Suggested runways

Watch the video: Safety checks before you fly

When your airline has Suggested runways on, your booking page and the EFB's Flight tab show a runway for your departure and one for your arrival, and say where each one comes from.

It is advice only. It never stops you booking or flying, and it changes no score. The controller's runway always wins.

How it picks

The online ATIS. When a controller on VATSIM or IVAO has an ATIS online at the airport and it says which runway is in use, that runway is shown, with the network and the information letter. Your booking's network is looked at first.
Your airline's preferred runway, when staff set one for the airport and the wind allows it: up to 5 kt of tailwind, and a crosswind within your type's limit.
The wind. Otherwise it takes the runway end with the most headwind, only among paved runways long enough for your aircraft type and, when possible, within the type's crosswind limit. For the departure it uses the weather at your departure time, for the arrival the weather at your expected arrival time: the forecast (TAF) when that is more than an hour away, else the latest report (METAR).
Light or variable wind. Below 5 kt, or when the wind is variable, it shows the preferred runway, else the runway your airline's pilots landed on most at that airport, when there are enough flights to tell. Otherwise it says no runway is favoured.

Parallel runways, such as 27L and 27R, are shown together.

Rain, snow and ice

When the weather report shows rain or drizzle for the time you are there, the runway counts as wet and needs 15% more length than your type needs dry. A runway that is only long enough when dry is left out.
With snow, ice pellets, hail or freezing rain, the card warns that the runway may be contaminated. Check your own landing distance.

SimBrief

The suggested runways go to SimBrief when you generate your plan, so its runways, SID and STAR fit them. This happens when the pick came from the ATIS, the wind or your airline's preferred runway. In light wind with no preferred runway, SimBrief picks its own. You can still change the runways in SimBrief. When your plan already has a different runway, the card says so: generate the plan again to use the suggested one.

Good to know

An ATIS is typed by each controller in their own way. Only clear lines like "landing runway 27R" or "runway 09 in use" are read. When the ATIS is online but its runway can't be read, the card says so and falls back to the wind. Listen to the ATIS before you call.
The ATIS shows what is in use now. When your arrival is more than an hour away and the forecast wind then favours another runway, the card shows that too.
The card looks again every 10 minutes while the page is open, and says Changed since you last looked when a runway changed.
SIDs, STARs and noise rules come with your SimBrief plan.
In ACARS 2.8.97 and later, the voice ends the arrival weather at the top of descent with the runway to expect, and ACARS tells you when that runway changes in flight.

For staff

Switch it on in Staff → Airline settings → Optional features → Suggested runways. It is in the recommended set, so new airlines have it on.

To set a preferred runway, open Staff → Operations → Preferred runways, type the airport and one of its runways, and save. One per airport; saving another replaces it. You need the Hubs and airports permission.

The runway length it needs is the same as for the alternates: set it per type in Staff → Operations → Fleet, with the crosswind limit.