March 2023 VA Update
Hello Pilots,
This month's news update will highlight some updates to the website.
Website News
The forum has been discontinued and may now be found in our Discord server. For tour suggestions, or longer format discussions we encourage you to use the forum functionality. If you haven't joined Discord yet, use discord.gg/PU5gMJ7 to join. The flight briefing page will now show the airline call sign for reference, we are working on improving the accuracy of the displayed callsigns to take subsidiaries into account. Further airports have received gate information to further improve the information on the flight briefing page.
Tour updates
Due to scheduling changes for a number of airlines, we will be reworking some tours. While this is happening, some tours might not be completable due to missing routes. In the next few weeks, we will be discontinuing the existing tours and creating replacement tours. For some tours, we might discontinue the existing tour before the new tour is available, but we do aim to rework all tours before the end of the month.
The monthly tour takes you across the Middle East. If you have any suggestions on tours you would like to see please let us know on Discord.
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 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.
Airline News
Several shifts and mergers are expected throughout the year, though as ever timeframes appear somewhat loose. We will do our best to follow real-world shifts in the aviation industry as they may occur, though none of the following news is final. Both the IAG group and Air France-KLM have expressed interest in a (partial) takeover of TAP Air Portugal. The IAG group has again offered to take a controlling stake in Air Europa. Multiple airlines including the Avianca group, LATAM group, JetSMART, Wingo and Aerolíneas Argentinas have all expressed interest in taking over VIVA Air Colombia.
Broadly we can gather there is interest in consolidation throughout the industry and we will continue following these developments.
Closing words
As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know. If you would be interested in helping improve the VA do not hesitate to send an application to join the volunteer staff team using the support ticket system.
We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/PU5gMJ7.