Public testing opens to pilots. Trip for Pay replaces Flight Experience Points, Reserve becomes a full activity status, and airline groups get per-sub-airline fleets and branding.
What's new
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Trip for Pay
Trip for Pay (TFP) replaces Flight Experience Points as the measure of flying that ranks can require. A flight up to a standard trip length, 243 nm by default, earns 1 TFP, and every further stretch, 40 nm by default, adds 0.1. Airlines can tune both and give the currency their own name. A flight with no recorded distance earns nothing. TFP is kept separate from PIREP score and SkyMiles, so the per-mile rate and the long-flight and quality bonuses from 0.7.0 are gone. Totals are worked out from every flight a pilot has flown, so pilots' totals are recalculated under the new rules.
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Sub-Airline Fleets And Branding
An airline group flying under several callsigns, such as Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian under one airline, can now give each sub-airline its own fleet and branding. Each aircraft can be assigned to a sub-airline on the Aircraft screen, or left shared for all of them. Sub-airline fleet enforcement in Airline Settings decides what that means: Advisory lists a route's own aircraft first and marks another sub-airline's, while Strict only offers the route's own and shared aircraft, on the website and in Connect alike. Each sub-airline can also have its own logo and accent colour, shown on the timetable, bookings, live map, logbook, PIREPs and Discord flight cards, and sent to Connect. Airlines with a single callsign see no change.
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Points And Trip For Pay By Flight Type
Repositioning, charter, training and jumpseat flights now earn a set share of a normal flight's points and Trip for Pay, instead of either all or nothing. By default repositioning earns 25%, charter 75%, training the full amount and jumpseat 10%, so jumpseating cannot stand in for real flying when ranking up. Each is a multiplier in Airline Settings. Existing airlines were moved onto the repositioning and charter defaults; training keeps whatever each airline had.
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Modern And Historical Aircraft
An aircraft type can now be marked Historical. When a route's fleet holds both, the booking window lets pilots switch between Modern, Historical and All, and narrow it to one type with a count of airframes, before picking from a searchable list.
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Open Pilot Registration
vAOMS is moving to public testing. Pilots can now create their own account and join airlines without an invite, including by signing in with VATSIM, IVAO or Discord for the first time. New airlines still apply and are approved by vAOMS staff before they are set up.
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New Airlines On Discord
The vAOMS Discord can now announce each new airline as it is created, and each airline application as it joins the waitlist, in a channel chosen in Aegis.
What's improved
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Reserve Status
Reserve is now a full activity status rather than only an opt-out from the guarantee. Airlines offer it to pilots who have reached a minimum rank, set up under Activity Settings, and pilots move between Active and Reserve themselves from their profile settings. A Reserve pilot is held to their own activity requirement over a rolling period instead of the normal one, and earns a share of the TFP for each flight, 75% by default. A pilot returning to Active can be asked to fly a set number of flights before going back to Reserve, and an airline can choose to move an Active pilot who falls short of the activity requirement onto Reserve instead of starting a grace period.
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Guaranteed Trip for Pay
The monthly guarantee now works in Trip for Pay, and only a pilot who was Active for the whole month qualifies, so any time on Reserve rules that month out.
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SOP Speed Checks Use Indicated Airspeed
The speed restriction and stabilised approach checks now use indicated airspeed when Connect reports it, falling back to groundspeed for older clients, so a compliant flight on a windy descent is no longer flagged. The speed restriction rule also gains a Speed Tolerance, 15 kt by default, and an Altitude Buffer, 100 ft by default: a 250 kt limit now only triggers above 265 kt, and levelling off at 10,000 ft is not flagged.
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Focus Airport Awards
Flying to or from a focus airport inside its activity window now records the pilot as a participant, so awards tied to that activity are actually granted. A focus airport activity can create its own award with Award on Completion.
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Notifications
The notification bell now shows a new alert as a toast the moment it arrives, and notifications can be dismissed one at a time or all cleared at once.
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Applying For An Airline
The airline application now asks for a password on the form, instead of mailing a reset link that expired after an hour and could leave a new owner unable to sign in. An applicant whose email already has an account is sent to sign in first and brought back, and one already signed in with the invited email no longer needs to open the invite link in the same browser.
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Choosing An Airline
Choosing, joining and checking the status of an airline now happens on a redesigned airline picker with each airline's logo, and Switch Airline is in the account menu everywhere, Helix and Aegis included.
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Large Imports Run In The Background
Committing a data import in Helix now runs in the background, with the page updating itself when it finishes, so an import of thousands of routes no longer fails partway through on a timeout.
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Clearer Form Errors
Several forms now say what went wrong instead of failing with a server error: the phpVMS migration page marks the field at fault, an invite with an expiry date in the past is refused up front, a closed exam attempt shows a message instead of a missing page, and two people claiming the same migrated account at once are told which of them got it.
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Spam Protection
Airline applications, pilot registration and changelog subscriptions are now limited per visitor, so a form cannot be submitted over and over.
What's fixed
- Signing in with VATSIM, IVAO or Discord could end in a server error when the sign-in link was opened twice or the session had expired. It now returns you to the sign-in page to try again.