Build your airline pilot career, from first hour to Senior Captain.
Career Mode turns your flying into a living career. Hire on with an airline, fly real-world schedules to log hours and earn weekly pay, then climb through the ranks and move up to the world's premium carriers. This guide walks you through every system — and links straight to the part you need.
Fly & Earn
Bid for your schedule, fly the legs, and bank an hourly wage paid out every Friday.
Climb the Ranks
Build total hours to rise from First Officer to Senior Captain — your rank follows you everywhere.
Land Better Jobs
Apply through the Job Center to move from regional feeders up to Tier 4 international airlines.
Play Anywhere
Your whole career syncs to the cloud — start on desktop, check in on mobile.
How Career Mode Works
Start as a First Officer at a small airline, fly schedules to log hours and earn weekly pay, then climb the ranks and move up to premium international carriers. Here's the whole loop.
- Choose an airline — pick a region, then a Tier 1 airline or a regional program to start your career.
- Bid for a schedule — rank the lines crew scheduling posts; seniority decides which one you're awarded.
- Fly your flights — log hours and earn an hourly wage for each completed leg.
- Get paid Friday — wages deposit automatically every Friday at 0600Z.
- Progress & advance — earn promotions at your airline, or apply to better airlines through the Job Center.
Everything syncs to the cloud. Start a flight on desktop, check your stats on mobile — your career follows you across devices automatically.
Use the menu on the left to jump to any topic, or the search box to find a specific rule instantly. New to the mode? Start with The Career Ladder to see the full path at a glance.
Your First Airline
When you start Career Mode you pick a region, then choose from the airlines based there.
Region Selector
Choose one of six regions — North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, or Oceania — to filter the available airlines.
- You can switch your region freely at any time — there's no lock.
- Your region choice syncs across your devices.
Two Kinds of Starter Job
Each region shows up to 10 starter positions — 6 Tier 1 airlines plus up to 4 regional programs:
- Tier 1 airlines — smaller carriers where you fly their primary fleet.
- Regional programs — major airlines (American, Delta, United…) that also run regional aircraft. You fly in the major's livery on their regional fleet, at Tier 1 pay.
Regional programs & flow-through: internal fleet upgrades aren't available — to reach the mainline you build hours and apply through the Job Center. But your parent airline knows you: their mainline jobs appear 75 hours earlier than normal (e.g. Tier 4 at 475h instead of 550h) as a purple "Flow-Through" card, with a +5% acceptance bonus.
The Career Ladder
Two things grow with your total career hours: the airline tiers you can apply to (left), and your rank, which sets your pay multiplier (right). Hours carry over when you change airlines.
"Eligible" means you can be hired, not that jobs are hidden. The Job Center shows every tier to everyone — but applying below a tier's hour minimum is declined automatically. See Job Center for how that works.
Airline Tiers
Every airline sits in one of four tiers. Higher tiers pay more and carry more prestige. The hour figure is the total career hours you need to be hired there.
Tier 1
0 hours · 36 airlinesAir Arabia, Air Corsica, Air Tahiti, AirAsia, AJet, Akasa Air, Arajet, Avelo Airlines, Azores Airlines, Bahamasair, Breeze, Caribbean Airlines, Cebu Pacific, Citilink, Flair Airlines, Flybondi, flydeal, HK Express, jetSMART, Jetstar, Kenya Airways, Loganair, Norwegian, Nouvelair, Pegasus Airlines, Ryanair, Scoot, Sky Airline, Sun Country, SunExpress, Tigerair Taiwan, VietJet Air, Viva, Volaris, Winair, Wizz
Tier 2
150+ hours · 36 airlinesAerolineas Argentinas, Aeromexico, Air Algerie, airBaltic, Air Canada Rouge, Air Caraibes, Air Europa, Air Mauritius, Air Transat, Allegiant, Azul, Brussels Airlines, Condor, Copa Airlines, Discover Airlines, easyJet, Eurowings, Fiji Airways, flydubai, Frontier, Garuda Indonesia, Gol, Hainan Airlines, Icelandair, IndiGo, Jet2, JetBlue, Royal Air Maroc, Sunclass Airlines, Transavia, Transavia France, TUI, Tunisair, Volotea, Vueling, WestJet
Tier 3
350+ hours · 25 airlinesAegean, Aer Lingus, AeroLogic, Alaska Airlines, Atlas Air, Avianca, Edelweiss, EgyptAir, Ethiopian, Finnair, French Bee, Hawaiian, ITA Airways, LATAM, LOT Polish Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Philippine Airlines, SAS, Saudia, South African Airways, Southwest, Starlux, TAP Air Portugal, Vietnam Airlines, Virgin Australia
Tier 4
550+ hours · 35 airlinesAir Canada, Air China, Air France, Air India, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, American Airlines, Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, Emirates SkyCargo, Etihad, EVA Air, FedEx, Iberia, Japan Airlines, KLM, Korean Air, Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines, UPS, Virgin Atlantic
Ranks & Pay
You hold one of four ranks, set by your total career hours. Rank applies a multiplier to your base hourly rate and carries over between airlines.
