Feature

New Features

A 3D view of your cabin and hold (FSC-4192)

Every aircraft loadout screen now shows the aircraft in 3D, with the cabin and the hold together. You can rotate the view, zoom in and hover over seats or items for more information. You can also switch seats, bags, cargo and freight on and off to see each layer on its own.

Above: An A320 carrying first, business and economy passengers, bags, cargo and a freight container.

Above: Hover over an item or stack for more information.

Cargo can now be transported in the hold (FSC-4172)

Previously, standard cargo was only permitted to travel in the cabin, which meant that many narrowbodies (737, A320, MD-82, CRJ, E190) could not earn from cargo revenue when every seat was occupied. Now cargo (and high value cargo) can travel in the hold (or the cabin cargo space if you have seats removed). Routes now also stop loading cargo at the aircraft's payload limit, so a full route no longer loads more than the aircraft can structurally lift.

Above: A 737 carrying mail and parcels into the hold beside passenger bags (the seat layer is switched off so the hold is visible).

Better understanding of cargo dimensions and restrictions (FSC-4192)

The loadout page has been reworked to give you more information when items aren't loaded onto the aircraft. When accepting a job, there is now a "Not loading" list, grouped by the reason the cargo would be left behind (e.g. too tall, no hold, no room left, over weight limits). By default the list only shows items that must be carried on the route, so you can easily see why a job can't be accepted. You can also toggle "Show left behind" to see all cargo left at the airport (including cargo you don't need to carry).

Above: The "Not loading" list displaying why a non-required pallet can't be loaded onto the aircraft (it is 4 cm too tall for this hold).

An overhauled "Create Charter" mode (FSC-4192)

The "Create Charter" mode in the Operations Cockpit has been overhauled. The aircraft loadout, which used to be squeezed into a narrow side panel, now sits in a dock along the bottom of the map that can be dragged taller or folded away, and includes the new 3D view. A bar along the bottom of the dock always shows the current payload and the next step. Cargo is loaded as soon as demand is selected, so you can see what will be carried before any jobs are created. If something is blocking the charter (e.g. passengers without a seat), the bar turns red and the next step button becomes "Errors", which takes you straight to the problem. Releasing a plan now waits for the load check to finish, so a plan that physically can't be flown can no longer be released.

Above: The new "Create Charter" dock below the map, shown with a Saab 340, with the current payload and next step in the bar along the bottom.

Above: The dock being folded away and dragged taller (shown with an A321neo).

Above: A CRJ900 that can't seat every passenger, with the passengers listed under "Cannot Board", the bar in red and the next step button showing "Errors".

Fokker F27 and 17 more aircraft added (FSC-4201)

18 new aircraft have been added, including 13 dedicated freighters. Freighters have no seats, so they carry freight in the hold only.

• Fokker F27 Mk 500
• Fokker F28 Mk 2000
• Fokker F28 Mk 3000
• Cessna CitationJet
• Airbus Helicopters H225 Super Puma
• Boeing 747-200F
• Boeing 747-400F
• Boeing 747-8F
• Boeing 747 LCF (Dreamlifter)
• Boeing 757-200PF
• Boeing 767-300F
• Boeing 777F
• McDonnell Douglas MD-11F
• Airbus A300-600F
• Airbus A300 Beluga
• Airbus Beluga XL
• Antonov An-124
• Antonov An-225

Improvements

The hold is now shown on the "Aircraft Layout" tab (FSC-4195)

The "Aircraft Layout" tab in the aircraft dialog previously only showed the cabin. It now shows the hold as well, so you can check what an aircraft can carry before buying it or accepting a job.

Above: The "Aircraft Layout" tab for a 787-9, showing the cabin and the hold together with the hold's dimensions.

Fuel estimates are now based on trip distance (FSC-4198)

For aircraft with no flight history, a job's "Financials" tab and the ferry cost estimate previously assumed a full tank of fuel regardless of distance, which made long flights look more profitable than they are. The estimate now calculates the fuel the trip will actually burn, using the aircraft type's published fuel burn until the aircraft has its own history.

Above: The ferry fuel estimate for a 113 nm trip in an aircraft with no flight history (£76.73).

Above: The same aircraft on a 631 nm trip, with the estimate rising to £429.24.

Boeing 757-200 weights updated (FSC-4204)

The 757-200's weights and price have been updated to match its type certificate. It can now carry slightly more payload, and its resale value is around 3% higher. Landing and parking fees increase in line with its heavier weights.

Above: The 757-200's updated weights and price in the aircraft shop.

Clearer reasons when an aircraft has no hold or cabin cargo space (FSC-4193)

Aircraft with no hold, or with every seat fitted, were previously rejected with confusing dimensions (e.g. "the hold is 0 cm high"). The reason now simply states that the aircraft has no hold or no cabin cargo space.

Above: An aircraft with no hold now displays a reason instead of 0 cm dimensions.

Bug Fixes

Correct cargo weights are now sent to the sim and SimBrief on mixed legs (FSC-4173)

When a leg carried more than one type of cargo, the plugin and SimBrief received the wrong payload weight. Each type of cargo is now sent with its own weight.

The in-sim delivery speed gauge now shows the correct speed (FSC-4171)

During a flight, the in-sim delivery speed gauge could show unrealistic speeds (e.g. 1,367 kts on a 137 kt flight). It now shows your actual average speed so far.

Seat layouts with every class removed can now be saved (FSC-4167)

Turning off every cabin class disabled "Apply Reconfiguration", and turning a class back on didn't enable it again. A zero-seat layout can now be saved, and the dialog header shows the new seat layout straight away without refreshing the page.

Above: A 767 with every class turned off, with "Apply Reconfiguration" still available and the whole cabin free for cargo.

"Create Charter" now checks first and business class seat capacity (FSC-4178)

A plan could previously be released with more first or business class passengers than the aircraft could seat in that class or higher, and the job was then rejected on acceptance. "Create Charter" now lists these passengers under "Cannot Board" and won't allow the plan to be released until they fit.

Above: Passengers without a first class seat listed under "Cannot Board", which stops the charter from being released.

Cabin cargo space checks now account for stacking (FSC-4175)

The loader stacks small cabin cargo, but the checks for whether cargo would fit counted each item laid flat. This meant "Create Charter" hid demand that would have fit, and hiring failed with "Selected cargo requires X sqm". These checks now count cargo stacked, the same way it's loaded.

