A complete redesign of our network, fleet, and brand. Rolling out alongside our move from phpVMS to SOAR, our new platform. This is your first full look.
TL;DR
The whole thing, in eight lines
If you only read one part of this brief, read this one. Every point below is expanded further down the page if you want the reasoning.
3 hubs at launch: IAD, MSP, LAS. DFW, LAX, and BOS still heavily served. Just not as bases.
3 focus cities: TPA, SEA, PHNL. Each has a specific job (Caribbean/LatAm, PNW P2P, Hawaii).
Mixed narrowbody fleet. A320 + A320neo and 737-800 + 737 MAX 8 both active. Free substitution within family.
3 widebody types. A350, 787, 777. Each with a clear role.
Metro Connect carries forward as our regional brand. E175 + CRJ-700.
Your hours, rank, and history carry forward. Nothing you earned gets reset.
Heritage Schedule is a transition bridge. Keeps old routes flyable for a defined window after launch.
~978 daily flights across 248 city pairs at launch. Something to fly no matter what you prefer.
In a Bit More Detail
What's changing, in one breath
When the new MetroAir goes live on SOAR, we will operate three hubs, IAD, MSP, LAS, with three focus cities (TPA, SEA, PHNL), a fleet of 197 active aircraft across 248 city pairs, and around 978 scheduled flights per day.
DFW, LAX, and Boston will no longer be hubs (they'll still be heavily served as spokes). Our regional brand Metro Connect continues in its familiar role, and the mainline fleet will run a mixed generation with A320 + A320neo and 737-800 + 737 MAX 8 coexisting in the same families.
Most important: your hours, ranks, type ratings, and logbook carry forward unchanged when we migrate to SOAR. The routes you love aren't going away. For the ones that don't make the active cut, the Heritage Schedule will keep them flyable during the transition period. Your old bids still count. Nothing you earned gets reset.
Why Now
Twenty years of history, remastered
MetroAir narrowbody over a coastal city · Photo: MET3642 / Ryan Michalak
MetroAir started around 2006 with two aircraft and a handful of routes: a Bombardier Dash 8 Q200 for the regional flying and a Boeing 737-200 for everything else. That was it. From there, MetroAir grew steadily over nearly two decades. Eventually settling on the Airbus A32X family as its narrowbody backbone, which shaped the network and the way pilots experienced the airline for years.
The sim ecosystem has matured to the point where our scattered "whatever we could fly at the time" fleet isn't the constraint anymore. MSFS 2020 and 2024 give us a coherent menu of high-quality aircraft that map cleanly to a modern mainline fleet.
What we optimized for
We didn't optimize for "what's the most routes we can put on the board." We optimized for realism (calibrated against DOT T-100 segment data), focus (a network story that explains itself in one sentence), pilot experience (enough variety for career pilots, simple enough for casual pilots), and fleet efficiency (realistic utilization targets, triangle routing, no idle days at outstations).
The full 20-year storyDeep dive
From two airframes to six brands
One of the significant turning points was the decision to pursue fleet similarity on the narrowbody side. MetroAir settled on the Airbus A32X family as its narrowbody backbone, which shaped the network and the way pilots experienced the airline for years. That decision was one of several attempts over the years to bring coherence to an ever-expanding operation, and the Airbus commitment has carried forward into the SOAR era.
Alongside those fleet decisions, the broader landscape of virtual-airline-quality aircraft has grown significantly. As more capable add-ons became available for each generation of flight sim, from the FS9/FSX years into P3D, X-Plane, and now MSFS 2020 and 2024. MetroAir has been able to make decisions that weren't possible in the early days. Widebody operations, realistic interisland flying, high-fidelity regional jets, and long-haul international all became viable as the tools caught up.
Some of MetroAir's expansions over the years (Makai Express for Hawaiian operations, Prism for European routes, Dash Airlines, the cargo division) grew out of those moments. Opportunities that made sense at the time and brought something real to the airline. They're part of MetroAir's history, and the pilots who flew them were flying real MetroAir routes.
Why now
But twenty years of additions stacked on top of each other eventually becomes a lot to carry. Six airline brands, dozens of aircraft types, routes with overlapping coverage, and schedules assembled from a half-dozen different eras of phpVMS scheduling. The sim ecosystem has also matured to the point where the scattered "whatever we could fly at the time" fleet isn't the constraint anymore, MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024 give us a coherent menu of high-quality aircraft that map cleanly to a modern mainline fleet.
The SOAR migration gives us a chance to return to the focused, coherent identity that defined MetroAir in the early years. While preserving the history that got us here. Think of it less as a reinvention and more as a remastering.
The question we asked during the February 2026 redesign planning: what would MetroAir look like if we rebuilt it today as a single, modern US mainline carrier, while staying true to the "Realistic. Innovative. Professional." identity we've always carried?
The New Hub Structure
Three hubs. Three stories
Each hub has a specific job. Together they tell a coherent mainline network story. East Coast anchor, Heartland workhorse, West Coast and Pacific gateway.
Flagship Hub
Our flagship hub on SOAR. The largest operation and primary gateway to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Central east coast positioning, DC business traffic, slot availability.