| Rank | Total Hours | Pay Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| First Officer (FO) | 0h | 1.0× |
| Senior First Officer | 150h | 1.25× |
| Captain | 400h | 1.55× |
| Senior Captain | 750h | 1.85× |
Every pilot starts as a First Officer — there is no trainee or probationary grade below it. From your very first flight you hold the rank, the 1.0× pay and the two stripes that go with it.
Stripes climb with rank, the way they do on a real flight deck:
- First Officer — 2 stripes
- Senior First Officer — 3 stripes
- Captain — 4 stripes
- Senior Captain — 4 stripes and a star
One exception: if you join an airline on an aircraft type you're not rated for (sponsored training), you start as First Officer regardless of hours. Build hours on that type and internal promotions advance you normally. Promotions at your current airline are competitive, seniority-based opportunities — see Promotions.
You can be hired directly as a Captain — but not as a Senior Captain. New airlines will bring you in at up to Captain as a direct-entry hire once you meet the hours. Senior Captain is the one rank that can't be hired into: you earn it through an internal promotion at your current airline, and then it carries with you everywhere.
Seniority
Each airline ranks its pilots with a hybrid seniority score built from your standing among your colleagues — 35% from where your tenure places you, 65% from where your hours place you. It's your position relative to the other pilots that counts, not the raw totals.
- Shown as "#X of Y pilots" on your employment card.
- Higher seniority means better approval odds for promotions, cross-training, base transfers, and renewals.
- Seniority — along with safety strikes and sick days — resets when you change airlines. You start fresh.
- The airline leaderboard shows the top 10 pilots by seniority score — not purely by hours. Because it blends tenure with hours, a long-serving pilot can rank above someone who has flown more, and the tenure and hours shown beside each pilot won't add up to the order on their own.
- Stay active. Pilots who don't fly enough for their airline are marked inactive (an "I" badge) and drop below every active pilot in seniority — no matter how much tenure or how many hours they have. Being inactive also lowers your approval odds for promotions, cross-training, and transfers.
How the "I" works: you stay active by completing at least 2 flights for your airline in the last 30 days. Let that slip and you're flagged inactive. To clear the flag you need two flights, not one — a single flight after a long break won't lift it (otherwise you'd just lapse again). Newly hired pilots get a grace period and are never flagged.
Schedule Bidding
Your flying comes from a bid, the way it does at a real airline. Crew scheduling posts a packet of candidate lines, you rank them best to worst, and your seniority, rank and reputation decide which one you're awarded.
1. Set your request
Choose how much flying you want this bid — short, standard or long — and optionally a minimum and maximum flight length. Both are final once the lines are posted.
2. Read the lines
Up to five lines are posted, each with its legs, block time, distance and estimated pay.
3. Rank them
Tap the cards to order them 1 to 5. Your odds for each position are shown before you submit.
4. Get awarded
Crew scheduling awards one line and tells you why. Accept it and the flights land in your schedule.
You are always awarded a line. Losing a bid never means flying nothing — it means you got your #2 or #3 choice instead of your #1. Bidding changes which schedule you fly, never whether you fly.
Length Bands
Pick the band that fits the time you have. Leg counts vary within a band — a "standard" packet might post a 2-leg turn next to a 4-leg day, and choosing between them is part of the bid.
| Band | Legs | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Short | 1–2 | A single sector or a quick turn — one sitting. |
| Standard | 2–4 | A normal duty day. The default choice. |
| Long | 4–8 | A multi-day trip to bank hours across several sessions. |
Choose carefully — you can't go back. Your band and flight-length window lock the moment the lines are posted. You can't change them and draw again, refreshing the page won't produce new lines, and there is no redraw button. The packet you were given is the packet you bid on. Pick what matches the time you actually have before you request it.
Today's Lines
Bid packets run on a daily cycle. The lines you're posted are today's lines, and a fresh packet goes up every day at 0000Z. If nothing in today's packet suits you, you can wait for tomorrow's — but that means not flying today. It's the same trade a real pilot makes looking at open time: today's options are today's options.
