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EASA commissions new data architecture for eRules from DitaExchange as the first new order confirmed under Wirtek ownership
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has commissioned DitaExchange, acquired by Wirtek on 12 August 2026, to build tooling for an advanced data architecture for their eRules platform. The project will make European aviation regulation machine-readable at the level of the individual rule item, and is the first order confirmed after DitaExchange became part of the Wirtek Group.
EASA publishes European aviation law as Easy Access Rules, consolidated documents that bring regulations and the associated soft law together in one place for the industry that has to comply with them. The platform behind those publications, eRules, has run on DitaExchange's technology since 2018, and has published in PDF since 2017, as online publications since 2020 and in XML since 2022.
The new assignment addresses what happens after that XML leaves EASA. It is read by machines, not only by people, and integrated into line-of-business solutions for stakeholders, for example airports and airline services. Machine consumption sets a higher standard for data quality than human reading ever did.
What the project delivers
The work introduces two capabilities to the eRules platform.
The first capability gives every individual element of content inside a regulatory document its own persistent identifier: paragraphs, numbered list items, tables, formulas and figures. The identifier survives amendments and republication, so a stakeholder system can point at one specific provision and keep pointing at it across revisions and the entire life cycle of the rule.
The second capability makes each exported rule item self-describing. Today an individual article, once extracted from the document tree, does not carry its own position in the regulatory hierarchy. The project introduces a semantic code that concatenates the full path from the top of the document down to the individual article, so that an isolated element can be identified and understood without reference to the surrounding structure.
To support these requirements, DitaExchange is also extending its DxAuthor+ authoring tool and DxChecker quality-assurance module with AI capabilities.
The result is that any downstream system, whether an airline's compliance tool, an authority's cross-reference database or an AI-assisted process, can consume European aviation regulation as reliable, structured data rather than as documents that have to be parsed and interpreted.
"For more than eight years, EASA has relied on our DitaExchange CCMS to help make flying safer. With this new order, we are taking that partnership to the next level, making it significantly easier for thousands of airports, airlines, aircraft manufacturers and other stakeholders to manage compliance at a detailed, item-by-item level. Every individual rule will now carry a unique identifier, enabling full track-and-trace capabilities as the EASA Easy Access Rules (eRules) integrate directly into their internal compliance systems. To reach this objective, we are also extending our DxChecker quality-assurance module with AI capabilities, and we are very proud to continue this important work with EASA."
— Steffen Frederiksen · Director, DitaExchange
The project is a fixed-price assignment of approximately DKK 1 million (EUR 131,600) under EASA's existing framework contract, payable across three milestones, with delivery through 2026. The work will be carried out by DitaExchange's teams in Denmark and the USA.
First confirmation of the acquisition case
When Wirtek announced the acquisition of DitaExchange, it pointed to a customer base of blue-chip organisations in regulated industries and to documentation requirements that are business-critical rather than discretionary. This project order is the first to be confirmed under the new ownership.
It also sits precisely where Wirtek's Solutions strategy points. Structured, properly described content is the precondition for putting documentation to work in automated and AI-supported processes, and organisations that hold their regulatory material as flat documents cannot make that transition. EASA is investing now in the data quality that makes it possible.
For DitaExchange, joining the Wirtek Group means it no longer carries this kind of project alone. It can now draw on Wirtek's engineering, quality assurance and testing capacity across Denmark, Romania and Portugal, and on strong AI competencies that are directly relevant as AI capabilities are built into the platform.
"EASA is exactly the kind of customer we had in mind when we acquired DitaExchange. A blue-chip organisation in a regulated industry, where documentation is business-critical and increasingly needs to work as structured data in automated and AI-supported processes. DitaExchange brings the product and the references; Wirtek brings the sales and marketing engine and the delivery capacity to scale it. Winning this order two weeks into our ownership is a good start."
— Michael Aaen · CEO, Wirtek
About DitaExchange
DitaExchange ApS, founded in Aarhus, Denmark, develops Dx5, a component content management platform for structured documentation based on the open DITA standard. Dx5 runs on Microsoft 365, with Microsoft Word as the authoring surface and SharePoint as the content repository, and enables organisations in regulated industries to author, review, approve and publish controlled documentation with content reuse and full traceability. DitaExchange serves customers across North America and Europe, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wirtek A/S. Read more at www.ditaexchange.com.