Cargo-only routes are no longer offered to aircraft that can't carry them (FSC-4180, FSC-4188)

A route carrying only cargo could be offered to an aircraft with a full cabin and no hold, and the job was then rejected on acceptance. "Available Aircraft" also checked a route's cargo against the wrong demand. It now only lists aircraft with space for the cargo the route actually loads.

Route baggage weights are now based on the route's distance (FSC-4174)

Every route stored its baggage weight as if the flight was less than 1 nm long, so some aircraft were listed for long routes they were too heavy to fly. Routes now store baggage weights for their actual distance.

Routes no longer exceed the aircraft's payload limit (FSC-4205)

The route loading preview weighed collaborative passengers' bags lighter than would be actually loaded, so a full route could be around 800 kg over its payload limit. Both now use the same weights.

Route cargo and freight minimums are now enforced through the API (FSC-4181)

A route job accepted through the API could carry 1 kg of freight against a 2,000 kg minimum. Accepting a job now always checks the route's cargo and freight minimums.

New Features

See which pricing strategies changed a ticket price (FSC-4156)

When a passenger boarded a route at a strange price, such as first class for £0, nothing told you why. Your pricing strategies were doing exactly what they were set up to do, including stacked discounts that added up to more than 100%, but no screen showed you which ones had applied. Passenger rows now show the price they pay, with your pricing strategies applied. You can hover over it for a breakdown of every strategy that changed their ticket price. You can also see which strategies apply when you're creating or editing a route.

Above: The route form's ticket prices with a Passengers Pay box for each cabin, and the economy box opened to list the three pricing strategies that change its fares.

Above: The Pricing Strategies on this Route panel, showing each strategy's percentage and passenger count by cabin and what passengers pay.

Above: A passenger's seat details with the Fare breakdown card open, listing the ticket price, a 20% strategy discount and what the passenger pays.

See cargo and freight that gets left behind (FSC-4152)

On a route job, the loadout could leave cargo or freight out without saying why. A 737 with plenty of spare weight and a mostly empty hold could load nothing at all if the freight wouldn't physically fit. Anything the loadout leaves out now shows up as Left Behind, along with the reason. It's there for information only, and it never stops you accepting the job.

Above: A Boeing 737 loadout with an amber Left Behind line, and the Too tall for hold chip's tooltip explaining the hold is 110 cm while the freight starts at 114 cm.

Improvements

Bags with no room in the hold now ride in the cabin

Bags that don't fit in the hold now ride in the cabin with their passengers, and the loadout shows how many there are and what they weigh. Nothing about your payload has changed. These bags always counted towards your weight, and they never stopped you accepting a job. The screens and the help docs now just say so. The PA-18 also gets a small hold for freight.

Above: A loadout's weight breakdown with the line 3 bags in cabin · 54 kg underneath it.

Job Marketplace and hire lists fit on smaller screens (FSC-4148, FSC-4150, FSC-4159)

On smaller screens, job rows could be wider than the list, which cut off the price and made the list scroll sideways. Busy rows also spilled into their neighbours, and Charter Aircraft For Hire had the same problem. Rows also now rearrange themselves to fit a narrow list.

Above: The Job Marketplace list on a 14-inch laptop window, with each job's payload badges and hourly rate fitting inside its row.

Above: Charter Aircraft For Hire in a 1280 px window, with each aircraft's hourly rate on its own line above the seats and airport.

Above: Hire demand rows on a 1280 px window showing load icons only, with the tooltip 3 passengers waiting on this route.

Weight bar tooltips are back, and the handles follow your mouse (FSC-4157, FSC-4158, FSC-4165)

You can hover over any part of the weight bar, or its key, to see what it is. When you drag the cargo and freight handles with Configure Individual Weights on, they now follow your mouse instead of jumping into place afterwards. The pilot also gets the pilot icon.

Above: The Weight Breakdown bar with the tooltip Economy bags · 2,284 kg shown over the striped bags segment.

Above: With Configure Individual Weights on, the freight handle and segment follow the mouse while it is dragged, then the bar settles on what was loaded.

A tidier fare display on the manifest (FSC-4166)

The passenger price could spill out of the seat popover, and the rows looked uneven. The fare now shows the price and its discount side by side, and you can hover over it for the same breakdown as the passenger rows.

Above: Route preview manifest rows, each with the fare above its discount and a small ring, and the Fare breakdown card open on one row.

The demand map key counts every route (FSC-4145)

The commodities key on the demand map only counted the first page of routes, so at a busy airport it could show 2 cargo groups when the list had dozens. It now counts every route.

Above: The demand map at KMIA with the commodities key counting every route, Standard Cargo ticked and the list filtered to cargo routes.

Clicking a dispatch plan on the map opens it (FSC-4151)

In the Operations Cockpit, clicking a dispatch plan's route on the map used to show an empty map. It now opens that plan.

Above: Clicking a dispatch plan's route on the Operations Cockpit map opens that plan in the Dispatch Plans list.

Bug Fixes

PHP security update (FSC-4160)

Earlier today the PHP team announced two serious security flaws in the version of PHP that FSCharter runs on. We took the site offline as a precaution until the fix was out, and this release runs on the patched version. We've found no sign that anyone used these flaws against FSCharter, and no player data was affected.

Accepting a route job no longer fails with "Something broke" (FSC-4129, FSC-4146)

Accepting a route job could fail right at the end of boarding. One cause was a pricing strategy discount that left a fraction of a penny on the price. The other was a pricing strategy earning so much in one day that its total got too big to save. Both are fixed.

Cargo groups load whole (FSC-4153)

The loadout preview could load part of a cargo group, such as 4 of 7 mail bags, while Accept booked and paid for all of it. Cargo groups now load whole or not at all, so you get exactly what the preview showed.

Ticking one passenger group adds just that group (FSC-4132)

With no draft plan, ticking one passenger group in the Demand panel ticked every group of that class on the route. Now it only adds the one you ticked.

Editing a dispatch plan no longer fails with "deadlock detected" (FSC-4135, FSC-4136)

Adding or removing charter jobs quickly could fail with "deadlock detected", or put the same legs in more than one job. Changes to a plan now wait their turn, so fast clicks are safe.