Once you've been awarded a line, it's yours. An award doesn't expire overnight — it waits for you to accept it, however long that takes. Only the un-bid packet resets at 0000Z.
Flight Length Window
Optional, and set at the same time as your band. The band decides how many flights are in a line; this decides how long each one can be — a "Short" line could otherwise be a 40-minute hop or a 13-hour haul. Set a minimum, a maximum, both, or neither.
It applies to each flight, not the whole line. A 2–4h window on a Standard band means every flight in the line is 2–4 hours, so a four-leg line is still a long day. And if your airline doesn't have enough routes to fill five lines inside your window, the rest of the packet is filled from outside it and each of those lines is clearly labelled — you'll never be quietly given something you didn't ask for.
Reading Your Odds
The bar chart on the bid page shows your own five choices — not five other pilots. Each bar is the chance you're awarded the line you put in that position:
| Bar | Means |
|---|---|
| #1 — 62% | A 62% chance you're awarded the line you ranked first. |
| #2 — 21% | A 21% chance you're awarded your second choice instead. |
| #5 — 3% | A 3% chance it falls all the way to your last choice. |
The bars always add up to 100%, because you're guaranteed exactly one of the five. You never see another pilot's odds, and the bid is never a head-to-head against named pilots — your seniority enters only as your position within your pool.
What Moves Your Odds
Four things set the number on your #1 bar:
- Seniority — by far the biggest factor. This is what your time at the airline buys you, and a single bad flight can't undo it. See Seniority.
- Rank — a Senior Captain outbids a First Officer, but only by a little.
- Reputation — a small push either way. Clean records bid slightly better; At Risk bids slightly worse.
- Nobody is guaranteed. The most senior captain on the property can still miss their #1, and the newest hire always has a real shot at theirs.
You bid against comparable pilots. Pilots whose hours are logged by the app bid against each other, and pilots who mostly log flights manually bid in their own pool — unverified hours can't buy bid priority. The bid page tells you which pool ranked you. Inactive pilots (the "I" flag) drop below every active pilot in either pool.
Away from base? If your last line left you at another airport, every candidate in your next packet starts from where you are and gets you home. You'll never be posted a line you can't fly from where you're parked.
When you can bid: with 1 or fewer uncompleted flights left — fly off the line you're holding first. You also can't bid while grounded by fatigue or while on vacation.
Aircraft & Type Ratings
Type ratings are earned per aircraft family, not per variant — one "A320 Family" rating covers the A319, A320, A321 and their neo versions. Bigger aircraft pay more per hour.
| Category | Examples | Base Pay |
|---|---|---|
| Regional | ATR, CRJ, Embraer, Dash 8 | $78–105/hr |
| Narrowbody | A220, A320 Family, B737 Family, B757 | $110–215/hr |
| Widebody | A330, A350, B777, B787 | $230–420/hr |
Three Ways to Get a Type Rating
Your starter airline gives you one free rating for their primary aircraft. After that:
1. Airline-Sponsored
- Free training when a job needs a rating you lack
- Contract extended 35–45%
- Training bond if you leave early
- No +10% acceptance bonus
2. Self-Funded
- $10k–$60k via Career Development
- 12 options at a time, rotating
- 12–24h to complete
- No bond, no extension, +10% acceptance bonus
3. Co-Sponsored
- Airline covers 40% (you pay 60%)
- For aircraft already in their fleet
- Contract extended 35–45%
- Training bond applies
Training Bond Scale
Leaving an airline that sponsored your training before the contract ends costs you part of the training cost back:
| Contract Progress | You Owe |
|---|---|
| 0–50% | 100% of training cost |
| 50–85% | 50% of training cost |
| 85–100% (buyout window) | 25% of training cost |
| Contract complete | Nothing — bond cleared |
Training can't be cancelled once started — be sure you want the rating before you buy.
Tip: self-funding a rating before you apply gives a shorter contract, no bond, and +10% acceptance. Holding a widebody rating also makes widebody jobs appear more often on your board.
Aircraft Violations
Flying an aircraft outside your scheduled type's family is logged as an Aircraft Violation. These are separate from safety strikes and stack — the more you collect, the harder progression gets.
Allowed — same family
Schedule shows A321neo? Flying an A321, A320 or A319 is fine — all A320 family.
Violation — different family
Schedule shows E190? Flying a B737 or A320 is a violation. A B777 and B787 are different families too.
