The certification covers its satellite-linked service, which enables aircraft to be constantly tracked across oceans and to communicate.
The oceanic blindspots of lost radio and radar contact were highlighted by the crash of Air France flight AF 477 a fortnight ago, with the loss of 228 lives: the Airbus 330-200 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went missing, and initial searches proved fruitless.
TracPlus chief executive Chris Hinch said the TracPlus system, of which hundreds of variations had been sold since the company's inception, could pinpoint an aeroplane's whereabouts every 20 seconds, plus send and receive global text messaging at any time.
"Controllers could have seen the track of the Air France flight and gone straight to the crash site without having to search," Mr Hinch said.
TracPlus has developed a GPS transport tracking system for businesses, government and non-government agencies in more than 12 countries and areas, including the Antarctic. The system covers uses in aviation, maritime and land operations.
Mr Hinch said radar did not penetrate beyond about 200 nautical miles off coastlines, and both ultra high frequency and high frequency aircraft radios had transmission limitations including range, atmospheric and congestion issues, which could limit use.
The TracPlus system uses 61 iridium satellites which orbit the Earth. It costs $US4000 ($NZ6300) to install in an aircraft, and less than $US5 ($NZ7.90) an hour to operate.
In October last year, TracPlus' United States operation signed a distribution agreement with DAC International Inc, a subsidiary of the giant Fairchild Corporation, to operate alongside DAC's Gen-X Electronic Flight Bag.
Mr Hinch said some competing systems did not have Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification, and other FAA tracking system initiatives were only targeting United States coverage by 2013.
"Our solution is global, FAA certified, operating now and can be deployed at a fraction of the cost," Mr Hinch said.
One small unnamed Asian airline was already being fitted with the TracPlus units, and an unnamed aircraft manufacturer, "one of the world's largest", according to Mr Hinch, was expected make a decision next month on installing TracPlus in aircraft.
"This [FAA certification] has been a year's work; a long challenging process to open up a whole new market in commercial aviation," Mr Hinch said.
He believed much of the success of TracPlus systems would lie in the private aircraft sector, which he described as the "biggest market".
In late May, a TracPlus system was credited with having saved the life of a foreign trainee pilot who got lost twice in a Cessna on a solo cross-country flight from Dunedin to Queenstown. He was tracked on TracPlus and instructed by cellphone on the right direction to take.
TracPlus, which won last year's Tuanz awards for innovation and initiative, has a wholly-owned Atlanta-based subsidiary, which sells telemetry services to aviation customers in 18 countries.
TracPlus and sister company Daestra are private companies predominantly backed by Otago-based shareholders since Daestra launched TracPlus in mid-2007.
Turnover for TracPlus last year, which is yet to be finalised, was estimated to be up to $1.5 million, and for the five months of 2009 TracPlus was trading up compared with 2008, Mr Hinch said.
Mr Hinch, TracPlus' founder, said yesterday he was stepping aside from the chief executive role to become director of product development and innovation. He would be replaced by Stuart Campbell, a senior executive who has worked for Xerox, Canon and and Lion Nathan.
