On 15 September 2026 Fly Virtual shut down its operations. It was one of the best virtual airlines affiliated with the Vatsim network and one I had been a member of for over 8 years. It had several hundred virtual pilots, conducting thousands of flights each year. I made over 300 flights with Fly Virtual since 2018.

The message about imminent shutdown of Fly Virtual reached me during a train trip, on 11th September. I received an e-mail which stated:

Pilots,
it's unfortunate but Fly Virtual will be closing effective September 15th, 2026.

It has been a good run, but our flight numbers keep falling as many in the community have turned to other venues like Volanta or just using MSFS for their community engagement. The cost of running the server/site has also gone up and we must must balance the benefit with the gain. There are several other considerations as well. Our site is old and is running on a unsupported frozen server. It needs a lot of work to get it up to where it can run on the newest website servers. This takes time and expertise we don't have. (...)

I can understand why the cost of the maintenance of an old server along with dwindling number of active pilots could push the founders of the virtual airline towards its closing. It is a sign of times, unfortunately. Virtual airlines, like internet forums, online chats in public rooms (i.e. IRC) belong to the era well passed. Internet was more social back then, even though social media were nonexistent. People were not afraid to share their interests and hobbies and to be present in online communities. Those communities, though, were not walled gardens like social media. I do miss the old internet. And I will miss Fly Virtual.

Fly Virtual was my second virtual airline. Previously I was affiliated with another, X-Plane-specific virtual airline, but I moved away due to constraints regarding the type of aircraft I could fly in the simulators. I do not know the exact number, but I would estimate that more than half of virtual airlines impose some sort of limitations or requirements onto their members, in terms of what type of aircraft they can fly under the virtual airline flag. It is usually associated with the total amount of hours flown for that particular airline. While it very loosely resembles the real world limitations, in which unexperienced pilots gain their hours flying general aviation aircraft first and then slowly stepping up to bigger planes, flight simmers do not need that artificial limitation. If someone wants to start their adventure with flight simulation in Boeing 777, no one should gate-keep that experience. That is why Fly Virtual was so friendly – it allowed its pilots to fly any route in any aircraft of their choosing. There were no flight time limitations, no exams, one could join the virtual airline and do their first flight using any aircraft. It was a great experience for me, because I used many various aircraft in different configurations.

Fly Virtual also had plenty of other activities. One of the things I liked the most were tours. Tours are sets of predefined flights connected with a common theme like “flying in Nepal” or “flying to cities with the biggest aviation museums” and so on. Fly Virtual always had at least a couple of tours active, making it easy for pilots to find one they wanted to complete. I had completed around a dozen tours in Fly Virtual and was enrolled in a couple of more. Alas, they will never be finished now.

After the initial shock my next thought when reading that e-mail was, “what am I going to do now?”. Initially I did not know whether I would be joining some other virtual airline or remain unaffiliated. On one hand, I did enjoy the camaraderie of Fly Virtual and their friendly attitude towards pilots. On the other hand, even with their very lose requirements to stay active (one was supposed to do at least two flights a month, but it was very loosely enforced), I was not able to catch up with that due to real life obligations. I did manage to do a flight in July but before that my previous flight was in April. I was not maintaining my currency but that is just the way it is – real life should always take precedence over virtual one.

After deep consideration I decided that I will not be joining another virtual airline. It is not for the lack of candidates – there are at least several virtual airlines with policies and requirements similarly relaxed to the ones at Fly Virtual. The reason is, I do not want to feel pressed into flying to maintain my currency when real life makes it inconvenient or even impossible. With Fly Virtual I never had a situation when not making those two required flights per month brought me some negative consequences but I cannot guarantee that it would be the same with other airlines. Besides, joining a community of a virtual airline while being aware that one cannot actively participate in that community seems to be unfair. If I am ready to get back to flying for a virtual airline, I want that decision to be well-thought.

Another argument for flying unaffiliated is reduced number of steps between the desire to fly and taking off in the simulator. With any virtual airline one needs to use some sort of ACARS system that shares details of the flight with the virtual airline’s server, for the purpose of logging the flight and verifying it was valid (i.e. the plane did not crash or instantly teleported to the destination airport). I do not know about other airlines, but in Fly Virtual SmartCARS system required the flight to either be reserved in the virtual airline’s bidding system or to be created in the software before flight. Usually it involved importing the flight plan for an IFR flight from SimBrief, but for VFR flights it was an additional yet unnecessary step, because they do not require a flight plan in the first place. If I additionally wanted to record my flight with Volanta or use a Vatsim client, it suddenly took additional 10-15 minutes to launch extra software, log into it, update it if necessary, and then configure details of the flight. It caused unnecessary friction that made me give up trying to fly on more than one day. Flying just for the sake of it, without registering the flight with a virtual airline, means that I can launch X-Plane, choose any airport and aircraft of my liking and simply start the pre-flight (or even immediately take off, had I chosen the option to start with engines running). I’m on my way within 3 minutes of loading in. No stress. Pure freedom.

I am sad to see Fly Virtual closing. I spent 9 years flying for this airline. Had some amazing moments, flew great tours. I definitely became a better simulator pilot thanks to Fly Virtual. Am I ready for what’s next? I don’t know. Maybe. For now, I am ready to take off on solo adventures. I may yet join another airline in the future. I have no expectations and feel no pressure. And that is wonderful.