Domestic Hub
Our domestic workhorse. Handles the middle of the country and anchors most of the Metro Connect regional feeder network. Within ~1,500 nm of every major US city.
Pacific Hub
Newest hub and probably the most controversial. But it gives us a story nobody else has: closest viable mainland hub to Hawaii, transpacific without fighting LAX slot wars, and a fun leisure brand to fly into.
Why IAD?Deep dive
IAD will be MetroAir's flagship hub on SOAR. Our largest operation and primary gateway to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Geographic position. Roughly central on the east coast, which makes it viable for both northeast (BOS, BWI, PHL corridor) and southeast (CHS, SAV, MCO) spokes without favoring one too heavily.
Business/government travel. Washington DC's federal, diplomatic, and contractor economy is one of the most travel-intensive in the country. IAD's real-world anchor tenant (United) runs a mini-international network largely on the back of this traffic.
European gateway positioning. IAD has real-world precedent as a transatlantic departure point for 14+ European destinations. We're extending that with Munich, Brussels, Copenhagen, Vienna, Athens, Istanbul, and Milan on top of the existing LHR/CDG/AMS/FRA/DUB/FCO/MAD/LIS/ZRH/KEF/BCN/EDI/MAN/CUN lineup.
Slot availability. Unlike JFK/LGA/EWR, IAD isn't slot-constrained. We can grow here without begging the FAA.
What you'll fly from IAD: the full spread. A320neo and 737-MAX on the domestic trunks, A321 on transcon, 787-9 on thinner European routes, A350-900 on flagship TATL (LHR, CDG, AMS, MUC), 777-300ER on the biggest routes (LHR PM, FRA, HNL, DXB, JNB), plus Metro Connect E175 and CRJ-700 on the short hub-feeder routes.
Why MSP?Deep dive
MSP will be our domestic workhorse. It'll handle the middle of the country and anchor most of the Metro Connect regional feeder network.
Domestic connectivity. MSP is within ~1,500 nm of every major US city, which makes it an ideal center-of-the-country connector.
Regional feeder density. The Upper Midwest and Northern Plains have dozens of small-to-mid markets (Fargo, Sioux Falls, Duluth, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Winnipeg, La Crosse, Bemidji) that need hub connections. Metro Connect's E175 and CRJ-700 fleet will serve 16+ of these cities from MSP alone. More than any other hub.
International footprint: 5 long-haul routes (London Heathrow, Amsterdam, Seoul Incheon, Cancun, Toronto). Small but strategic.
Hub-to-hub connectivity. MSP will sit between IAD and LAS on our trunk system. A lot of our widebody triangle routing cycles through MSP as a positioning leg.
What you'll fly from MSP: domestic narrowbody as the bread and butter. A350-900 on MSP-LHR as a flagship, 787-9 on MSP-AMS and MSP-HNL, 777-300ER on MSP-ICN. Metro Connect regional flying is heaviest here.
Why LAS?Deep dive
LAS will be the newest hub in the structure and probably the most controversial. Let's address that head-on.
Hawaii gateway. LAS is the closest mainland hub to Honolulu at ~2,750 nm. LAX is ~2,550 nm which is technically closer, but LAS has more slot availability and fewer competing airlines. Making LAS the primary HNL gateway gives us a story nobody else has.
Transpacific positioning. LAS to NRT/HND/ICN/HKG is within 777-300ER range and avoids the brutal LAX competition. We'll operate LAS-NRT, LAS-HND, LAS-ICN, LAS-HKG, and LAS-SYD. LAS becomes our Pacific gateway in a way that LAX never could have (too many competitors, not enough slots).
Growing airport. Harry Reid International Airport has been expanding consistently for 15+ years. Real-world it's the 9th-busiest airport in the US. Terminal 3 has room to grow.
Pilot appeal. Let's be honest: LAS is fun. Vegas brand, lots of leisure traffic, scenic mountain approaches, and the shortest realistic Hawaii crossings in the network. We expect a lot of pilots to bid LAS routes specifically for the Hawaii runs.
What you'll fly from LAS: heavy A320/A320neo and 737-800/MAX on the West Coast and Southwest spokes, A321 on Hawaii (shortest crossing), 777-300ER on transpacific (NRT, HND, ICN, HKG, SYD), Metro Connect E175 on regional routes to Fresno, Reno, Grand Junction, and others.
Addressing the Elephant in the Room
About DFW, LAX, and Boston
SPOKE · HIGH FREQUENCY
American's #1 hub with 900+ daily departures. Competing from a VA identity standpoint is nearly impossible, and DFW's spoke coverage overlaps heavily with both MSP and LAS. Every DFW city pair you fly today is still on the SOAR schedule.
SPOKE · 11+ ROUTES
One of the most slot-constrained airports in the US. Modeling LAS as our West Coast hub gives us a cleaner story for Hawaii and transpacific without fighting three alliance carriers for every Asian route. LAX stays one of the most-scheduled airports in the network.
TOP-5 SPOKE
Too eastern to anchor a national network. Every west coast route becomes a cross-country crossing. IAD covers the mid-Atlantic corridor better. BOS stays a top-5 spoke, consistently among our most-flown destinations.
