1 February 2004
To All Of Our Pilots,

We fell short of only one of our monthly goals for January, but the PIREP ratio was the most difficult to achieve. We did, however, set new highs for Flight Hours, Total Pilots, Applications, Flying Pilots, and PIREPs. Also setting highs were Alaska, Delta, KLM, and Northwest. Hopefully this month we can reach our goals and add Air Tahiti Nui, our thirteenth virtual airline, to SimAirline.net.

Pacific Blue Begins Operations
Pacific Blue, the international arm of Virgin Blue, began operations late last month between Australia and New Zealand. Further New Zealand flights will be added in March, with service from Australia to other Pacific destinations scheduled for later this year.

Pilot Manual Change
As announced last month, effective February 1, pilots will no longer be allowed to make aircraft substitutions on routes. This is to prevent any judgment being required on whether a substitution should be accepted. Previously, judgment was required, while the current system allows for no confusion over what is acceptable.

Alaska Website Change
Alaska Airlines has requested that we remove their logos from our website, so expect to see a few design changes to the Alaska Airlines Virtual website this month.

Monthly Goals - Correct PIREPs
As expected, the most difficult of the monthly goals we set was for pilots to file correct PIREPs 10 times more often than incorrect ones. As a result, I'm giving examples of some of the incorrect PIREPs of the last month, and how these mistakes can be avoided in the future.

Washington Dulles Fly-In Results
Seventeen pilots registered for January's fly-in at Washington Dulles, but only six attended. As a result, we have been forced to cancel this month's fly-in at Boston. Our next one will be on March 20 at Paris de Gaulle. If twenty pilots do not attend that fly-in, we will have to cancel fly-ins for the remainder of the year. We are currently organizing a Concorde Fly-in with VATSIM for the general public. Information on this event will be available soon.

Fleet Pages Redesigned
Visitors to our Alaska, Continental, Delta, Hawaiian, and Midway fleet sections will notice that they have been redesigned to include information about aircraft compatibility with different simulator versions. All of our virtual airlines' fleet pages will eventually include this information.

Local Meetings Cancelled
Although pilots indicated interest in local meetings in the survey, there has not been any positive feedback to this concept when it came time for someone to step forward to organize such events. As a result, we have had to cancel this concept once more.

Discontinued Routes Added
We have been adding one new discontinued route per day to our virtual airlines, and they have been successful so far. We still have over 300 routes to add, so making all of these routes available will be a long process.

Internship Help Requested
I am currently looking into summer internships with various U.S. airlines. If you know of any personal contacts that could assist me in obtaining an internship position, please let me know.

As always, your feedback on our operations is welcome and appreciated. With your help and continued commitment, we can proceed with our latest phase of expansion.

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