Penalty Per Violation (cumulative)
| System | Base Chance | Per Violation |
|---|---|---|
| Ferry Flights | 30% | −3% |
| Premium Open Time | 40% | −3% |
| Job Applications | 70% | −4% |
| Promotions (approval) | Seniority-based | −5% |
What the Penalty Actually Touches
Every number above is a success-chance modifier — it lowers the odds of a favourable roll, measured in percentage points (not a multiplier). A violation never costs you money or cuts your pay; it only makes good outcomes rarer. Violations stack across all four systems at once, so a single bad month makes everything below harder at the same time:
- Ferry Flights & Premium Open Time — the base chance is how often the offer even appears. Each violation makes these bonus-flying opportunities surface less often.
- Job Applications — the 70% is the chance an application is accepted. Each violation raises your rejection rate at the Job Center.
- Promotions — the seniority-based figure is your internal approval roll. Each violation makes a promotion more likely to be declined (approval never drops below 5%).
Example — 3 active violations: Ferry 30% → 21%, Premium Open Time 40% → 31%, Job acceptance 70% → 58%, and your promotion approval drops a full 15 points. Nothing else about the flight changes — only the odds.
Violations reset on the 1st of each month. Unlike safety strikes, there's no shop item to clear them early — just fly the right family and wait for the reset. Always check the required family before you dispatch.
Reputation
Your Reputation is your professional standing — a single reading of how much airlines trust you, shown as a labelled bar in the sidebar of your career page. It runs from Excellent down to At Risk. The cleaner you fly, the more doors stay open.
What Moves It
Three things drag your standing down:
- Aircraft violations — flying outside your scheduled family. They reset on the 1st of each month (see Aircraft Violations).
- Safety strikes — unsafe landings and other safety busts. These weigh a little heavier than violations, and can be cleared early with a Safety Course in the Pilot Shop (see Flight Safety).
- Missed open-time assignments — accepting a Premium Open Time trip and letting its 48–72h fly-by window lapse. The lightest of the three, but it stays on your record.
A spotless record sits at Excellent. Each violation or strike chips away at your standing; clear them — or wait for the monthly reset — and it recovers on its own.
The Standing Ladder
| Standing | What it means |
|---|---|
| Excellent | Clean record — every opportunity appears at full strength. |
| Good | A minor blemish or two — barely noticeable. |
| Fair | Building up — offers and approvals are noticeably rarer. |
| Poor | A real drag — bonus flying and internal moves dry up. |
| At Risk | Rock bottom — the best opportunities all but disappear. |
What It Affects
Standing is the umbrella over the individual penalties elsewhere in this guide. A weaker reputation means:
- Job applications are rejected more often, and promotions are declined more often.
- Ferry and Premium Open Time offers surface less often.
- Fleet Openings — the airline-initiated seat offers — scale directly with reputation: at Excellent you see them at full odds, and that ceiling shrinks with every violation and strike (see Promotions & Internal).
Reputation is shown as a label, not a number — airlines judge you on the impression you give, not a public score. Keep it high and the game quietly hands you more, and better, opportunities.
Job Center
The Job Center is a directory of every airline, listed alphabetically. You browse to a carrier and see what it's advertising right now — there's no single list of all jobs. Every tier and every rank is visible to everyone: nothing is hidden by your hours, and eligibility is enforced when you apply, not by hiding jobs.
Finding a Job
- Every airline is browsable — search by name, aircraft or base, or filter by tier, region, and Hiring now. Each card shows the carrier's tier, fleet size, base count, pilot roster, and how many openings it has.
- Click an airline for its own page: roster size, fleet types, bases, network destinations and entry pay, plus a per-aircraft breakdown of how many destinations each base reaches — then its current openings underneath.
- Your own airline never advertises to you. Internal moves — promotions, fleet changes, base transfers — live on your career dashboard instead. The one exception is a flow-through, which appears on your parent airline's page.
How Listings Work
- Each airline runs its own openings — between 1 and 6 at a time, scaled by how big the carrier actually is (fleet types, number of bases, tier). A global major advertises several seats at once; a single-base operator posts one, rarely.
- Each posting stays up 4–7 days, then expires. A posting never changes while it's up — same airline, aircraft, base, and rank for its whole life.
- Openings come and go — and airlines go quiet. When a posting expires that slot sits empty for anywhere from 12 hours to 10 days before the airline advertises again. An airline showing No openings today may well be hiring next week, so the carrier you want is worth checking back on.
- An airline's openings are kept distinct from each other — different aircraft type where it flies more than one, otherwise a different base or a different rank.
