SimAirline.net - Viewpoint

Pilot Roster System Opens
In April this year, we opened our long-planned Pilot Roster System, designed by Ali Abou-Zeid. Also instrumental in this process was our roster testing team: Kyle Bissell, Mark Hubbert, Brandon Jones, John Kay, Mike Lewis, Timothy Lincoln, Manuel Okolisan, Gabe Pfeiffer, Josh Plave, Aaron Shakin, and Andrew Vipond.

Two New VAs, CSA Codeshare
We opened two new virtual airlines in 2006: Thai and Pan American. In addition, we began a codeshare partnership with a CSA Czech-based virtual airline, with flights offered at Alitalia, Delta, KLM, and Korean Air.

Other Developments
Also this year, we released our first route maps, which now cover nearly all routes of SimAirline.net and have been invaluable to pilots in choosing their flights. In addition, we expanded our add-on recommendations by including sound packages, further adding to the realism of our pilots' flights. Finally, Nick Anderson and I designed an expanded logo, featuring the classic SimAirline.net logo backed by a winged globe. The origin? The U.S. Civil Aeronautics Authority, predecessor to the Civil Aeronautics Board. I thought it was especially appropriate, since the CAB was for four decades responsible for overseeing a balanced expansion of the U.S. airline industry, not much unlike what we have done for the last decade.

Around the World
-Air Berlin acquires dba and announces an order for 75 737s.
-Air Canada Jazz is forced out of Toronto Island Airport after it is bought by the parent company of startup Porter Airlines.
-Alaska affiliate Era Aviation closes its hub in Bethel.
-The Italian government announces its willingness to privatize Alitalia after one profitable year in its sixty-year history.
-ANA subsidiary Air Nippon retires its last YS-11, the most popular Japanese-built airliner to date.
-British Airways Citiexpress is rebranded in February as BA Connect before being sold to Flybe at the end of the year.
-Continental passes Northwest to become the fourth largest U.S. airline.
-Copa begins service to six new cities.
-Delta folds Song back into the mainline operation, but plans to incorporate many service offerings into its regular offerings.
-Emirates cancels its order for 10 A340-600s.
-Hawaiian expands its fleet by buying four 767-300s from Delta.
-Icelandair orders an additional two 787s.
-KLM orders the 777-300ER.
-Korean Air orders one 737-700, four 737-900ERs, and ten 777-300ERs with options for two 737-900ERs and four 777-300ERs.
-Northwest orders 36 CRJ-900s and 36 E-175s to be flown by its regional subsidiaries, including the to-be-formed Compass Airlines.
-South African joins Star Alliance.
-Thai moves into the new Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.
-Varig begins immense restructuring and ends up declaring bankruptcy.
-Virgin Atlantic releases a new livery.
-Virgin Blue orders 14 E-Jets to allow it to serve smaller Australian cities.

Next on our wish list is a number of enhancements from the 60 we had planned for the Roster System from the start but were just never able to implement:
-When correcting PIREPs, the original information would be automatically entered, so you'd only need to edit the field(s) needing it.
-Alternately, you'd be able to delete a returned PIREP yourself instead of contacting me.
-The return of the countdown script allowing you to see how much time is left to file PIREPs for the month.
-The ability to sort your logbook by any of the fields, or to toggle comments in your logbook on or off.
-How many PIREPs are ahead of yours in the queue?
-A printer-friendly version of your logbook.
-Individual route maps generated from the Great Circle Mapper.

And perhaps most fun improvement: live flight statistics.
-See the most popular flights, routes, aircraft, airlines, airports, etc.
-Who is the most active pilot?
-What are the most recently flown flights?
-What percentage of our flights are on time?

Iran's latest challenge to the rest of the world is on airlines' IFE systems. Airlines will be banned from overflying the country unless their IFE uses the term "Persian Gulf" rather than "the Gulf" or "Arabian Gulf" on its IFE moving maps. Aircraft found out of compliance with the requirement are threatened with impounding if not corrected within the next two weeks. The body of water separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula has historically been called the Persian Gulf, but most Arab countries refer to it as the Arabian Gulf.

South African Airways announced Siza Mzimela this week as its new CEO, replacing interim CEO Chris Smyth. She is currently the CEO of South African Express and had previously worked for the mainline. With the appointment, South African becomes the largest airline in the world to be led by a woman.

When Pan American Virtual opened, it was with the intention of basing the virtual airline on its most successful era, the 1960s. In Latitude at the time, I wrote:

Finding the exact time we wanted to set Pan American was not easy at first. We knew we wanted to offer classic aircraft not currently offered at SimAirline.net like the 707 and 727, but we also wanted to be sure to offer the DC-8. The airline started phasing out the DC-8 in late 1967, with all but one sold by 1970. 1967 also served our purposes very neatly in other respects: it was the first year the airline had an all-jet
fleet, was the final year of Panagra operations (Pan Am’s service to the West Coast of South America), was right between the airline’s most profitable years of 1966 and 1968, and finally, (long-time president) Juan Trippe had not yet retired.

However, I was immediately flooded with the same question over and over, "Where is the 747?" Pan Am launched the jet age in 1958 with 707s and launched the widebody era in 1970 with the 747. After a time, I agreed—the intent of including Pan Am was its lasting contributions to the airline industry; its final great contribution was surely the 747, even if that aircraft did help lead to its downfall. Unfortunately though, we were unable to have a Pan Am 747 repainted in the appropriate original livery (in 1973 Pan Am changed its logotype).

As I had a 1970 and 1973 timetable available in the research for Pan American Virtual, I had planned to include many routes, for example:
-New York JFK-London-Frankfurt-Middle East
-New York JFK-Paris Orly-Rome Fiumicino-Middle East
-New York JFK-San Juan
-Chicago O'Hare-London Heathrow-Frankfurt
-Los Angeles-Honolulu-Tokyo Haneda-Hong Kong Kai Tak-Bangkok Don Muang
-San Francisco-Los Angeles-London Heathrow-Paris Orly
-Washington Dulles-Boston-London Heathrow