July 2022 VA Update
Hello Pilots,
This month's news update will highlight number of Quality of Life updates, as well as some airline update news.
Airline News
EVA Air subsidiary UNI air has been added to the VA. Moreover, All Nippon Airways subsidiaries Air Do, Solaseed and Phillipine Airlines have been added, providing more flights into and throughout Asia. Unfortunately Mango has suspended operations and has since been removed. Following South African Airways restructuring, AirLink is no longer a subsidiary and this airline will be removed after the current Southern Africa tour has run its course.
Development Updates
Most major route and fleet updates have been completed and should provide for more accurate flights. Asia is still experiencing severe COVID restrictions and this area is not as updated as our others. We are continually working to improve our schedule accuracy throughout this region.
Over 100 airports around the globe have received gate information, providing for a more detailed experience. If you would to help collaborate on gathering gate information for airports please let us know by creating a collaboration type support ticket. We will provide a document that can be filled out and imported to help improve our coverage.
As you may have noticed, some flights are now automatically approved. Auto-flight approval is based on flight score, as well as a number of other factors, among others substitution and routing requirements.
Closed airspaces
Current scheduled flight time durations may need to be amended due to longer flying times on account of closed airspace. Exceeding the listed scheduled flight time for this reason is expected and not an issue. If your flight is given a remark incorrectly please let us know via support ticket.
You can find more information about which airspaces are closed and how the civil aviation situation is developing on this FlightRadar24 page. Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.
Event Updates
We are working with the vACEPG initiative to co-host more VATSIM events. Please check the Events page for more details, we hope to see you there! Please let us know via Discord and the forums what kind of events you would like to see! To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server.
Tour updates
The monthly tour takes you across Western Africa. Tours are continually in the process of being reworked and for more updates on retiring tours please check the Event and Tours section on the homepage. Most tours now have published end dates so be sure to check the tour description.
If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know in the forums.
Closing words
As always if you have any suggestions please let us know.
We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/gUTREjv.
