How Virtual Airlines Works
Virtual Airlines is a shared airline-management and flight-operations mode. As a pilot, you choose where to fly, which airline to represent, and how to build your record. As a manager, you create the commercial plan that gives those flights a purpose: aircraft, routes, prices, staffing, reputation, and cash all have to work together. The mode is designed around a simple loop:- Find or create an airline.
- Join an airline or receive a management role.
- Choose an operation that the airline can actually support.
- Review the market quote and book the flight.
- Fly it, track it, and complete it correctly.
- Receive a score and settle the result.
- Use the result to improve your pilot record or airline plan.
Pilot and manager views
One account can have more than one relationship with Virtual Airlines. You may be a pilot in one airline, a manager in another, and a member of a group with several operating airlines. Every page shows the airline context that applies to the current action.
The complete game loop
1. Discover the right airline
Use Find Airlines to compare identity, base, recruitment rules, minimum experience, activity, and fleet. A directory result is not a flight booking and a recruitment offer is not a salary promise. Read the public profile and the airline’s rules before applying. Your Airlines page becomes the place to manage active, pending, or suspended memberships. An active membership is normally required before you can book a standard airline operation.2. Understand the operation before booking
Every operation has a source and a set of restrictions:- A scheduled operation comes from an airline route and its available market.
- A free flight uses the airline’s eligible aircraft and operating rules without the same scheduled-route requirement.
- An event, charter, or tour can lock the airline, route, aircraft type, date, or payload.
- A VIP operation uses a separate premium service model and is not ordinary passenger or cargo demand.
3. Read the quote, then book
Dispatch combines the airline policy, route, aircraft, market availability, price, reputation, service frequency, departure time, and payload into a quote. The quote is the best preview of what the operation can carry right now. Demand is finite. A larger aircraft does not create more passengers, and an empty seat or cargo position earns nothing. The quote therefore matters before the flight begins: it tells you what the market and the selected aircraft can support, not only what the aircraft can physically hold. Booking places a short hold on the selected opportunity and freezes the important choices for the operation. The final booking summary is authoritative if an earlier preview and the booking result differ.4. Fly and complete the operation
Open My Flights to start or resume the booked operation. You can use online tracking when available or an offline debrief when the operation permits it. Follow the route, aircraft, payload, timing, and operating-day rules attached to the booking. FlyHub checks the result after completion. It considers whether the route and aircraft were valid, when the flight started and ended, how much payload was recognized, the operational score, and whether the chosen simulation rate was allowed.5. Settle the result
An accepted result is settled once into the airline’s ledger. Revenue is created only from recognized passengers and cargo, while fuel, airport, handling, navigation, service, fleet, maintenance, insurance, environmental, crew, and other applicable costs are recorded. The pilot receives the flight result, score, XP, history, and related progression shown by the product. The airline’s treasury is the airline’s money. A pilot reward is recorded as a crew-payroll line in the airline settlement and is not the same thing as a guaranteed personal FH$ cash payout. See Economy and Pricing for the full explanation.6. Learn and adjust
Pilots use the result to improve consistency, hours, flights, XP, and eligibility for more opportunities. Managers use Finance, Market audit, and Management history to decide whether to change price, aircraft size, frequency, route, staffing, or operating standards. The strongest airlines are not necessarily the largest. They are the airlines that can repeatedly match demand with a reliable aircraft at a price customers accept while keeping enough cash for their recurring commitments.Where each page fits
Pilot services
Public airline pages
An airline profile is the public explanation of an airline, not its private control room. Overview explains identity and current standing. Flights, Fleet, Pilots, and Network show public activity. Tours and Awards show the airline’s public achievements and activities. Public figures are snapshots. They help you decide whether an airline is a good fit, but they are not a promise that a particular route, aircraft, seat count, or application outcome will still be available when you act.Manager pages
The private management workspace is split by responsibility:- Overview gives the health of the airline and shortcuts to important work.
- Identity and Profile controls public identity, rules, admissions, moderation, and operating standards.
- Finance shows the read-only treasury, settlements, recurring obligations, and forecasts.
- People handles members, applications, staff roles, and pilot relationships.
- Group explains shared group context and operating-airline relationships.
- Network opens and manages routes and schedules.
- Market audit explains demand pools, route health, and reputation.
- Management history records important management actions. There is no separate standalone Audit page.
- Airports establishes network airports and hubs.
- Operations reviews completed and closed operations.
- Fleet leases aircraft and controls their operational state.
- Tours creates and publishes the airline’s tour library.
- Rewards manages airline ranks, achievements, and aircraft access.
- Ownership covers the plan, integrations, and the irreversible retirement flow.
The four kinds of state to keep in mind
When a result looks surprising, identify which state you are looking at:- Physical state: where an aircraft is, its condition, available seats, weight limits, and current lease.
- Commercial state: the route, schedule, weekly market, price policy, and demand remaining.
- Operational state: whether a flight is booked, active, overdue, recoverable, completed, or closed.
- Account state: the airline’s cash, reputation, membership, role, rank, XP, and history.
Groups and operating airlines
A group can contain a flagship identity and multiple operating airlines. The public employer profile and some policies can be shared, while aircraft, routes, schedules, and operating results remain associated with the selected operating airline. Group cash is shared through the group treasury, but Finance keeps the operating-airline column so managers can understand where results came from. Do not assume that a group creates a second opening-capital grant for every operating identity. The creation screen and the current policy are authoritative for the balance available in the case you are creating.Dates, limits, and permissions
Virtual Airlines uses UTC for operating days, period boundaries, recurring charges, and many time windows. If a local date seems different from the date shown by FlyHub, follow the UTC date in the operation. Limits are intentional guardrails: active-flight limits, booking horizons, dispatch legs, saved presets, queue size, aircraft availability, and route range can all be different. The control that confirms the operation is the final authority if a preview shows a broader theoretical range.A good first session
- Read this page and Economy and Pricing.
- Review Find Airlines and open a few public profiles.
- Join an airline whose requirements and rules you can meet.
- Use Dispatch to inspect a quote before booking.
- Book one operation that matches the suggested payload.
- Read From Dispatch to Settlement before you start.
- Complete the flight carefully and check the result in My Flights.
- If you manage an airline, wait for the result to settle before making a large expansion decision.
Common misunderstandings
- The reference fare is not the final ticket price. It is a distance-based market starting point. Airline price policy, demand, cabin, aircraft, and the recognized payload all matter.
- More seats do not guarantee more revenue. Customers must exist, accept the price, and be recognized on the completed flight.
- Reputation is not a direct cash multiplier. It changes trust, demand, pricing tolerance, premium potential, and public standing, while the result still has to be profitable.
- A booked flight is not yet a settled flight. It still has to be completed and validated.
- Market audit is advice, not automation. A recommendation does not edit routes, aircraft, or prices for you.
- Rewards do not manually award tour-completion badges. Tours award their own completion results when the required legs are completed.
- MAYDAY is not a normal cancellation. It is irreversible and does not grant the normal score, XP, progression, or settlement for that operation.