1 September 2003
To All Of Our Pilots,

Once again, this past month resulted in several more organization highs for SimAirline.net. This month new records were set in Total Pilots, Applications, New Pilots, Flying Pilots, Inactive Pilots, and PIREPs, all good signs for future growth. Also setting new highs in PIREP numbers were Alaska Airlines Virtual, Continental Virtual, and Delta Virtual. In a largely unnoticed but exciting race, Continental Virtual, our one-time largest virtual airline, came one short of tying Delta Virtual in PIREPs. Since Delta Virtual opened, it has been the largest of our virtual airlines every month.

Temporary Operations Shutdown
I will be moving from Washington to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area this week, and will be unable to do anything for SimAirline.net during the period of September 2-10. This means that emails will not be replied to, and applications and PIREPs will not be processed. However, submissions for these forms can still be made, they will just not be processed until my return. When I do return, there will undoubtedly be some additional time before the roster is updated. Thank you for understanding. I have also changed my email address to aaron.robinson@simairline.net, effective immediately. If you live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and would like to meet sometime, please feel free to contact me. I will be traveling on Continental through Newark for my trip.

Northwest Virtual to Add Additional Airlines
Northwest Virtual will add the operations of Big Sky Airlines and Pacific Island Aviation to its operations later this month. Big Sky is owned by Mesaba Airlines, a Northwest Airlink carrier, and is based in Montana and operates within the state and region. Pacific Island Aviation flies under the Northwest banner within the Northern Mariana Islands.

Newark Fly-In Results
The results for the Newark Fly-In we hosted on August 30 were disappointing. Perhaps this was caused by the Labor Day Weekend holiday in the U.S., but there was still not much participation among European pilots either. We're looking into how we can improve future fly-ins, but it looks like we'll discontinue fly-ins once more until further notice. Here are the reasons why:

• Decreasing attendance: our fly-ins have had registered pilot turnout decreasing (18, 11, 7, and 13), and not all of the registered pilots even attended the latest event (5 of 13 for this one).
• Not enough attendance: last year's survey results suggested that we would have about 35% of our pilots in attendance for fly-ins. That has been far from true.

Concorde Virtual Fully Operational
All the scheduled routes of the Concorde have now been added to Concorde Virtual, including the codeshare routes with Braniff and Singapore Airlines. These schedules have been created using the actual schedules of Concorde throughout its life, and were compiled and presented in a format deemed most suitable and representative of the operations we offer.

More Management Needed
SimAirline.net continues to need more management staff, currently hiring for the following positions: Aircraft Developer - U.S. and Sabena Fleet Manager. The time committment is comparable to that of flying our flights. If you are interested, please go here. Without additional staff to fill our existing needs, we are unable to expand our operations further.

Terminal Maps Now Available
Terminal maps for many of our major destinations are now available through the Downloads section. I encourage you to visit this section of our website to ensure that you're using the correct gates in your flights for the most realism. Not all terminal maps listed are available at this time, but they will gradually be added over the next few months.

Codeshare Agreements
As you may know, both Sabena Virtual and Swissair Virtual currently have a codeshare agreement with El Al - A Virtual Airline. Sabena codeshares with El Al on flights between Tel Aviv and Brussels, and Swissair on flights between Tel Aviv and both Geneva and Zurich. We're currently working to expand our partnership base and offer additional codeshare flights with additional virtual airlines, as well as expanding our relationship with El Al. We expect this process to take place over the next few months.

Minor Rebranding for Virgin
If you've visited the Virgin International Airways site recently, you'll notice we have rebranded the virtual airline slightly. The previous font used for the title banner is used by Virgin Atlantic as a secondary font, but we decided that it was more appropriate to switch to the primary font used by all the Virgin airlines on their aircraft and logos.

Northwest Rebranding
As you may know, Northwest Airlines unveiled its new livery a few months ago. We're unsure of how to incorporate their new colors and logo into our website at this time, since only one version of their logo is currently available. Therefore, Northwest Virtual's website will remain unchanged for several more months until we can create a strong new look for the virtual airline that still retains the best elements of the old.

KLM Cargo Timetables
We are searching for timetables for KLM Cargo's 747-400ER operations so we can add their operations to KLM Virtual, but are unable to find them, even on the KLM Cargo website. If you know where online we could find these, please let me know.

Photo Challenges
I've created several photo challenges for SimAirline.net and most of our virtual airlines for pilots to take part in while I'm moving. Check them out in our Message Boards.

Management Email Changes
In order to present a more professional and organized appearance, our management staff is gradually changing their email addresses to ones hosted by SimAirline.net. These email addresses are only for management.

I apologize for the length of this month's letter, but there's much to report on. I hope you enjoy and look forward to the changes that are taking place at SimAirline.net. Please feel free to contact me with your thoughts or ideas on them. I look forward to reviewing your PIREPs and hearing from you.

Aaron Robinson
aaron.robinson@simairline.net
AOL Instant Messenger: SimAirlineNet