- Every rank is on the board — First Officer through Senior Captain. The rank belongs to the posting, not you: lower tiers skew junior, top tiers skew senior, but any rank can appear anywhere.
- You see senior seats, but you earn them. A posting's hour requirement is the higher of its airline-tier minimum and its rank floor (FO 0h · SFO 150h · CPT 400h · SR CPT 750h). A Senior Captain seat at a regional still needs 750h — applying under-qualified is declined instantly.
- Captain seats are open to direct entry — Senior Captain is not. You can be hired straight into a Captain's seat at a new airline once you meet the hours, just like real-world direct-entry Captain hiring. Senior Captain, though, is earned only by internal promotion: those postings stay visible (marked "Requires Senior Captain rank"), but applying for one without already holding the rank is declined on the spot. Make Senior Captain at your current airline first, and it carries with you.
- Widebody postings are visible from day one — they're no longer held back until 250 hours. Like every other posting above your level, you can see it and apply, and you'll be turned down if you don't meet its hours.
- Regional-jet seats are Regional roles. A regional jet (CRJ, E-Jets…) is listed as a Regional position — regional hours (50h) and regional pay — even when it's flown by a Tier 3/4 mainline. You'll see it as a regional job in that airline's livery, like a major's feeder.
- To apply you need 50+ total hours while under an active contract — waived once your contract expires (free status), so you can switch immediately.
- Jobs needing a rating you lack show a "Training Provided" badge; the contract is extended 35–45% and you start as First Officer.
One application at a time. After you apply, wait 15 minutes to 2 hours for a decision — you can't apply elsewhere while one is pending.
Don't fly while an application is pending — completing a flight mid-decision can interfere with hiring. Wait for the result first.
What Affects Your Chances
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Base acceptance rate | 70% |
| Flight experience | +1% per 25 total hours (max +20%) |
| Same-tier airline | +10% |
| Moving up tiers | −10% per tier jumped |
| Already hold the type rating | +10% (not applied if airline provides training) |
| Each aircraft violation | −4% |
Rejected? No penalty — apply again immediately. To improve odds: build hours, target a same-tier airline, get the type rating first, and avoid aircraft violations (each one cuts acceptance by 4%).
Contracts
Every hire — your first airline, an external move, or a renewal — lets you pick from three contract tiers. Longer commitments pay a higher hourly rate and a bigger signing bonus, but raise the maximum early-exit fee.
| ★ Novice | ★★ Intermediate | ★★★ Professional | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length | 14–21 days | 21–28 days | 29–36 days |
| Rate multiplier | ×1.00 | ×1.08 | ×1.15 |
| Bonus — Reg | — | $200 | $500 |
| Bonus — NB | — | $400 | $800 |
| Bonus — WB | — | $750 | $1,000 |
| Max buyout fee | $5,000 | $5,000 + 50% of bonus | $5,000 + 50% of bonus |
The rate multiplier is permanent for as long as you stay at that airline, and the signing bonus is credited the moment you're hired.
Time-Off Benefits
Every contract also grants monthly sick days and vacation days, scaled by the airline's tier (regional programs count as Tier 1). Each listing shows the exact number that seat grants (chosen within the tier's range below); it's locked in when you sign and refreshes on the 1st of each month. Sick day = drop a scheduled flight into the Open Time pool penalty-free. Vacation day = instantly reset fatigue to 0% from the Fatigue panel.
| Airline Tier | Sick Days / mo | Vacation Days / mo |
|---|---|---|
| Regional / Tier 1 | 2–3 | 1–2 |
| Tier 2 | 3–4 | 2–3 |
| Tier 3 | 4–5 | 3–4 |
| Tier 4 | 5–6 | 4–5 |
Contract Phases
| Phase | When | Apply elsewhere? |
|---|---|---|
| Locked | First ~75% of contract | No |
| Early Exit | Last ~25% of contract | Yes — pay a buyout fee. It starts at the maximum when the window opens and scales down daily (as low as ~$300 near the end). Intermediate/Professional add 50% of the signing bonus; a training bond also applies if your rating was sponsored. The exact fee is shown before you confirm. |
| Free | After the contract ends | Yes — no fee |
All scheduled flights are cleared when you change airlines or relocate.
Business Aviation
Business jet operators sit alongside the airlines in the Job Center. You're hired the same way — browse the board, apply, sign a contract, and climb the same rank ladder. What changes is the flying itself.
No Home Base
This is the defining difference. Business jets fly on demand, so these operators have no bases at all — the job listing shows your base as Global rather than an airport code.
