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Join us on June 29, 2025 at 1500 Central (2000 Zulu) for a birthday celebration of the ages! Sponsored by PMDG, Flight1, Imaginesim, and Verticalsim, we are gathering to celebrate 5 years of vAAirlines operations while giving back to our members by giving away copies of some of the most popular addons currently available on the market. PMDG has brought the heavy lifting by giving one lucky winner a copy of their brand new 777 for MSFS20/24 and Flight1 is taking the excitement to the MAX with a copy of their stunning 737 MAX8 for MSFS20/24. American Airlines and KDFW go hand in hand, so Imaginesim has decided the party could not be complete without giving out a copy of their newest scenery for MSFS20/24, KDFW, and Verticalsim has come through in a major way to make flights more scenic with some of their top-level sceneries, KRSW and KTPA for MSFS20/24, going to our members as well. The vAAirlines staff will also be providing gift cards to stores like Simmarket, Contrail, and more! Interested in winning? All you have to do is be an active vAAirlines pilot and join the group flight from MIA to DFW on June 29, 2025 with us on VATSIM and our Discord. Winners will be selected around halfway through the flight via our Discord. To enter for the drawing, make sure you’re a member of the Discord before 1500 Central (2100 Zulu) on June 29, 2025 to express interest in items that you would like to win via a poll posted. The poll will close at 1500 and entries will be locked in at that time! Pilots who were on the seniority list prior to this announcement will be eligible to triple their entries and receive three entries per addon that they have expressed interest in instead of the normal one entry for those who join after this announcement as an extra “thank you” for helping us get to year 5. Rules: No purchase necessary. All specific addon products have been graciously donated to us directly from their creation companies. Staff members are not eligible to enter the drawings and winnings are reserved for general pilots only. Drawings will take place roughly halfway through the flight and randomly spun via a live video feed for transparency. Members on the seniority list prior to the announcement will automatically have any entry they make for a product doubled and there is no need to enter twice. Good luck, and we look forward to celebrating with you all very soon!

It’s almost hard to believe that it has already been 5 years since we first officially started up our operations with just a few pilots, a few beta testers, and a few staff members eager and ready to see if we could make a vision come true. That vision was to create the most realistic simulate of American Airlines operations with an emphasis on creating an environment where users could continue to learn about our hobby, aviation in general, and experience a virtual career as if you were a pilot for the real world airline. As someone who first got my start in aviation with home flight simulators and flying on the VATSIM network, and who now is lucky enough to get paid to fly one of my all time favorite aircraft for an amazing company with even better people, I wanted an opportunity to hopefully inspire some to follow in my footsteps or give an opportunity to those who may not be able to do so, to still get a glimpse into some of the day-to-day operations and experiences. Over the past 5 years we have been truly blessed to have had such an amazing team of staff volunteers continue to join the ranks and allow us to grow into the largest American Virtual Airline by pilots as well as stay at the forefront of innovation with leading technological advancements, adoptions, and continuing to advocate for you all for a better future for flight simulation moving forward. Our training and progression program is still one of a kind and has continued to grow, evolve, and succeed thanks to the work of our VP of Training, Eric T., and his group of Group Chief Pilots made up of B737 Chief Jose P. (who also doubles as our Director of Marketing), A320 Chief Nathanael S., DC-9 Chief Matt M., B777 Chief Joe D., B787 Chief Algernon L., and B757 Chief Jadan J. who all also cover various other programs to try and get you all the fastest responses as you continue through your virtual career with us. Our Senior VP/COO, Alex B., and the remaining Executive Staff Team made up of VP of Human Resources, Taikwan B., VP of Strategic Growth, EJ D., (and of course the aforementioned VP of Training, Eric T.) have gone above and beyond during their time with us to ensure that operations continue to run as smoothly and seamlessly as possible, while also meeting and exceeding the high expectations set for each of them. We truly would not be where we are today without each and every one of them who often sacrifice their own free time to spend a few extra minutes every day to try and make vAAirlines just a little bit better- and it truly shows. The absolute bottom line though is that we appreciate each and every one of you who have decided to sign up with us and dedicate some of your own free time daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly, to help continue to grow the community and propel us forward into many more years of celebrating milestones. We could have all of the technology, real world schedules, a great staff team, and all of the other bells and whistles but would still be absolutely nowhere without each and every one of you who clicked on “Register” and started