The Demand panel scrolls again (FSC-4133, FSC-4164)

A long passenger list on a focused route ran off the bottom of the Demand panel and wouldn't scroll. It scrolls now, and clicking a route no longer squashes it into a thin line.

Above: Clicking a route in the Demand panel keeps it full size, and its long First Passengers list scrolls down and back up.

Old cockpit links no longer break demand loading (FSC-4142, FSC-4149)

Bookmarks to the Operations Cockpit that used a sort or filter we removed in v2.5.0 made every demand load fail. The cockpit now ignores them and loads as normal.

Switching aircraft on Charter Aircraft For Hire (FSC-4163)

If you switched aircraft while routes were still loading, you could end up with "No demand instances". You now always see the routes for the aircraft you picked last.

The aircraft for hire list no longer errors (FSC-4144)

The list could fail when it included an aircraft from a company that had closed down. Those aircraft no longer show up.

Aircraft picker checkboxes work (FSC-4134)

Clicking a checkbox in the rank and job aircraft pickers did nothing. Now it ticks the aircraft.

No more permission popup for pilots (FSC-3583)

Pilots without View Job Details got a permission error every time they opened the job dialog. The dialog now only shows them what they're allowed to see.

SimBrief mappings and bag weights (FSC-4138, FSC-4140)

Custom SimBrief airframe mappings now match however you type them. Send to SimBrief from the loadout preview now includes every bag's weight.

Cabin cargo on the Flight Map

On some smaller aircraft, the Flight Map payload card showed an empty cabin even when cargo was on board. It now draws the cargo.

The "No aircraft storage space available" email (FSC-4139)

This notification never arrived by email. Now it does.

Account deletions (FSC-4141)

Accounts that players asked us to delete hadn't been removed since January. They've now been deleted, and new requests work again.

The in-sim speed gauge matches the penalty (FSC-4155)

The in-sim delivery speed gauge and the speed penalty worked out your average speed differently, so the gauge could say you were fine while the website still charged a penalty. They now agree, and both allow an extra 20% for normal routing like SIDs, STARs and vectors, so flying realistically isn't counted as slow.

Rank constraint API

The v1 API's rank constraint endpoints returned an error for every rank with a constraint. They now work.

New Features

Cargo (FSC-3421)

FSCharter now carries more than passengers. Alongside them you'll find cabin cargo, which is the smaller stuff that rides in the cabin (mail bags, parcel sacks, crates and bales), and hold freight, which travels in the hold in real airline containers and pallets.

Cargo demand is built from real-world airport data, so each good is produced in some places and wanted in others. A mining region ships ore out and a farming region takes fertiliser in, and cargo flown in the direction trade naturally flows pays more than the same load on the return leg. Cabin cargo and freight are priced by weight and distance, and cargo pays its airport fees by weight too.

You can set how much of a shipper's budget your company charges for cargo and freight, with one setting covering the whole company. If you'd like different figures on different routes, the new Override route budget factors Premium feature lets you set them per route. Pricing strategies and route minimums work with cargo and freight as well.

This release needs plugin version 20.0.0. The plugin will ask you to update the first time you load it after the release.

VIPs and high-value charters

Charters can now carry VIP passengers and six high-value loads: Human Organs, AOG Aircraft Parts, Medical Supplies, Live Animals, Perishable Goods and Confidential Documents. These are charter-only and carry a much bigger charter bonus than passengers, starting at £10,000 per VIP and £20,000 per Human Organ compared with £1,000 per passenger.

Each of them comes with handling rules, such as a maximum g-force, a maximum bank angle or a minimum average speed, and breaking a rule cuts the pay for that delivery. The rules are shown on the job before you fly, you'll get warnings in flight, and any penalties show up in your company Finance.

VIPs will only sit in first class, so you need an aircraft with enough first-class seats to take them. A VIP charter also loses 75% of its fare if the VIPs have to share the aircraft with any other group.

The loadout screen

Before you accept a job, the loadout screen shows you where everything is going to go. Hover over a passenger group to see their bags in the hold, or over a stack in the hold to see whose bags are in it. You'll find it on the Job Marketplace, when you hire an aircraft, and on the job leg page.

Hiring an aircraft from Charter Aircraft for Hire now shows you this loadout to confirm before the job is created, rather than going straight to an "Are you sure?".

Checked baggage

Passengers now check bags, and those bags travel in the hold. How many bags a group checks and how heavy they are depends on their cabin class and how far they're flying.

Because bags are now weighed separately, each person now weighs 84 kg rather than 100 kg (the EASA standard for an adult with hand luggage).

Jobs created before this release, including the ones already sitting on the marketplace, carry no bags, so anything you're flying when the update goes out isn't affected.

What changes if you only fly passengers

A few parts of this release affect you even if you never touch cargo.

Weight now counts. Every job, passenger jobs included, is now checked against your aircraft's payload limit, counting people, the pilot, checked bags, cabin cargo and freight. Some aircraft that could take a full cabin before, mostly light aircraft, may no longer be offered for that job. The Weight Breakdown bar on the loadout screen shows how the weight adds up and how much room is left for fuel.

The exclusivity penalty counts groups, not passengers. A charter leg can now carry up to 10 separate groups before its fare starts to drop, where previously the penalty started above 40 passengers. The exclusivity factor in a charter's fare breakdown is now always shown, with a help icon explaining how it works.

The Operations Cockpit demand view has been reworked. Demand is grouped by route, the map has a toolbar and a legend, and you can sort and filter by revenue. The Create Charter panel now shows meters for seats, weight, cabin floor and hold, and tells you why a charter can't be released when something is in the way.

The Job Marketplace map can now weigh jobs by what they're worth instead of by the number of passengers.

The help centre is now part of FSCharter

The help centre has been redesigned and now lives at /help. The articles have been rewritten for this release, with new and updated articles covering cargo, hiring, partnerships, the Finance page, AOC levels, profile settings and the Premium plans. Any old help links you have will take you to the new pages.

Public API for third-party tools (FSC-4079)

FSCharter now has a public API at /api/v1 for anyone who wants to build their own tools. The new API Access tab on your profile lets you create personal access tokens with only the permissions you choose. Third-party apps can also ask to connect to your FSCharter account, and the sign-in screen tells you whether an app wants to make changes or just read your data. You can remove a connected app from API Access at any time.