- No base relocation. The relocation panel is hidden — there's nothing to transfer between, and nothing to pay for.
- You start where you finished. Your next line is built from wherever your last flight left you, instead of from a fixed hub.
- No return leg required. Airline lines can oblige you to end back at base; here they never do.
- Destination counts are network-wide. A listing's destination total covers everywhere that fleet flies, not spokes from one airport.
The Fleet
Business jets are grouped into families. Each operator only posts openings on the families it actually flies, so the board varies from one to the next.
| Family | Types | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Citation | C25B, C56X, C680, C68A, C700, C750 | Light |
| Phenom | E55P, E545, E550 | Light |
| Learjet | LJ60, LJ75, E35L | Light |
| Challenger | CL30, CL35, CL60 | Heavy |
| Gulfstream | GLF4, GLF5, GLF6, GA5C, GA7C | Heavy |
| Global | GLEX, GL5T, GL7T | Heavy |
Type ratings for business jets are priced in the NB band, so training costs and sponsorship bonds match a narrowbody rating.
Pay
Business aviation pays a premium over the airline scale for a comparable airframe — the trade is short-notice flying and no fixed roster. The bonus rides on top of your normal rate, so contract tier, rank and tenure all still apply.
| Class | Families | Pay bonus |
|---|---|---|
| Light | Citation, Phenom, Learjet | +10% |
| Heavy | Challenger, Gulfstream, Global | +25% |
Moving up from a light jet to a Challenger, Gulfstream or Global is a real raise on top of any promotion — worth planning your type ratings around.
Far More Open Time
On-demand operators need crews at short notice, so Premium Open Time comes up far more often on a business jet contract — a 75% chance per day instead of the usual 40%. Everything else about Open Time is unchanged: the same 16–20 hour window to accept, the same 1.25×–2.0× multipliers, and the same fly-by deadline once you take it.
More offers means more chances to miss one. An accepted Open Time flight you don't fly in time is still removed and logged as a missed assignment against your reputation.
Promotions & Internal Jobs
Promotions
Once you reach the airline-hour threshold for your next rank, promotions appear as competitive, slot-based opportunities — purple "Promotion" cards in Internal Opportunities.
- Cards appear randomly and last 1–2 days (≈30–40% chance once eligible).
- Each shows the new rank, pay increase, assigned base, and route counts.
- Apply and wait 15 minutes to 2 hours for a decision.
- Approval is seniority-based: ~95% for the most senior pilot down to ~20% for the newest hire.
- If approved, your rank, base, and pay update and your schedule is cleared. If denied, no penalty — wait for the next one.
Internal Jobs (Free Cross-Training)
Your airline may offer to train you on a new aircraft family in their fleet — free. Look for amber "Internal Job" cards.
- Requires: 50+ airline hours and an aircraft family you're not yet rated on.
- Apply as the offered rank, wait 15 minutes to 2 hours; approval uses the same seniority scale (~20–95%).
- If approved: instant type rating and the new aircraft added to your qualifications.
The trade-off: training is free but your contract is extended 35–45%, a training bond applies, and your next 4–6 flights take a 30–40% pay cut to recover the airline's cost.
Fleet Openings (Already-Rated Seats)
Your airline may come to you with a seat on a fleet you're already type-rated on — a "Fleet Opening" card in Internal Opportunities. No training, no bond, no pay cut, and no seniority gamble: because the airline is offering, accepting is auto-approved and you move onto the aircraft, base, and pay for that seat immediately.
- Requires: at least 7 days at the airline, plus a fleet family your airline operates that you already hold a rating on and aren't currently flying.
- Offered rank depends on your logged hours on that aircraft family — Captain (400h+), Senior First Officer (150h+), otherwise First Officer, chosen at random from what you qualify for. It never hands you Senior Captain automatically.
- How often: deliberately rare — even a spotless pilot has only about a 20% chance per cycle of seeing one, and that ceiling shrinks with your reputation (each aircraft violation or safety strike lowers it).
- Accepting clears your current schedule and switches you onto the new aircraft.
You can only have one pending application at a time — a promotion blocks internal/external applications and vice versa. Plan ahead.
Base Relocation
Request a transfer to a different hub at your current airline.
- Any base at your airline can be requested.
- Approval: starts around 50% and shifts with your standing — higher seniority raises it (up to +35%), while each safety strike (−12%) and aircraft violation (−4%) lowers it. Never below 8% or above 92%.
- Fee: $5,000, charged only if approved.
- Cooldown: 7 days after any request, approved or denied.
- Decision: 15 minutes to 2 hours.
