July 2025 VA Update
Hello pilots,
In this month's news update we will some development updates, as well as some VA updates.
New booking experience
For the past few years, we have been working on an improved booking experience, that makes it easier to filter and book flights. This new booking experience is now nearly complete, and we are making the new experience available as a preview. You can opt-in to the new experience by using the Try the new booking experience button on the flight booking page:
After opting-in, you will be redirected to the new booking experience. All of the same filters are available, but filtering routes should feel a lot faster. In addition, we will now show which tours a specific route is part of, as well as the bonuses that are available for at least one of the aircraft on the route.
We are planning to fully switch over to the new booking experience in a few months, so please try the preview to ensure we flesh out any bugs. If you have any feedback or have found a bug, please let us know in Discord. If the new experience prevents you from booking a flight, you can also always switch back to the class booking page through the Switch back to the classic booking experience link.
New VAS ACARS release
Earlier this week, we have released a new version of VAS ACARS that restores compatibility with the iniBuilds A350 after the iniBuilds A350 v1.1.0 update. It also adds a new wizard that allows you to select a simulator connector on first start-up, rather than defaulting to FSUIPC. We hope this encourages more pilots to choose SimConnect, as this is generally more stable and allows us more freedom in adding aircraft compatibility through direct integrations with these add-ons. Please let us know if you experience any issues after upgrading to VAS ACARS v3.3.0.
Tour updates
We continue to work on updating our existing tours, and if you have tours that you would like to see do not hesitate to let us know!
The monthly tour crosses the Indian subcontinent and 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. We would recommend checking your route prior to departure especially if it crosses and known airspaces with known security warnings. A complete overview can be found here. If the great circle route of your flight crosses any airspace with known safety NOTAMs a notice is placed on your flight briefing page.
Please adhere to these closures when performing flights on the VA.
Event Updates
We are working on adding more events to our event calender. Please let us know via Discord what kind of events you would like to see! If you have other events on online platforms that you feel are a good match to include on the VA please let us know. To receive more frequent updates please subscribe to the Event Announcements notifications on our Discord server.
Closing words
As always if you have any suggestions or questions do not hesitate to let us know.
We would also like to remind you we have a Discord server. To join it, use discord.gg/5wMqZnpS2w.