Booking a flight and finding it again

How to find a flight in your airline's schedule, book it, and get back to your booking later to plan, fly or cancel it.

Flights from your airport, in the demo airline

Find a flight

In your airline's menu, open Book a flight → Flight list.
The list shows the scheduled flights leaving from where you are. Narrow it with From, To, Type, Aircraft and Tag, choose how to Sort by (flight number, aircraft type, distance, block time or departure time), and tick Flyable only to see only flights your rank can fly. Then press Search. From any airport searches the whole schedule.
Under the search, the Block time chips (Up to 1 h, 1–3 h, 3 h+) keep only flights of that length.
Each row shows the flight number, route, distance, block time, scheduled departure (UTC) and the aircraft types that fly it. Press Book on the flight you want.

If a row says Rank locked · why?, none of its aircraft types is open to your rank yet. Click it to see why.

Find anything: press Ctrl+K (⌘K on a Mac) on any of your airline's pages, or Find anything in the menu, and type a flight number or an airport's ICAO code to go straight to the flight's booking. It finds pages of the menu and your own PIREPs too.

Or pick a destination on a map with Book a flight → Map, or let Book a flight → Dispatch me suggest flights for the time you have.

Saving flights for later

Found a flight you'd like to fly another day? Press Save for later on its row. It goes on Book a flight → Saved flights, where you can keep up to 20 flights at each airline. A saved flight shows Saved on the flight list; press it again to take it off.

Saving a flight holds no aircraft and books nothing. When you want to fly it, open Saved flights and press Book: the normal booking page opens, with all the usual checks (your rank, a free aircraft, where you are, one booking at a time). Once it's booked, it leaves your saved flights. Remove from saved takes a flight off the list without booking it.

A saved flight that staff suspend or take off the schedule says Not on the schedule at the moment and can't be booked. If staff delete the flight, or you leave the airline, your saved flights go too.

Moving to another airport

Your pilot stays where your last flight landed. To fly from somewhere else, open Jumpseat to another airport on the flight list, type an ICAO code in Jumpseat to and press Travel. You can't jumpseat while you hold a booking.

Your airline may set jumpseat rules: a cost in points, a most per week, or hours to wait between two. The jumpseat box says which apply. See Jumpseats and ferry flights.

If your airline makes pilots fly from where they are, you can only book flights leaving from your current airport.

Charters

If your airline allows charters, Fly a charter appears on the same page. Enter any destination in To, pick an aircraft and press Book charter. Some airlines send every charter PIREP to staff review.

Some airlines let charters leave from any airport. Fly a charter then reads From anywhere to anywhere and has a From box too: type any departure, and you and the aircraft move there when the charter is booked. If your airline makes you fly from where you are, your move there is a jumpseat, under its jumpseat rules. Cancel before flying and the aircraft goes back to where it was. See Fly from anywhere to anywhere.

The fleet page

Book a flight → Fleet shows your airline's aircraft. The first table lists each aircraft type, how many aircraft of it there are, and whether you can fly it: Yes, Not yet with the rank that unlocks it, Needs a type rating, or Lapsed when your rating on the type has lapsed. It can also be Not yet with a Training path step to finish first. When a type waits for a rank, a line above the table says what your next rank still needs, exams included. Flights on the … opens the flight list with only the flights on that type.

Below it, every aircraft with its registration, type, the airport where it is now, and its status: Available, Your booking, Booked (another pilot holds it, at airlines that give each aircraft to one pilot at a time), In flight, In maintenance (until when), or Not offered for booking. Pick a Type, or tick Only at … to see the aircraft at your airport, and press Show. Long fleets are split into pages.

When staff added pictures, each type and aircraft shows a small picture: the aircraft's own, or else its type's. Press it to open the full picture. Your booking shows the picture of the aircraft you booked.

If your airline makes aircraft fly from where they are, book a flight that leaves from the aircraft's airport.

Book the flight

Pressing Book opens the dispatch page. Everything is filled in with sensible values, so you can book straight away or adjust:

Aircraft: pick a tail. Aircraft already at the departure airport are listed first. Use ★ Favourites only or Random if you like.
Aircraft & callsign: your Callsign (what you'll file and use on the radio) and Flight number, and the Dispatch via SimBrief switch. Fly online under this callsign: the flight counts as online only when the network shows the booked callsign and has you within 20 nm of where ACARS has you. Under another callsign (or far from your ACARS position) you get no online points or bonus, and the PIREP is flagged for staff saying why.
Group flights: you can change the callsign to your own: the airline's code and 1 to 4 letters or numbers (WZZ123A), seven characters at most. Every booked flight of the airline needs its own callsign, so when another pilot already flies this schedule the form suggests the same callsign with a letter after it. The callsign you book is the one SimBrief, your network flight plan, ACARS and the live map use.
Schedule & route: Departure date (UTC) and Departure time (UTC), a routing, flight level and cost index. The departure must be between now and two weeks ahead.
Payload: passengers, passengers with hold luggage, and cargo.
Network & co-pilot: the network you'll fly on, and a Shared cockpit co-pilot from your airline. Your co-pilot gets a notification to Accept or Decline. A pilot who has a flight of their own booked can't take the seat until they cancel it. Only once they accept does a copy of the flight (hours and points) go on their record when you file, and move them to the arrival airport with you. Until then the booking page shows "waiting for them to accept"; a flight filed before they accept counts for you alone. Once they accept, the co-pilot has the flight too: their EFB (on the web and the phone app) shows it with its checklists, datalink, dispatch messages, weather and live view, and ACARS 2.8.80 or newer shows it with your airline's sound pack. Only your ACARS, in your simulator, records the flight and files the PIREP.
SimBrief settings: see Planning with SimBrief.