Free Internal Transfer Offers
Occasionally your airline offers a free base transfer (blue card in Internal Opportunities):
- Eligible after 7 days at your airline.
- No cost, your hourly rate stays the same, and it bypasses the 7-day cooldown.
Renewal & New Assignments
When your contract expires and you enter free status, your airline may try to keep you. Two offers can appear in Internal Opportunities — they only show while you're free.
Contract Renewal
An emerald green card offering another term with a permanent pay raise and a cash signing bonus. You again pick a Novice / Intermediate / Professional tier (same multipliers and bonuses as a new hire), on top of the raise.
- Permanent raise — base 3–5%, adjusted by seniority (up to +3%), loyalty (+0.5% per past renewal here, max +2%), and safety strikes (−1.5% each). Always lands between 1–10%, rounded to the nearest $5. It compounds every renewal.
- Signing bonus — scales with aircraft tier, rank, seniority (up to +25%), and loyalty (+10% per past renewal, max +30%); −15% per safety strike.
- Offer window: 72–120 hours. Declining keeps you free with no penalty; leaving for another airline resets your loyalty (renewal count) to zero.
New Assignment Offers
A teal card offering a fresh contract at a different base of your airline, on the same aircraft you already fly. It appears only when your airline has another base available to you.
- 60% chance per contract expiry.
- Same aircraft, new base — no retraining and no pay cut.
- Pay is your current rate or higher — never a step down — plus a signing bonus based on your aircraft tier. Fresh 14–21 day Novice contract; 72–120 hour offer window.
- Accepting is instant (no confirmation dialog). "No Thanks" clears it and keeps you free.
Finances & Pay
You earn an hourly wage for each completed flight. Your pay is built from:
- Aircraft category — base rate (Regional < Narrowbody < Widebody).
- Airline tier — higher tiers pay more.
- Rank multiplier — 1.0× / 1.25× / 1.55× / 1.85×.
- Tenure bonus — +2% per 50 hours at your airline (max +30%).
- Contract tier multiplier — ×1.00 / ×1.08 / ×1.15, set when you signed.
Example Flight Pay
Weekly Payday
Earnings accumulate through the week and deposit automatically every Friday at 0600Z. "Earned" figures show deposited pay only — not the pending amount waiting for Friday.
What You Spend On
- Type-rating training ($10k–$60k)
- Base relocation ($5,000 if approved)
- Contract buyout ($5,000 base max for Novice; up to ~$5,500 for a Professional Widebody pilot — scales down daily, plus any training bond)
- Pilot Shop items (safety course, job tools)
Your Transaction History logs flight pay, training, relocation, buyouts, and airline-departure records. Career stats track lifetime totals; current-airline stats track your time at this employer.
Fatigue & Rest
Flying builds fatigue; resting recovers it.
- Flying: +8% fatigue per flight hour.
- Resting: −6% per real hour (~14 hours to recover fully from 85%).
- Rest bonus: 8 consecutive hours of rest applies an extra flat −25% drop.
- Warning at 60%; grounded at 85%+ — you can't fly until rested.
Need to fly sooner? Use a Vacation Day from the Fatigue panel to instantly reset fatigue to 0%. Vacation days are granted by your contract (tier-based) and refresh on the 1st of each month.
Flight Safety
Your flying quality is monitored. A violation is logged when you exceed any of these:
- Landing rate > 500 FPM
- Landing G-force > 2.5g
- In-flight G-force > 2.5g
- Descent/climb rate > 7,000 FPM
Strike System
| Strikes | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Warning |
| 2 | Final warning |
| 3 | Grounded — must complete sim training |
Strikes reset at the start of each month (if you're not grounded). Each active strike also reduces internal base-transfer offer approval by 10%.
Getting Ungrounded
Go to Flight Safety → Begin Sim Training → pay $1k–5k → wait 6 hours. Strikes reset to 0 and you're cleared to fly. (The Pilot Shop's Safety Course removes one strike at a time, for $1,750.)
Standby, Open Time & Ferry
Beyond your regular schedule, several systems offer extra (often bonus-paid) flying.
Standby Duty
- Go on-call; 60% chance of 1–2 flights
- Assigned at a random point 10–90% through your standby
- Standard pay; hidden while you have scheduled flights
Premium Open Time
- 40% chance per day of an offer
- Accept within 16–20 hours
- Pays 1.25× / 1.5× / 1.75× / 2.0×
- On your own aircraft — or, if you're a Captain / Senior Captain, any other aircraft you're rated on
- Once accepted, fly it within 48–72h (a live "Fly by" countdown shows on the flight). Miss it and the flight is removed and logged as a missed assignment — a reputation hit.