your journey with us. Regardless if you have been here for the entire 5 years, or just signed up 5 minutes ago, I can comfortably speak for each and every one of the staff members when I say, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being here and thank you for continuing to choose us to spend some of your very valuable time, experience, and passion with. As we wind down on our official birthday, I have 3 challenges for you; Get involved – join us on our Discord (Links can be found in the pilot portal) and share more of your journey with us and your fellow pilots! Our VP of Strategic Growth, EJ D., has taken on the task of getting our social media accounts running with more content of higher quality, so feel free to interact with those as we continue to expand. If time allows, consider volunteering some of your time as well and apply to one of our open staff positions which can be found here. Step out of your comfort zone – take advantage of some of our monthly and quarterly pilot challenges (currently we have a challenging airport competition open from DFW-EGE that ends at the end of the month – details are on our Discord), and hop on for one of our VATSIM group flights or just pop in to the voice chat to say hello if you see us flying but can not join in right at the moment! Take care of yourself and one another – in a time where it can often be easy to focus on our differences, take a moment to flip that script and connect with your fellow vAAirlines members while taking comfort in knowing that we all are here because we have fallen in love with aviation to some degree, and all have a deep passion for flight simulation. Make sure that you are taking care of yourself and your family outside of the flight sim world, and know that you do have over 600 other virtual pilots here in case you do ever need anything. We are very fortunate to have experience from all corners of the globe, all different industries, and all different ages that come together with a common love for what we do, and it has truly been amazing to see the community continue to grow and evolve. Thank you again for everything you personally have done to help keep us around, and I personally look forward to getting to know you more and (once I start to get some seniority and a better schedule ) fly with you as well! -Torrance

It is pretty crazy to think that Q1 of 2025 has already flown by and that we are already making our way through Spring! We wanted to take a moment to update everyone on some changes that have recently happened, some that will be changing in the near future, and some other general updates about the current state of the airline. First and foremost we wanted to thank all of you for your flying over the past few months as we continue to grow and, with your help, have been able to begin expanding on areas of our operation gearing up to begin celebrating our 5th year of operations! JetNet ACARS Update (In case you missed it) A few months back we had some issues with an update that was causing major issues to our website. We have been monitoring the updates with the developer while also testing those updates, and are comfortable having everyone update again to the latest version. The new ACARS has been on the website, but can also be downloaded via this link: click here. To update the ACARS simply find and delete your old “JetNet” folder and all of it’s contents. Run the new .exe installer and follow the prompts. Finally utilize the new blue icon on your desktop named “acars” to open the new ACARS. To begin setting up your account make sure to copy/paste your API key from the main website under “My Profile” > “Main Profile” and click the eye icon next to “Show Key”. The phpVMS url is “https://crew.aalva.org” and must include https:// and not any variation of that/can not include “www”. You can then click “Validate” to check and ensure the connection is correct before hitting save. Now when you restart the ACARS you should see our splashscreen and logos once again and it should automatically connect when opening the ACARS or when utilizing the “Load in JetNet” option on the website. Please update your ACARS ASAP to enjoy using the new features, streamlined connections to your simulator, as well as a newer UI. This version also brings official support for MSFS 2024 to our airline! PLEASE NOTE: MSFS 2024 is still a newer sim and may encounter issues. Please keep in mind all aspects of the SOPPHB/FOM remain in effect (including fleet substitutions) and no exceptions will be made based on availability of aircraft in the simulator as we are not requiring or encouraging anyone to move to the new simulator platform. The ACARS page has been updated with new setup pictures if you need any help with the new setup process but, as always, do not hesitate to reach out if you need assistance! SmartCARS 3 Testing We are currently still monitoring the development of SC3 and hope to be able to offer it to you all as a flight tracking option sometime in late 2025. The TFDi team has been making strides in the development of the program, but unfortunately it still lacks a lot of core functionality and data reporting that is needed to work seamlessly with our operation. We will let you all know once we have a more clear picture of the timeline for these implementations. Discord Fleet Roles We have just unlocked a new channel in the Discord which will allow you to select any type ratings that you have, would like to have, or are just curious about. Once selected, you will gain