105 countries with a team of 50 staff which is expected to grow by at least 10 in the coming months.

Bytron took off after its bid to meet the demands of the aviation industry which was desperate to cut costs post-Covid.

Mr Spencer said: “A lot of businesses were struggling during this period but, despite a worrying time, we continued to experience year-on-year growth.

“We found airlines that had reduced their flying hours had more time to evaluate products on the market that would help them improve their operational procedures.

“Ultimately our aim is to help airlines improve flight safety and enable them to analyse fuel and reduce usage to help towards a reduced carbon footprint.

“Typically a crew briefing for one of our flights could produce massive amounts of paper that include fuel plans, weather information, navigational charts, aircraft manuals and a whole host of essential supplementary information advising of any problems along a route. We collate all that data and put it on their iPads.

“We have achieved near enough a paperless cockpit for our customers by digitising this mammoth amount of data. To put it in perspective, a mid-size airline with 50 aircraft saves about £128,000 a year in printing costs and approximately £75,000 in Fuel.”

Meanwhile, Keyzo has increased its presence at The Deep from eight people to 20.

Mr Spencer added: “We have a very ambitious and exciting development roadmap across both businesses. As of our year-end in September, we are a £4 million business running at 30 per cent profit.

“We are investing quite heavily at the moment in order to scale up, with an aim to be a £10 million plus business in the next three years. Part of the investment is technology – we have an impressive infrastructure set-up. The other part is people, building bigger teams whilst maintaining our culture.”