Abandoned collaborative demand returns to the pool (FSC-4066)

Collaborative demand that has sat untouched for 28 days is now released to the public pool automatically, so another operator can fly it. The owning company gets a reminder three days beforehand, and a countdown shows on the Collaboration Dashboard. Any collaborative demand that is already older than 28 days is released when the update goes out, without a reminder.

Improvements

Max Shock removed from landing stats

The Max Shock badge has been removed from the landing stats on the job leg page, as plugin 20.0.0 no longer sends it. The rest of the landing stats are unchanged.

Bug Fixes

Pilots could be paid £0 after a profitable flight (FSC-4110)

If a company's balance was close to £0, its pilot could end up being paid nothing, because the pay went out a moment before the job's revenue arrived. The revenue now arrives first and the pilot is paid after it.

Some pricing strategy filters never applied at boarding (FSC-4067)

Pricing strategies that filtered on Waiting for days, Departure airport type or Arrival airport type looked right in the editor but were never applied when passengers boarded. They now apply, so if you use one of these filters its discount or markup takes effect with this release and fares on those routes may change.

Some networks lost all of their route demand (FSC-4078)

A failed weekly rebuild could leave a network with no demand at all, which meant every route job in it refused every aircraft with a misleading rank error. If a rebuild fails now, the previous data is kept.

Hiring at a rank that needs approval

Hiring an aircraft at a rank that needed the owner's approval used to create a job anyway. That job held on to the passengers, so you couldn't hire them again once you were approved. No job is created now. You apply for the rank, and once you're approved you hire the aircraft again.

Cabin upgrades followed passengers onto the next aircraft (FSC-4106)

Passengers upgraded on one leg could still show as first or business class after the next leg was handed to another operator or flown in a smaller aircraft. Manifests and seat counts now reflect the aircraft that's actually flying the leg.

Leaving a pilot roster

The roster button on My Work now says Leave instead of Resign. The confirmation no longer says your unpaid hours are forfeited, because they aren't. They stay on that rank and count towards your pay if you come back. Lifetime Stats also no longer double-counts hours and pending pay if you left and rejoined a company at the same rank.

Permission error when opening a job (FSC-4122)

Pilots flying for a company they don't own were getting a "You do not have permission to view the finances of this company" error when opening a job. That no longer happens.

Charter Aircraft for Hire kept the last aircraft's filters (FSC-4124)

Opening a route on one aircraft was carrying over the hire filters from the aircraft you'd looked at before, which could wrongly show "No demand instances". Each aircraft now uses its own filters.

A selected route faded on the Create Charter map

A route you'd selected in Create Charter faded almost out of sight when you hovered over its row. It now stays visible.

Persistent Pilot Mode and the Job Search Assistant

With Persistent Pilot Mode on, the From Last Location filter was being dropped whenever you used the Job Search Assistant. It now stays on.

Expanded dialogs didn't fill the screen (FSC-4117)

Expanding a dialog left it at its normal width, pinned to one side of the screen. Expanded dialogs now fill the screen.

Cancelling Premium with an ad blocker

If your ad blocker hid Paddle's cancellation window, the Cancel Premium button did nothing. It now cancels your subscription directly instead.

Wrong text on the Premium pages

The Free plan card said you were limited to 3 pilot contracts, but you can join as many company rosters as you like. The warning shown when you cancel Pro also said demand search goes back to a 200 nm radius, when it's actually 100 nm. Both are now correct.

Job details visible to other players

Another company's job revenue and fares are now only shown to people with the View Job Details privilege in that company.

New Features

Company-to-company aircraft transfers (FSC-3912)

Companies can now transfer aircraft directly to another company without going through the classifieds marketplace. The transfer dialog shows a preview your net worth impact before confirming. Transfers are validated against the receiving company's AOC level (the aircraft's MTOW must be within their certification), aircraft ownership limits for free users, and a net worth floor (the sender's net worth cannot go negative as a result of the transfer). Any active classified listing on the aircraft is automatically cancelled when transferred.

Collaboration dashboard map view (FSC-3886)

The Collaboration Dashboard now includes a Map tab that visualises collaborative passenger flows between airports. You can toggle between inbound and outbound views, hover over airports to see passenger counts and cabin class breakdowns, and click on airports to open the detail dialog.

Return route creation (FSC-3716)

When creating a new route in the Operations Cockpit, you can now tick an "Also create return route" checkbox. After the outbound route is created, the form immediately re-opens with departure and arrival airports swapped and pricing copied over, ready for you to review and adjust.

Broker listing price decay (FSC-3898)

Aircraft listed for sale through a broker now gradually reduce in price over time. Prices drop by 5% of the original listing price for every 30 days the listing remains unsold, down to a floor based on what the broker originally paid. Reduced listings show the original price struck through alongside the current price in the classifieds marketplace. You can also filter and sort by discount to find deals.

Improvements

Routes with insufficient slots now display in red (FSC-3740)

Routes that are disabled due to insufficient airport slots now render as red lines on the Operations Cockpit map, making network problems visible at a glance. Manually disabled routes remain transparent as before. Hovering over a problem route (either on the map or in the routes dock) highlights it in red at full opacity.

Aircraft valuations now use market value

Aircraft are now valued at their current market price (based on aircraft type) rather than their original purchase price. This affects net worth calculations, transfer previews, and classified sale gates. All existing aircraft valuations have been updated accordingly. As a result, your company's net worth may have increased as a result of this.

Broker purchase prices adjusted

The price brokers pay when purchasing your aircraft has been rebalanced. Free users now receive 60% of market value (previously 80%) and premium users receive 70% (previously 85%).

Net worth safety gate on classified sales

Selling an aircraft through the classifieds marketplace is now blocked if the sale would push the selling company's net worth below zero. Listings that would cause this are automatically cancelled, and the seller is notified with an explanation.

Base Operations "Owned" filter

A new filter in the Base Operations lens of the Operations Cockpit lets you show only airports where your company has base operations (buildings, operations centres, or agreements).