access to the specific forum-like channel for that fleet program where you can have fleet group specific conversations. There you may find AA specific aircraft configuration items, techniques, liveries, freeware add-ons, and more! The fleet spaces can be chosen to mimic your current type rating list, none of them, or you can also select an upcoming type rating that you are interested to get some help with flying the aircraft, understanding systems/operations on it, or just to generally discuss it. Please keep in mind that checkrides are not to be discussed at all in these, or any public, areas. Discord Activity Roles Have you checked out the “Get Roles” channel on our Discord? We’ve got some pretty cool ways to get involved through that channel including our monthly competitions, events, charter announcements, and more! All you need to do it to click the corresponding button to which types of things you would like to be kept in the loop about, and Discord will handle the rest. Over the next few months we will continue to ramp up the activity in each of these categories, so make sure your account is ready for the things you would like to get involved with! Can’t see “#Get-Roles”? You may need to enable it by clicking “Browse Channels” at the very top of our Discord and toggle the checkmark on next to that channel (and any others that you want to make sure to see). As always, if you have any issues or need some help, do not hesitate to reach out! Cross the Pond – CAT FREE As always, we are also very excited about this year’s VATSIM Cross the Pond event and will hopefully be able to match up some of our city pairs with those of the event for you to be able to participate with a vAAirlines flight! We are currently waiting to see the final city pair list to see if our routes match any, but in the meantime you may express your interest in the event by logging in to the CTP portal at https://ctp.vatsim.net/. This expression of interest closes today, 10APR2025. The event itself takes place on April 26, 2025 and will start at the time you are able to select when booking if selected for the event. vAAirlines, in celebration of this event, will begin CAT FREE operations on April 18, 2025 at 0500 Zulu, and will cease on May 5, 2025 at 0500 Zulu. During this time you are able to fly any aircraft in the fleet, regardless of your rank and type ratings held, but please keep in mind that all other areas of the SOPPHB/FOM remain in effect (including fleet substitutions). Other Airline Updates Ok, we’re almost done. As many of you probably know, Air Wisconsin is no longer flying for American Airlines as of 03APR2025. We will keep the Air Wisconsin schedules in the system until our next scheduled system route update which is currently scheduled for the first week of May. After this update, some of the routes will remain in the system as historic American Eagle routes with a few of the Air Wisconsin tail numbers being transferred to the American Eagle Historic “airline”. The current SOPPHB has been reworked into a much better web doc and will be published sometime in the next few weeks after our internal review has been completed. The rework also renames the document from the very long Standard Operating Procedures – Pilot HandBook (SOPPHB) to simply the Flight Operations Manual (FOM) which aligns it with it’s real world manual name. Inside the new manual we have also brought back the information that use to be found in our FM-1.pdf which has lots of great “general” information to help with your FlightAcademy courses! A NOTAM will be sent out via email once this is ready to go and will be at least 3 days before the release with the hard cutover to the new FOM. Year 5 It is hard to believe that it has already been 5 years since we began operations. We can not thank each and every one of you all enough for helping to create the community that we have today, and we can not wait to continue to grow it with you all. We will be rolling out a few new updates in the very near future for our celebration, but in the meantime we just want to highlight you and say “thank you“! Blue skies and happy flying to you all! Stay tuned for more coming very soon…

As we begin to close out 2024 with holiday celebrations, family and friend get-togethers, and preparations to ring in a new year, I wanted to take a moment to look back at what we have been able to accomplish this year while also dropping a few hints about what we are planning for the future. Our Staff Team I wanted to quickly recognize our amazing volunteer staff team members who have been wonderful with helping us to continue to grow and excel. Their hard work and dedication has allowed for us to grow to over 540 pilots with an average of 7-8 new members joining us per week. There have been many new additions to the team this year, so I wanted to take a quick moment to highlight those individuals! Hire Month – PositionName – Email May 2024 – A320 Chief PilotNathanael S. – [email protected] 2024 – B787 Chief PilotAlgernon L. – [email protected] August 2024 – B777 Chief PilotJoe D. – [email protected] October 2024 – B757 Chief PilotJadan J. – [email protected] 2024 – DC9 (MD80) Chief PilotMatt M. – [email protected] As always our full team is available to be viewed on the main website by navigating to Headquarters > Our Team (or by clicking this link), and on Discord by visiting Tech Ops > Email Tree. We do currently have some of our Chief Pilots covering various other programs to begin helping out with cutting down on response