Press Create booking. You land on your booking page.

The return flight

When your airline flies the route back (the same two airports the other way round), the dispatch page asks Book the return flight too? Switch it on, and pick which flight if there's more than one. The return is booked for you as soon as this flight's PIREP is filed, with the same aircraft if it's free, and every usual booking rule applies. If it can't be booked (for example the flight left the schedule, or you landed somewhere else), the PIREP message says why and you book it yourself.

Changed your mind? The Return flight card on the booking page adds the return, or takes it off with Don't book the return, until the flight is filed.

You can hold one booking at a time at each airline. Fly it or cancel it before booking another there.

Find your booking again

While you hold a booking, My flight appears near the top of your airline's menu, with the flight number next to it. Click it to open the booking page. A dot next to it means ACARS is tracking the flight live.

Your booked flight also shows on your airline's Dashboard, and on the ACARS page.

The booking page

The bar at the top shows the flight, its state (Booked, ACARS connected, In flight) and two buttons: Next step and Cancel booking. On a phone the bar stays in view while you scroll.

Under it the page is in parts: Next step (what to do now), Your flight (flight, pilot and SimBrief plan), Prepare (NOTAMs, alternates, live stream) and, on the right, Pre-flight, Manage booking and Booking actions.

The Pre-flight card on the right ticks off four steps as you go:

Plan: attach a SimBrief plan.
File: send your flight plan to VATSIM or IVAO with the buttons under File on a network, or fly offline.
Connect: open the Vaeroly app. Parked at the departure airport, tracking starts by itself (ACARS 2.8.46 and later); otherwise press Start flight.
Fly: land and park, and ACARS files the PIREP.

Booking actions has the SimBrief plan, the network filing buttons, ACARS and Manual PIREP.

No SimBrief? You can fly without it. Type your routing and cruise level when you book, or under Change booking details. To get the waypoints too, make your plan in Little Navmap (free), MSFS or X-Plane, save it, and use Load plan file under Plan (.pln or .fms). The plan must be from your departure to your arrival. Its waypoints then show on the booking page and the live map, the flight report compares your track with it, and you can download it again in the other formats. If you type a different routing later, the loaded waypoints are removed. Load plan file shows only when your airline has switched on Plan files without SimBrief.

If your airline makes aircraft fly from where they are and your aircraft is at another airport, the page adds an Aircraft step. Press Pick another aircraft, or Book a ferry flight to fly the aircraft to your departure first (when your airline flies charters). See Jumpseats and ferry flights.

Change or cancel

The Manage booking card on the booking page has, each with a line saying what it does:

Change booking details lets you edit the callsign, network, load, cruise level and routing without cancelling. Regenerate your SimBrief plan afterwards so it matches.
Dispatch again cancels the booking and takes you back to the dispatch page for the same flight, for example to pick another aircraft or time.
Cancel booking cancels it for good: the aircraft is freed and you can book another flight. It is also in the bar at the top of the booking page, on your Dashboard, in the EFB and on the Vaeroly phone app's Flight tab. Once ACARS has started the flight, cancelling loses it, and the button asks first.

Start the flight within 24 hours of booking (or of its scheduled departure, if that's later): the booking page shows "start by" with the time. A booking not started by then expires and ACARS won't start it; book again. A flight that started but then sends nothing for 24 hours is cancelled after 48 hours, so abandoned bookings don't hold an aircraft forever.

When you can't book

The dispatch page says You can't book this flight yet. and lists the reasons, for example no aircraft of that type is free. Other messages you may see:

"You already have an active booking." Fly or cancel it first.
"You're at …; this flight departs …" Jumpseat to the departure airport first.
"You're marked inactive." Press I'm back on your dashboard.
If your airline has turned on Unanswered questions block flying, you can't book while staff wait for your reply on a PIREP. See What the PIREP statuses mean.
If your airline has turned on Required reading before booking, you can't book while a document staff marked as one every pilot must read is waiting for you. Your dashboard lists them under Documents to read: open each one and press I have read it.
"Your … type rating lapsed on …" Your airline lets ratings lapse when you haven't flown the type for a while. Fly a checkride again, or ask staff to renew it. See Ranks and points.

Route wishes

If your airline has route wishes switched on, Book a flight → Route wishes lets you suggest a route you'd like to fly: the two airports, an aircraft type if you like, and a short note. Other pilots vote for the wishes they like, and staff look at the most wanted ones first.

You can have up to 3 open wishes. Press Withdraw to take one back.
Wishing for a route someone already wished for adds your vote to their wish instead.
A route that's already on the schedule can't be wished for.
You vote once per wish, and can take your vote back while it's open.

When staff add the route or decline it (with a reason), you get a notification, and so does everyone who voted.