Bug Fixes

Collaboration dashboard delivery rate was stuck at 0% (FSC-3906)

The delivery rate metric on the Collaboration Dashboard wasn't updating because it was counting demand records rather than actual passengers. It now sums passenger counts correctly, and a trend indicator shows whether your delivery rate is improving or declining compared to the previous 30-day period.

New Features

Cabin upgrades for Routes

Passengers travelling on routes can now upgrade to a higher cabin class when they can afford the ticket price and seats are available. Economy passengers may upgrade to business or first class; business passengers may upgrade to first. Native-class passengers always get priority — upgrades only fill remaining seats.

Cabin upgrades for routes are available on the Premium Core plan and above. This is controlled at two levels. A company-wide setting enables or disables upgrades entirely (enabled by default), and individual routes can then be toggled independently (also enabled by default). Both settings are available in company settings and route configuration.

More realistic seat assignments

The seat map now distributes passengers the way a real flight looks. Passengers are spread across the cabin rather than clustered together, travelling groups are seated in adjacent blocks and passengers are nudged toward window seats where available. At high load the cabin fills front-to-back.

Bug Fixes

Free users could purchase more aircraft than their plan allows

The aircraft ownership limit for free accounts was not being enforced when buying from the classifieds marketplace. This has been corrected.

Some aircraft were incorrectly frozen from the V1 migration

A number of aircraft were left in a frozen state during the transition from V1 to V2. A migration has been applied to unfreeze these aircraft and restore them to normal operation.

New Features

Stopover legs now show each flight separately (FSC-3582)

When a job includes a stopover, the in-flight map and statistics view now displays a tab for each individual flight segment. You can switch between tabs to see the flight path, landing telemetry, and performance graphs for each leg of the journey independently. The most recent flight is selected by default, and the position arrow and remaining route track whichever flight is active. Previously, stopover jobs showed everything blended together, which also caused an "Infinity" display error in landing stats.

Classifieds marketplace search and filtering (FSC-3715)

Several improvements have landed in the Used Aircraft Marketplace:

• Search now works. The search bar was non-functional — it has been fixed and now searches across tail number, aircraft type, manufacturer, model, and seller details.
• Filter by company. You can now filter listings by selling company, with company logos shown in the filter dropdown.
• Filter by sale type. A new filter lets you narrow results to broker sales (no company, sold through a broker) or direct company-to-company listings.

Bug Fixes

Collaborative demand could permanently vanish from the demand pool (T-869, FSC-3892)

Two related bugs were fixed that could cause passengers to silently disappear from collaborative routes, with no error shown.

The first: when a multi-leg job was reset after another company had already picked up the onward leg, the parent demand record could get stuck in an "assigned" state with no active obligations — making the passengers invisible to all demand queries. This had been patched with data migrations twice before; the root cause is now fixed properly.

The second: when a collaborating company removed a leg from their dispatch plan, the demand was recreated correctly but a stale internal reference caused it to be filtered out of all ready-to-depart checks. Passengers appeared to vanish from the route with no trace.

Both fixes include data migrations to repair affected records already in the database.

Pilots holding ranks above their global rank threshold weren't seeing the right jobs (FSC-3909)

The job marketplace was filtering by whether a user was eligible to apply for a rank, rather than by whether they already hold it. This meant a new user who had been legitimately progressed or assigned to a senior rank by a company owner would see far fewer jobs in the marketplace than expected — in some cases, none at all. Their held ranks now always pass through the filter, regardless of the global rank application threshold.

Free users couldn't remove their aircraft from classifieds after downgrading (FSC-3820)

The "remove listing" action was incorrectly gated behind a premium feature check, meaning users who had downgraded from premium were unable to delist their own aircraft or reclaim the fleet slot. This gate has been removed — delisting your own aircraft is always permitted.

We heard you. Loud and clear.

In our Open Beta survey, 75% of you told us it was difficult or very difficult to turn a profit. The economy was the #1 frustration. Charter limitations, demand distribution, and the feeling that the deck was stacked against smaller operators came up again and again. This patch is our answer to those concerns.

Here's what matters most:

The charter aircraft cap is gone. Fly charters in anything, with a new bonus system that makes small charters way more profitable. The demand engine has been rebuilt from the ground up with fairer global distribution, more economy passengers at airports that matter, and higher economy fares to match. A new Create Charter Mode lets you pick an aircraft and find work for it instead of the other way around. And every new and existing aircraft gets one free cabin reconfiguration to adapt to the new demand landscape. Full details below.

What's Changed

1. Charter is Unshackled

The 20-seat charter cap is gone. Completely removed. You can now charter any aircraft in your fleet, from a Cessna 172 to a 777. No permits, no artificial restrictions.

The economy now naturally balances itself. Charter now uses an exclusivity bonus that rewards small, intimate charters and progressively penalises you for trying to run a 200-seat airliner as a taxi service. Passengers expect exclusivity when they book a charter. Cram 100 people in and your revenue per head drops by ~75%. Keep it under 40 passengers and you get the full bonus with no penalty at all.

Charter bonus per person: Up to £967 per person for a solo charter, scaling down as you add passengers. A 10-passenger charter still earns £716 per person on top of the base fare. The bonus tails off around 30-40 passengers, and above 40 a capacity penalty kicks in.

The takeaway: small charters are now genuinely lucrative. A well-planned 4-passenger business jet charter can earn good money. We hope that this is a giant leap in the right direction for the economy that the survey called for. Smaller operators have a real competitive edge in the charter market now.

But it's not just small aircraft that benefit. Combined with the demand changes below (more economy passengers, higher economy fares), chartering economy passengers in larger aircraft is now a genuinely viable strategy. There's a ton of demand out there and the charter bonus still applies up to 40 passengers with no penalty. The cap removal plus the new bonus structure means you have options that simply didn't exist before. For the full breakdown of how charter bonuses and the exclusivity multiplier work, check out the Charter Jobs documentation.