times for new type rating programs, and those can be viewed in the Discord Email Tree! If you are interested in helping to continue the growth of our VA, I encourage you to get involved on Discord, on our Forums, and to also consider applying to one of the remaining open Chief Pilot positions which can be found by following this link. 2024 Summary As many of you know, 2024 was a tremendous year for us in terms of growth as we were finally able to update our systems to a more stable platform and CMS. The new system allowed us to not only take advantage of better security and general stability, it also brought us into 2024 in terms of web features allowing us to take full advantage of our hosting capabilities to deliver more content to you at a much faster speed. This also allowed us to expand the fleet to include real world tail numbers of the active American Airlines and American Eagle fleets, as well as begin to add in some of the retired fleet tail numbers from American Airlines, American Eagle, AirCal, Reno Air, TWA, and US Airways. With the current December schedules loaded into the system along side of our expansive historic section, we now have over 25,000 available flights for you to operate with over 2,500 total tail numbers which all have their own maintenance logging functions and can be monitored on the website. Lets take a look at the numbers for this year compared to last year, while also keeping in mind that we still have a full month of operations to go! Stat2023 Result2024 Result (Through November)Total Flights2,8514,438Hours Flown7,292 hours11,427 hoursMiles Flown2,612,052 nm4,142,014 nm We were able to accomplish some pretty big things as well with completing all of the requirements to become a VATSIM partner VA, completing all requirements to officially become a registered 501(c)(3), and of course, performing our largest data migration and website improvement since our start in 2019. We could not have done any of this without every single one of you, and I wanted to extend my personal “Thank You!” to you for deciding to join our community and continue to help propel the legacy of vAAirlines into the new year, and the 5th year of operations. Moving into 2025 As we get ready to move into 2025, I wanted to take a few moments to highlight some things that we will continue to expand on to help increase activity, create an even stronger community, and propel us into celebrating our 5th year of operations! Events/Activities – Our VP of Strategic Growth, EJ D., and Director of Marketing, Jose P., have been putting together some amazing events, challenges, and activities that have begun to go live in our Discord server. These challenges include monthly screenshot competitions, pilot of the month challenges, and average landing rate challenges. We will be introducing the challenging airports competition in January which will be a quarterly challenge which will be aimed at opening up our route network to some of the most difficult approaches/airports! Jose has also put a lot of work into beginning to create a Charter announcement section that will feature some of the live charter operations that American Airlines actually flies including things like sports team movements and other special flights that are not scheduled for normal passengers. If you have not gotten involved on our Discord server yet, now would be an excellent time to do so! To join simply log into the main website and click the “Discord” link on the navigation bar to be directed to the server invite. If you do not have a Discord account yet, they are free to create and you can edit settings as you need on a server by server basis (or even channel by channel) to make sure the notifications are set just how you like them. Once you follow the initial instructions for changing your nickname you will be granted access to be able to see the complete server and begin to customize your experience. To get involved in the various events simply visit the “#get-roles” channel to begin customizing your notifications. As always, if you have any problems at all please do not hesitate to reach out to a Staff Member by either email or by utilizing the “Contact Us” feature on the main website. Thank you again for taking the time to read this update, participate in our community, and continue to grow our VA! We would not be here without you, and we do hope that your holiday season is filled with nothing but good food, great family and friend get togethers, and even more amazing memories. From all of us here at vAAirlines, and on behalf of the entire team, Happy Holidays to you and yours! One More Thing… As a gift to you, and in an effort to allow everyone to enjoy the full range of our fleet, we have unlocked the ranking restrictions on the website allowing us to go “CAT FREE” from now until January 5, 2025 @ 2359 CST. Please keep in mind that this does not remove the restriction for fleet substitutions and only removes the restriction for you to only be able to see/fly aircraft that you do not have a type rating for. Remember, CAT FREE allows you to fly any aircraft in the system regardless of your rank and/or type ratings held, but please keep in mind that all other parts of the SOPPHB (https://sop.aalva.org) do remain in effect. Also please keep in mind that red icon “Training Only” flights (also indicated with a “TRN” flight number) may not be flown unless doing so on an actual assigned checkride. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to a Staff Member! View the full article