1 August 2004
To All Of Our Pilots,

For the fourth straight month, we will open a new virtual airline, Alitalia Virtual, a valuable addition to our European and global network. This extended streak is a testament to the commitment that you've maintained in making us one of the leaders in the virtual airline community. With only three virtual airlines remaining from our 2004 Operations Plan, we have begun to make plans for 2005. Among the most ambitious of these plans is to operate a virtual airline focused on the passenger flights of the airports of Chicago (Meigs, Midway, O'Hare), an idea which is elaborated on here. We expect that following 2005, persistent growth will end with our reaching a total of 25 to 30 virtual airlines, but we will remain open to new opportunities in the future. Hopefully this growth will continue next month with our sixth new entry of the year, Korean Air Virtual.

Virgin America Officially Announced
Virgin International Airways will be opening a new division next year, based on Virgin America and their operations from San Francisco. As more details about the new airline are announced, we will share the information with you through the Virgin America section of our Virgin site. As a result of the new Virgin-branded airline, we modified our Virgin site slightly to a different format to allow for all of the airlines to be accessible without compromising the common design of our virtual airlines' websites.

Olympics Flights
Many pilots will undoubtedly be interested in flying flights to Athens over the next few weeks as the Summer Olympic Games take place. Delta and Virgin Express will offer additional flights to Athens; SimAirline.net's virtual airlines offer the following routes for pilots interested in flying to Athens for the Games:
Alitalia - Milan Linate, Milan Malpensa, and Rome
Delta - New York Kennedy
Emirates - Dubai through Athens
KLM - Amsterdam
Sabena - Brussels
Swissair - Geneva and Zurich
Virgin Atlantic - London Gatwick and London Heathrow
Virgin Express - Brussels

Round-The-World Flight Report
The unoffical Round the World Tour, consisting of 32 flights from each of our virtual airlines in a eastbound tour of the world. Twenty pilots participated in the event, and we are strongly considering making this an official and annual event in the future. Thanks go to the organizers of the event, Ali Abou-Zeid, Andrew Vipond, Brandon Jones, Glenn Hall, and Nicholas Harding.

Logo Contest Deadline Extended
Unfortunately, no viable entries for our Logo Contest were received, so we will extend the contest deadline to September 31.

Avsim Convention
The Avsim 2004 Convention and Exhibition will be in Denver September 17-19, and we would like to have a representative for SimAirline.net there. If you will be in attendance and are interested in acting as such, please contact me immediately.

Delta to Restore Heritage Widget
Delta has decided that it will alter its corporate image once more, but only slightly this time. The airline will revert to the widget in use during the 1997-2000 period. We will update our fleet to this new standard should such aircraft become available, but we will not go to extreme lengths to make the change.

Personal Travel
I will be on vacation during the period of August 25-September 11, so applications, emails, news, PIREPs, screenshots, and other functions on the site will not be updated until my return. Please be patient for roster updates and the potential announcement of a new virtual airline following my return, as I will likely have several hundred PIREPs and emails to go through.

Our expansion so far this year has come as a result of your hard work in helping us achieve our goals. Thank you for continuing to work for SimAirline.net's future and for continuing to maintain our reputation as an innovator and leader in the virtual airline community.

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