2. Demand Has Been Rebuilt From the Ground Up

We've overhauled how the demand engine generates and distributes passengers across the world. The old system had a massive skew toward the USA and Brazil (where ~60% of all airports are), with places like Spain and China getting disproportionately little traffic. The new system accounts for:

• Airport density: Areas with hundreds of tiny airfields in a small radius (New York, Sao Paulo) no longer hog a disproportionate share of global demand
• Country airport count: Countries with fewer airports are no longer punished for it
• Class-specific geo-scoring: Every airport now has separate economy, business, and first class scores that influence where passengers spawn and where they want to go

What this means in practice:

• Economy passengers cluster around larger airports. No more random economy demand spawning at a grass strip in the middle of nowhere. If you're running economy routes, focus on the airports people actually fly through.
• First and business class are more spread out. Premium passengers travel to more varied destinations, rewarding diverse route networks.
• Economy passengers pay more. With the demand ratio shifting toward economy, we've increased economy fares proportionally so that economy routes remain profitable. Any existing collaborative demand has also had prices scaled up.
• Demand fills fast. The demand engine can now generate the full 8 million passenger groups in approximately 3 hours instead of taking over a week. After this patch, demand has been fully reset and will populate quickly.

Behind the Scenes: The Demand-o-Matic

Distributing demand fairly across 36,000+ airports is a serious big data problem, and getting it right required purpose-built tooling. RCTO has developed an internal tool (that we affectionately refer to as the Demand-o-Matic) that powers the new geo-scoring system behind this update.

The tool combines UN travel data, World Bank GDP figures, and a database of over 40,000 real-world entities (think Disneyland Paris, the Bank of England, the Statue of Liberty) to build a model of where passengers actually want to go and why. Each entity contributes a weighted pull on nearby airports, giving demand a grounding in real-world travel motivation rather than random distribution.

Passenger class scoring is split by travel purpose. Economy passengers are weighted more heavily toward tourism entities, while business class passengers lean toward commercial and financial centres. First class demand is deliberately spread thinner and into less obvious locations, making premium passengers harder to gather but more rewarding when you do.

One of the biggest problems the tool solves is clustering. In the old system, every airport effectively acted as a lottery ticket for demand. The more airports a country or region had, the more demand it won. The USA holds roughly 60% of all airports in the game, so areas like New York and Sao Paulo were hoovering up a disproportionate share of global traffic. Meanwhile, countries like Spain, which has relatively few airports for its size, were being unfairly underserved. The Demand-o-Matic runs geospatial calculations to counteract this, so demand distribution is based on where people actually travel rather than where airports happen to be densely packed.

This tool is what makes it possible to keep iterating on demand balance going forward. The scores in this patch are the result of months of testing and adjustment, but the tooling is now in place to make further refinements as we gather feedback.

3. Create Charter Mode (Premium Core)

A massive quality-of-life upgrade for charter companies. Create Charter Mode flips the Dispatch Plan workflow on its head. Instead of browsing demand and hoping something fits your aircraft, you pick your aircraft first and the system shows you what it can fly.

The old way: Browse the demand map, find interesting passengers, then figure out which aircraft can fly them.

The new way: Pick your aircraft first. The system shows you every demand group it can reach, filtered to its range and capacity.

Key features:

• Interactive seat map: Watch passengers fill your cabin in real time as you select demand groups. Click any filled seat to remove that group.
• Filter Sync: Toggle this on and the demand list automatically updates as you fill seats. Select 12 of 19 seats? The list now only shows groups of 7 or fewer. No more accidentally overfilling.
• Map integration: Ctrl/Cmd-click demand lines on the map to add or remove groups directly.
• Release & Accept: One-click shortcut that publishes the job and immediately assigns it to you as the pilot. No need to visit the marketplace.
• Switch aircraft mid-flow: Realise a different aircraft would be better? Swap it out without losing your selected passengers.
• Ferry companion: Each aircraft row has a split button with both Charter and Ferry actions. Reposition to a better airport first, then charter from there.

Create Charter Mode is available from the Operations Cockpit > Aircraft lens. It complements the existing demand-first workflow. Use whichever fits what you're doing.

You can read more about Create Charter Mode in the documentation.

4. Free Seat Reconfiguration

Every aircraft now gets one free cabin reconfiguration, applied instantly with no downtime. This new feature can be accessed from the Aircraft Layout tab of your Aircraft dialog in the Operations Cockpit.

With the demand model shifting toward more economy passengers, your current cabin layouts may not be optimal. This free reconfiguration lets you adapt without penalty. Use it to match the new demand reality. You'll likely want more economy seats on most aircraft going forward.

Financial Previews

You can now see estimated and actual financials for all jobs and routes, including fuel costs, landing fees, ATC charges, customs fees, and revenue. Available both during charter creation and after the fact.

• During charter creation: See revenue estimates and cost breakdowns as you build your dispatch plan, so you know whether a charter is profitable before you commit.
• After completion: Review what you actually earned vs. what it cost. Fuel burn is calculated from your real flight history average for that aircraft type.
• Ferry jobs too: Fuel and landing fee estimates for repositioning flights, so you can factor ferry costs into your charter planning.
• Route financials: View estimated revenue based on demand minimums, with a passenger count parameter to model different load factors.

No more flying blind on whether a job is worth taking.

Other Improvements

• Release & Accept for jobs: Jobs and dispatch plans can now be released and accepted in a single action. No more releasing to the marketplace and then racing to accept your own job.
• Restyled Aircraft rows: The Aircraft lens in the Operations Cockpit has been redesigned with split action buttons, letting you launch Create Charter Mode or create ferry flights directly from the dock without extra navigation.
• Aircraft location flags: Aircraft rows now display the flag of the country where the aircraft is currently located, making it easy to scan your fleet's global positioning at a glance.
• Demand date filter: Filter demand by the date it was generated, useful for spotting fresh demand.
• Demand badge on jobs: The Job dialog now shows a badge with seat requirements by cabin class (Economy/Business/First), so you can see at a glance what a job needs.
• Massively faster route demand loading: Route demand queries have been optimised from ~8 seconds down to ~266ms (a 30x speedup). The demand map and route demand refresh should feel dramatically snappier, especially on servers with full 8M-row demand tables.
• Map reliability fixes: Fixed race conditions in the deck.gl map layers that could cause route lines to not update properly when dragging or switching views.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed unfair last-leg payment distribution. A significant bug where the final leg of a multi-leg journey was receiving a disproportionately large share of the total payment. All legs now receive their fair proportional share based on distance contribution. Also corrected the calculation that determines how passenger budgets are split across legs, ensuring accurate pricing throughout multi-leg journeys.
• Fixed charter job configuration bugs. Resolved multiple issues in dispatch plan and job configuration that could cause incorrect leg assignments, seat allocation errors, and routing problems.
• Fixed orphaned jobs after demand removal. Removing demand from a dispatch plan now correctly cleans up orphaned job legs and recalculates seat requirements, preventing ghost jobs from lingering.

