Optimal Aero Inc.

We are a group of experienced technical aviation specialists who have built profitable airlines from concept through to full operations featuring numerous aircraft types from regional to wide-body aircraft. We appreciate the importance of building customer relationships and collaborating with stakeholders to ensure expectations are defined, realized and exceeded.
Using technology as a strategic advantage, we have capitalized on cost-effective solutions to manage people, training, operations, aircraft maintenance, safety management, financial management controls. We have significant experience in supporting a highly mobile workforce with deployments on a reliable, secure & scalable infrastructure in highly complex environments.
We are dedicated to our client's success and are driven to implement optimal solutions that provide lasting business value.

With over 35 years in Aviation IT, Barry got his start by developing custom aviation software applications. He spent 11 years at Air Ontario building and implementing software and driving IT Strategy.  Barry then moved on to Skyservice Airlines as Director of IT during a period of significant growth. In addition to his aviation experience, he has held positions as a Senior Consultant and VP & CIO for a technology firm specializing in cellular technologies and electronic surveillance. 

In 2013, Barry joined Sky Regional Airlines, an Air Canada Express carrier as Chief Systems Officer having responsibility for Crew Planning and Scheduling in addition to Information Technology, eventually becoming CIO in 2019.  He directed the full modernization of the Airlines technology infrastructure resulting in a scalable, secure and cost-efficient environment.  This initiative provided a platform to deploy mobile ready applications to all employees as well as specific applications to support crew members.  Barry pioneered the migration of its on-premise applications to a cloud platform eliminating capital costs and significantly reducing deployment & support time.   In addition to implementing interfaces between Sky Regional and Air Canada systems, Barry initiated and led a joint Air Canada/Sky Regional project transitioning Sky Regional to a new IATA airline identifier.

Over the course of his career, with a broad understanding of airline operations and processes, Barry has developed, implemented, and supported aviation solutions for financial modelling, cargo, flight dispatch, aircraft maintenance, inventory management, commercial schedule development, crew planning, tracking & payroll. 

Having a strong technology background combined with his management and leadership experience, Barry can span conversations from a technical nature to high level strategy, with a focus to build optimal solutions from concept to execution that drive lasting value.

With 30 years of IT experience and management, Dennis is a forward-thinking technology professional with extensive experience in security and cloud hosted environments who excels in solving problems in challenging and complex environments.  He has worked in the travel industry helping travel agencies implement call centre solutions and travel insurance providers establishing a presence within reservation systems. 

In 2008, Dennis redesigned and modernized a chemical company’s IT infrastructure using a hybrid cloud solution that enabled complete and remote monitoring of plant and customer plant operations that provided customers with significant savings and reductions in chemical use.  He designed a secure network for critical plant operations with an intelligence solution for real time threat analysis. 

Specifically for Sky Regional Airlines, Dennis was instrumental in a technology infrastructure modernization initiative designing and executing the migration strategy from an on-premise environment to a Microsoft 365 and Azure cloud hosted solution. Dennis built a seamless transition plan to migrate core mission critical applications utilizing the latest Microsoft services. The environment was secured delivering intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence across the enterprise, providing alert detection and proactive threat response.

Dennis holds several certifications from Microsoft, VMware, Aruba, Fortinet, Cisco, Citrix, Unix, Penetration Testing, Checkpoint, ITIL, and Project Management. 

Who We Are