Community Platform · Aviation · India · 2007–2020
Society for Welfare of Indian Pilots — Custom Membership Platform
A purpose-built membership platform for India’s pilot welfare community — grievances, circulars, forums, airport city directories, online magazine publishing, noticeboards, polls, and mobile access — developed across multiple versions over thirteen years.
Grievances System
Anonymous or members-only grievance posting routed to selected or all committee members.
Circulars & Forums
Document library with icon-classified categories, forum with moderation, and aviation resource sharing.
Online Magazine
Full magazine builder — issues, sections, articles, cover pages, and advertisements — in the "Niner Whisky" publication.
PDA Version
Mobile-optimised version for pilots — news, circulars, directory, and polls accessible from handheld devices.
SWIP served as a professional and welfare network for Indian pilots across airlines — supporting grievance redressal, regulatory communication, member resources, and community engagement.
In 2007, SWIP needed a digital home — a members-only platform where pilots could connect, share resources, raise grievances, stay current on circulars and regulatory changes, and participate in the life of their professional community. They came to Webonautics — then operating as Creative Fusion Studio.
SWIP was the project that opened the door to Jet Airways. Captain Attari — a Jet Airways pilot and SWIP member — was the connection that led to Manoj Arora, Head of Flight Operations at Jet Airways, and from there to eighteen years of aviation infrastructure work. The platform that connected Indian pilots online was the same platform that connected Webonautics to international aviation.
How SWIP Led to Jet Airways
Jet Airways pilot and SWIP member introduced Webonautics to the organisation.
Manoj Arora — Head of Flight Operations, Jet Airways — first contact at the airline.
Patrick Rosteart — Head of Flight Operations, JetLite (Jet Airways sister brand) — extended the aviation chapter.
The platform evolved as SWIP’s needs evolved — from core member access to mobile tools, magazine publishing, city directories, and a reusable architecture later deployed for NAG.
September 2007
Core Platform Launch
The original SWIP platform — members-only section with registration and approval, grievances system, news and events, policies, calendar, forms and resources, SWIP Forum, and SWIP Poll. Full admin dashboard with member management, SMS capability, and content management.
October 2007
City Directory Module
Airport city directory — searchable by city name or IATA/ICAO code, with multiple information blocks per city: hotels, restaurants, general information, airport details. Built for pilots navigating layover cities across the network.
March 2008
Enhancements + New Modules
PDA version — mobile-optimised for handheld access. Online Magazine Builder — full issue management, sections, articles, advertisements, and cover pages for the "Niner Whisky" pilot publication. Quote of the Day. "Ask the Boss" Q&A system with Associate Members. Notice Board chat with live member presence and fleet/base display.
Ongoing Enhancements
Circulars, Forums, Links
Circulars & Forms reorganised with icon-classified subcategories and dedicated search. Forum search added. Navigation redesigned from text to button links. "Pilots Lounge" renamed "Niner Whisky." Directory renamed to Airport/Directory. Polls renamed to Polls/Sign-Ups.
Ahead of its time for 2008 — a dedicated mobile-optimised interface for pilots accessing SWIP from handheld devices. Covered the core member features: login, news, circulars and forms, city directory, and polls. Designed for the reality of pilots on the move, in layover cities, needing quick access to the information that mattered.
National Aviation Guild (NAG)
Second Installation · Same Architecture · Independent Deployment
The SWIP platform architecture was subsequently deployed for the National Aviation Guild — a second pilot community organisation. NAG received the same depth of features, independently configured and maintained on its own infrastructure. This demonstrated that the platform had been built to a standard that could support multiple independent deployments — not a bespoke one-off, but a reusable architecture with genuine institutional utility.
SWIP was built by Webonautics operating as Creative Fusion Studio — the studio name used during the Australian and early Indian years. The UI — every HTML, CSS, and JavaScript element — was designed and built entirely by Suma Srinivas. PHP and MySQL backend development was executed by a trusted NDA-bound development team. Lathesh Suryakantha directed the technical architecture.
The proposal documents from September 2007 through March 2008 remain copyright Creative Fusion Studio, the predecessor identity of Webonautics.