More Airline Hints and Tips
We’re now 36 hours into the airline’s life, and more lessons have been learned through the feedback provided by everybody taking part (huge thanks to all those trying it out so far - your input has been invaluable).
I thought it might be worth sharing some more lessons learned based on the various issues people have experienced, or things that we perhaps haven’t explained well enough thus far.
Jonathan Beckett
Founder, VirtualFlight.Online
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Remember to “submit” PIREPs in ACARS
When completing a flight in ACARS, go to the “Flight” page, and end the flight. On ending the flight you can then either submit it, or cancel it.
If you don’t submit the flight, it will remain “pending” until such time as you cancel it in the future. I’ve fallen foul of this one. Lots of other have too.
If you cancel the PIREP in the ACARS client, the report will vanish from the airline too.
What’s the difference between Flights, Bids, Bookings and PIREPs?
This one has come up a lot.
Flights are really “flight plans”. Flights you might do.
Bids are bookmarks - where you can earmark a flight to do later.
Bookings are any flight you have bid on, or generated a Simbrief flight plan for.
PIREPs are the “Pilot Reports” compiled about pilots performing flights. If the details in a PIREP exactly match a leg in a Tour (tour legs are flights), the tour leg will be completed.
When you run ACARS, the details filled into the “Flight” page are essentially the heading section of the PIREP. The data compiled during the flight by ACARS fills the remainder of the PIREP.
Achieving good outcomes with PIREPs
There are two ways of reporting flights through the airline - automatically through ACARS, and manually, through a "Manual PIREP".
If you do not follow the guidance below, flights such as tour legs will not be ticked off when a PIREP is filed, because the airline, flight number, code, and leg number will not match the corresponding flight.
Filing PIREPs automatically with ACARS
When you complete a flight using the ACARS application, it saves your data directly to the airline.
The outcome of filing a PIREP by ACARS is entirely dependent on the accuracy of data filled into ACARS for your flight.
If you have sent your flight details to ACARS from the website, it will be automatically populated with correct information. If you have entered flight details manually into the ACARS client, to achieve a good outcome you need to make sure the identifying fields are filled correctly:
Airline should match the corresponding flight within the airline website.
Flight Number should be an integer, with no prefixes, suffixes, or other punctuation (e.g. 123)
Flight or Tour Code should be alphanumeric, with no prefixes, suffixes, or other punctuation (e.g. TUK)
Leg Number should be an integer, with no prefixes, suffixes, or other punctuation (e.g. 1)
Filing PIREPs manually via the manual PIREP form
When you complete a manual PIREP via the Manual PIREP form, it too saves your data directly to the airline.
The outcome of manually filing a PIREP is entirely dependent on the accuracy of data filled into the manual PIREP for your flight.
To achieve a good outcome, you need to make sure you enter accurate flight details into the manual PIREP form:
Airline should match the corresponding flight within the airline website.
Flight Number should be an integer, with no prefixes, suffixes, or other punctuation (e.g. 123)
Flight or Tour Code should be alphanumeric, with no prefixes, suffixes, or other punctuation (e.g. TUK)
Leg Number should be an integer, with no prefixes, suffixes, or other punctuation (e.g. 1)
The advantages of using Simbrief
If you use the Simbrief integration when preparing a flight from the airline website, the routing data will be combined with the PIREP to show the planned and actual route when viewing the results of the flight later. Manually entering routing information, or independently using Simbrief will not achieve the same result.
Supporting VirtualFlight.Online
Lots of people have been asking how they can help support VirtualFlight.Online.
We have a Patreon account, where you can chip in a small amount each month to go towards server hosting fees. We’ve split it into “Gold”, “Silver” and “Bronze” levels to allow people to contribute what they can afford.
It’s by no means required, but it does help enormously.
Visit https://patreon.com/virtualflightonline if you would like to help!