Ferry Flights
- 30% chance per day; reposition an empty aircraft
- Accept within 12–24 hours
- 1.5× pay; any aircraft you're rated on
Time Off & Crew Cover
- Sick + vacation days are a contract benefit — a tier-based amount each month, shown on every job listing. Both reset on the 1st; no penalty.
- Sick days scale by tier: Regional/T1 2–3, T2 3–4, T3 4–5, T4 5–6. Vacation days: 1–2 / 2–3 / 3–4 / 4–5.
- Vacation day = instant fatigue reset to 0% (from the Fatigue panel).
- A flight you call in sick on becomes Open Time for others at 2× pay
- Claim other pilots' sick flights for 2× (≤1 scheduled flight to see them; expire in 48h)
Standby outcomes are pre-determined when you start (whether, when, and how many legs) for fairness.
Pilot Shop
Spend your salary on items that manage safety and your job board. Each item has its own independent cooldown — buying one doesn't lock out the others.
Time off is now a contract benefit, not a purchase. Each contract grants a tier-based number of sick days and vacation days per month (shown on every job listing). Sick days pull a scheduled flight into the open pool penalty-free; vacation days instantly reset fatigue to 0%. Both refresh on the 1st.
Safety & Training
Safety Course — $1,750
- Removes one safety strike
- Only when you have active strikes
- 24h cooldown
Training Tools
Training Catalog Refresh — $500
- Rolls fresh type-rating options
- 24h cooldown
Cooldowns
24h: Safety Course, Training Catalog Refresh. Each timer is independent.
Quick Reference
Tier & Rank Hours
- Tier 1: 0h · Tier 2: 150h
- Tier 3: 350h · Tier 4: 550h
- Widebody jobs: 250 airline hrs
- Ranks: FO 0 · SFO 150 · CPT 400 · SR CPT 750
Hourly Pay & Multipliers
- Regional: $78–105
- Narrowbody: $110–215
- Widebody: $230–420
- Rank: 1.0 / 1.25 / 1.55 / 1.85×
Key Costs
- Relocation: $5,000
- Buyout: $5,000–$5,500 max
- Training: $10k–$60k
Key Timing
- Payday: Friday 0600Z
- Region: switch anytime
- Postings last: 4–6 days
- All decisions: 15 min – 2h
- Schedule bid: at ≤1 flight left
Airline Openings
- 1–6 per airline
- Scaled by airline size
- Posted 4–7 days
- Then a 12h–10 day gap
Acceptance Formula
- Base 70%
- +1% / 25h (max +20%)
- Same tier +10%; per tier up −10%
- Have rating +10%; each aircraft violation −4%
Fatigue
- +8% per flight hour
- −6% per rest hour
- Warning 60% · grounded 85%
- 8h rest bonus: extra −25%
Bonus Pay
- Open Time: 1.25–2.0×
- Ferry: 1.5×
- Sick-cover flights: 2×
- Tenure: +2%/50h (max +30%)
Common Questions
Why can't I apply to other airlines?
- Contract locked — you're in the first ~75% of your contract.
- Pending application — you already have one awaiting a decision.
- Under 50 total hours while on contract (waived once free).
You no longer need the type rating to apply — airlines provide training (look for the "Training Provided" badge).
Why can't I bid for a new schedule?
You can only bid with 1 or fewer flights remaining — finish or remove incomplete flights first. Fatigue and vacation also block a bid.
Can I redraw the lines I was posted?
No — that's the point of bidding. Your band and flight-length window lock when the packet is drawn, refreshing won't post new lines, and clearing your browser data just brings the same packet back. You're guaranteed one of the lines in front of you, so rank them honestly: putting a line 5th doesn't stop you being awarded it, it just makes it unlikely. If none of today's lines suit you, the next packet is posted at 0000Z.
Why is my pay different than expected?
Pay combines aircraft category, airline tier, rank multiplier, tenure bonus, and your contract tier multiplier — plus any open-time/ferry bonus. A new type rating also triggers a temporary 30–40% pay cut for 4–6 flights.
How do I get ungrounded?
Flight Safety → Begin Sim Training → pay $1k–5k → wait 6 hours. Strikes reset to 0.
Does my progress sync across devices?
Yes — your career is stored in the cloud and syncs automatically, so you can check your stats anywhere.
Ready to Start Your Career?
Choose your airline, pick your base, and begin your journey to Senior Captain.
Go to Career Mode