A Note on Testing

These changes have been through extensive internal testing over the past few weeks. We've been hammering the new demand engine and the charter economics on staging for a while now. That said, this is a big patch touching a lot of interconnected systems. If anything doesn't look right, feels off, or the numbers seem wrong, please reach out. We'd much rather hear about it than have you quietly frustrated. Your feedback is what got us here, and it's what'll keep us improving.

What's Next

Next up: cargo. It was the #1 most-requested feature in the survey and it's on the roadmap. More to come on that soon.

You can now filter job routes on the Job Marketplace map so only jobs fully visible in your current map view are shown. When the default behaviour is toggled off, a job disappears as soon as either its origin or destination moves outside the map viewport.

Aircraft Database Update

• Added Gulfstream G550 GV-SP
• Added Aerospatiale SA342 Gazelle
• Added Airbus A320 neo ACJ
• Added Boeing 737 BBJ2
• Added Boeing 307 Stratoliner
• Added Socata TBM850
• Added Airbus Helicopters/Eurocopter H160/X4
• Added Maule M-7 235
• Added Piper PA-46 M500
• Added Learjet 35A
• Added Tecnam P2012 Traveller
• Added Van's RV-10
• Added Airbus Helicopters/Eurocopter H130/EC130 B4
• Added Cessna 408 Sky Courier
• Added Airbus A340 300
• Added Cessna CJ3
• Added Lancair Evolution
• Added Piper PA-23 Aztec
• Added Cessna 404 Titan
• Added Pilatus PC-24
• Added Beechcraft Starship
• Added NAMC YS-11A 200
• Added Boeing 737 Max 8
• Added GippsAero GA8 Airvan
• Added Boeing 747 SP
• Added Airbus A340 200
• Updated seats on Lockheed L-1011 from 246 to 315
• Updated seats on Airbus A319 from 156 to 160
• Updated seats on Airbus A310 from 230 to 275
• Updated seats on Embraer Legacy 650 from 13 to 19
• Updated seats on Pilatus PC-12 from 10 to 9 and increased MTOW from 4,500kg to 4,740kg
• Updated seats on Airbus A321 neo from 230 to 244 and renamed to A321neo LR
• Updated OEW for Airbus A321XLR from 49,000kg to 46,600kg

Persistent Rank Approval

You no longer need to re-apply every time you return to a rank you’ve already been cleared for.

When a company approves you for a rank (whether manually by a manager or automatically through progression or eligibility) that approval is now remembered. If you later switch away and decide to come back, you can move straight into the rank without waiting for approval again.

In the Pilot Portal, ranks you’ve previously been approved for are clearly marked as Pre-Approved. These ranks let you switch instantly, even if they would normally require an application.

Other Improvements

• NOTAM messages now show a live character counter, so you always know how close you are to the 255-character limit
• Fixed arrow key navigation being intercepted while typing in company description and message fields

Batch Release for Collaborative Demand

Managing the release of collaborative demand across multiple airports is now significantly faster and more controlled.

You can select multiple airports directly in the Collaboration Dashboard and release demand for all of them in one action. A new batch selection bar appears as soon as you start selecting rows, clearly showing how many airports are selected and which actions are available.

Two batch actions are available when you have the appropriate company privileges:

• Release All: Releases all collaborative demand for the selected airports.
• Release Urgent: Releases only demand that has exceeded the urgent threshold, leaving newer demand untouched.

Company Logos and User Avatars in Selectors

Company and user selection fields are now more visual and easier to scan. Wherever you choose a company or user (such as transferring funds, deleting a company, or selecting a recipient) logos and avatars are displayed alongside names instead of generic icons.

This makes it quicker to identify the right company or person at a glance, especially when working with long lists or similar names.

Aircraft Market Listing Enhancements

Used aircraft listings are now clearer and more informative. Broker sales and third-party sellers are highlighted directly on the aircraft image with new badges, making it obvious who is selling the aircraft.

Smarter Hangar Storage for Company-Owned Buildings

A bug with aircraft storage logic has been fixed to better reflect ownership. Previously, if you owned a hangar but had set it to public use for a fee, your own aircraft would not automatically use it after slot grace periods end.

Now, if you own a hangar, your aircraft will always automatically use it for storage, even if that hangar is set to public access with a price. You never pay storage fees to yourself, and aircraft will no longer be pushed into less suitable public storage because of pricing settings.

Other improvements

• Fixed tables scrolling slightly within tables
• Minor visual polish across aircraft listings and dashboards

Global Activity Timeline

You can now see what’s happening across all companies in FSCharter in one live, real-time feed.

The new Activity Feed page brings together major events from every company into a single global timeline. As flights depart and land, jobs are accepted, aircraft are traded, or companies join partnerships, you see it instantly.

Each entry is clearly labelled with readable titles, meaningful descriptions, and visual icons so you can quickly scan what’s going on. You can also filter the timeline by company or activity type, making it easy to focus on competitors, partners, or specific kinds of events.

The feed updates live while you’re on the page and supports infinite scrolling, so you never miss what’s happening across the world.

Clearer Pay Progression and Pending Earnings

You now get much better visibility into how and when you get paid as a pilot.

In the Career Progression tab in the Pilot Portal for a company, each rank now shows:

• How many hours you’ve flown at that rank
• How many hours remain until your next payout
• How much money is currently pending
• How often that rank pays out (pay interval)

This makes it much easier to understand why pay is pending and exactly what you need to do to unlock it. If a rank pays every 10 hours, you’ll now clearly see your progress toward that threshold and the amount building up along the way.

The My Work page has been upgraded to give you clearer, more actionable information. At the top, Pending Payouts now includes contextual help explaining:

• Why pay can be locked to specific ranks
• How switching ranks affects pending earnings
• How to unlock accumulated pay

Each company row now shows:

• Progress toward your next payout at your current rank
• Pending amount for that rank
• Lifetime earned and pending amounts
• Total hours flown

You can now also jump straight to managing your pilot career from My Work. A new Manage Employment button takes you directly to the Career Progression tab for that company, where you can:

• Switch ranks
• Review pay intervals
• See which ranks have pending pay waiting to be unlocked

This removes the need to hunt through company pages to manage your pilot status.

New Job Filter: Hourly Pay

You can now filter jobs by hourly pay, letting you focus on work that matches your earning goals. The filter intelligently accounts for:

• Your current rank if you’re already employed
• Ranks you’re eligible to apply for
• Auto-accept ranks when “Flyable Now” is enabled

This helps surface jobs that actually make sense for you to fly.

Other Improvements

• Fixed airport type data so heliports are correctly classified
• Improved activity log titles and descriptions throughout the platform for clearer, more readable events
• Visual polish and spacing improvements in timelines and panels

This release represents one of the largest structural updates to FSCharter since launch.

The focus has been on reducing friction and making long-term progression feel more intentional for both pilots and company managers. Core systems such as contracts, job discovery, company interaction, and rank progression have been reworked to and make the platform easier to understand and operate for both beginners and long term users.

For pilots, the aim of this update has been to make jobs much easier to find and to reduce the overhead of using FSCharter. For managers, the update brings better tools, less micro-managing, and more control over how companies are structured and run.

We've updated the the documentation to reflect this change and we'll be updating the videos soon. Here are the most notable documentation pages that have changed:

• Getting Started
• Flying Jobs & Getting Paid
• Company Management Overview
• Ranks
• Pilot Rosters

Many of these changes also lay the groundwork for future features and improvements. As always, this release reflects feedback from the community and ongoing use of the platform - thank you.

Introducing Pilot Rosters

The contract system has been replaced with permanent Pilot Rosters.

Pilots now join a company’s roster on an ongoing basis, allowing continued access to jobs without needing to renew contracts. This, as you'll see in later sections, also enables us to build long-term progression routes within a company.

The new Roster system behaves likes the old contract model (hourly pay and rank-based earnings), but massively reduces the administrative overhead of contract management.

One of the key changes enabled by this system is rank flexibility. Pilots are no longer tied to a single contracted rank. If the requirements for multiple ranks within a company are met, pilots can switch between them freely to access different aircraft types or pay structures.

Attention Managers: Existing contracts have been automatically mapped to the appropriate ranks where appropriate. If the new rank has different pay and/or pay interval to the old contract then the contract with the user will be terminated and any due funds paid out. It is recommended that Rank and Pay settings are reviewed to ensure values are configured correctly under the new system.

Attention Pilots: If you had an active job during the migration and we were unable to manually map your contract to a new rank you will be paid a one-off payment for the value of your flight. You will not lose out on revenue.

The Open Job Marketplace

The Job Marketplace has been redesigned to remove barriers to job discovery. All jobs that you are eligible for across FSCharter are now visible by default, regardless of current company roster membership. This replaces the previous model where visibility was limited, and allows pilots to explore routes and operators without needing to first accept contracts. The legacy 5-contract limit for viewing jobs is also gone, removing the guesswork from finding jobs you actually want to fly.

To support faster and more approachable job discovery, particularly for newer pilots, the Job Search Assistant has been introduced. It provides a guided way to surface suitable flights based on factors such as distance, duration, and aircraft type, without needing to configure complex filter combinations.

For more experienced users, the main filtering system has been reorganised into clearer, purpose-driven sections covering Popular, Aircraft, Route, and Company filters. A dedicated sidebar also enables quick searches for jobs departing and/or arriving at certain airports.

Accepting a job will automatically add the pilot to the operating company’s roster if they are not already a member.

Company Portals & Progression

Interaction with companies has been restructured around the introduction of Company Portals. Each company now has a public-facing portal that can be viewed before applying, providing visibility into their operations and fleet. It also serves as the home for existing pilots, with quick links to manage career progression and view the job marketplace for that company.

From the company profile, pilots can see operations, catch up on company acticity, read NOTAMS, and quickly search for jobs associated with specific company aircraft.

After joining a company's roster, pilots gain access to the Career Progression view. This tree-based interface maps out progression within the organisation, showing rank requirements, aircraft access, and the steps needed to unlock new ranks over time. From here pilots can apply for new ranks or switch between existing ranks that have been unlocked.

Alongside this, a new Company Directory page has been added to allow pilots to discover existing companies and better understand their structure, pay, activity, and areas of operation before committing.

Powerful Tools for Managers

Management tools for company owners have been expanded and reorganised to support clearer planning. The new Rank and Progression Manager introduces a visual, drag-and-drop canvas for defining career paths and managing rank pay within a company. We've also introduced rank duplication as a quality-of-life improvement, allowing rank settings and aircraft constraints to be copied quickly when creating or adjusting progression structures.

Communication with pilots has also been improved through the introduction of the NOTAMs feature. Managers can now issue Notices to Airmen, categorised as Announcements, Information, or Important, which are surfaced directly in the Pilot Portal to ensure key updates are visible to the roster. All active roster pilots also receive FSMail messages when new NOTAMS are published.

A dedicated Roster Management page has also been added to provide better oversight of pilot activity, including hours flown and incoming applications.

Other Improvements

• Redesigned Filter List: Active filters are now displayed in a wrapped layout, allowing you to see every applied constraint at a glance without horizontal scrolling or losing access to the filter and sort buttons.
• Persistent Pilot Mode: We've introduced an opt-in Persistent Pilot Mode that, if enabled in your settings, automatically applies the new From Last Location filter to jobs so that only show jobs departing from your last arrival airport are shown by default.
• Aircraft Group Constraints: Managers can now assign rank access based on Aircraft Groups.
• Smart URL Sync: The browser URL now automatically updates to reflect your active tabs and filters, letting you bookmark specific marketplace views or refresh the page without losing your place.
• Region & Flight Time Filters: Added new filter options to search for jobs by global region or specific flight duration ranges.
• UI Polish: Tweaked the sidebar menu order and refined styling on various components for a cleaner look.
• Heliport Filters: Added demand filters to exclude Heliports from demand search. This filter is applied by default. Also added demand filters to only show Heliports in demand search.
• Quick Maintenance Actions: Added visual indicators for overdue maintenance in the Aircraft list in the Operations Cockpit, allowing you to identify and start maintenance directly from the list without navigating away.