This is the part we expect will upset some folks. These have been core bases in the phpVMS-era MetroAir. In SOAR they'll all still be heavily served. Just not as hubs. Here's the honest reasoning for each.
"But I've been based at DFW/LAX/BOS!" Your hours, PIREPs, rank, and type ratings all carry forward unchanged. These airports will remain among the most-scheduled destinations in the network, so you'll still be flying to and from them constantly. Just with flights that originate at IAD, MSP, or LAS.
Full reasoning. DFWDeep dive
What's changing: DFW has been a primary base in the phpVMS-era schedule. On SOAR, it'll be a high-frequency spoke served by all three hubs (3/day from IAD, 3/day from MSP, 3/day from LAS, 2/day from TPA) plus SEA focus city transcon.
Why we're dropping it as a hub
American Airlines' backyard. DFW is American's #1 hub with 900+ daily departures. Competing from a VA identity standpoint is nearly impossible. Our network story doesn't have a compelling "DFW connection" that isn't "we compete head-on with AA."
Geographic redundancy. DFW's spoke coverage overlaps heavily with both MSP (Plains/Midwest) and LAS (Southwest). Dropping it as a hub doesn't reduce our coverage; it just removes a redundant base.
Focus city pressure. We already have TPA as a southern focus city for Caribbean/LatAm. A second southern focus at DFW would dilute both.
What's preserved: every DFW city pair you fly today will still be on the SOAR schedule. DFW-LAX, DFW-ORD, DFW-SEA, DFW-TPA, DFW-IAD, DFW-MSP. All active. DFW will just route through our hubs instead of originating from it.
Full reasoning. LAXDeep dive
What's changing: LAX has been the primary West Coast base. On SOAR it'll be a spoke (4/day from IAD, 3/day from MSP, 4/day from LAS) plus SEA focus city and select widebody premium transcon rotations.
Why we're dropping it as a hub
Slot constraints. LAX is one of the most slot-constrained airports in the US. Growing here means fighting for gate space and competing with Alaska, American, Delta, United, and Southwest all at once.
Hawaii crossing inefficiency. LAX-HNL is 2,550 nm vs LAS-HNL at 2,750 nm. The 200 nm savings sounds good until you factor in LAX's slot problems and the fact that LAS has more available connecting traffic for the leisure market that dominates Hawaii flying.
LAS eats LAX's lunch for transpacific. Modeling LAS as our West Coast hub gives us a clean story for Hawaii and transpacific. Modeling LAX as a hub would have meant fighting three alliance carriers for every Asian route.
What's preserved: LAX will still have 11+ active routes across all three hubs plus focus city transcon. It'll remain one of the most-scheduled airports in the network.
Full reasoning. BOSDeep dive
What's changing: BOS has been a base in the phpVMS-era schedule. On SOAR it'll be a top-5 spoke (5/day from IAD, 2/day from MSP, 3/day from SEA, 1/day from LAS).
Why we're dropping it as a hub
Too eastern to anchor a national network. BOS is fine as a premium east coast city but poor as a hub because it forces every west coast route through a cross-country crossing. Hub economics don't work when half your spokes are 5+ hour flights.
Slot constraints. Similar to LAX. Logan is tight on slots and dominated by JetBlue and Delta.
IAD covers the mid-Atlantic better. The northeast corridor (BOS, PVD, ALB, BUF, ORF, JFK, LGA, EWR) is better served from IAD than from BOS, because IAD sits in the middle and can swing both ways.
What's preserved: BOS will be one of the most-scheduled spokes on the network at 5/day from IAD. It's consistently among the top 3 destinations by PIREP count historically. You'll still fly out of and into BOS constantly. Just not as a home base.
Focus Cities
TPA · SEA · PHNL
Focus cities sit somewhere between a hub and a spoke. They don't get the full hub treatment, no dedicated maintenance base, no full fleet cycling. But each one has a dedicated route network and a specific job. Some, like TPA, do host connecting traffic in their specialty region.
Focus City
Modeled after Delta's real-world 20-year Tampa investment. Tampa's international traffic is up 300% vs pre-pandemic. Positioned as the Miami alternative for Caribbean/LatAm gateway traffic.
Focus City
Modeled after Delta's focus city approach at AUS and RDU. Point-to-point to major domestic markets, no hub banks, no international. 22–25M annual O&D passengers. More than any Delta focus city.
Focus City
The smallest focus city but probably the most beloved. Interisland flying on the CRJ-700 plus mainland connections to all three hubs and SEA. The CRJ-700 is also the entry-level aircraft for every new pilot.
TPA. The full storyDeep dive
TPA is modeled after Delta's real-world Tampa investment. Delta signed a 20-year anchor tenant deal at TPA's new Airside D terminal (opening ~2029). They've committed to 6+ gates and a Sky Club, plus added widebody TPA-AMS. Tampa's international traffic is up 300% vs pre-pandemic. TPA is the fastest-growing major Florida airport, and it's positioned to be the Miami alternative for Caribbean/LatAm gateway traffic.
MetroAir's TPA operation will include:
Caribbean/LatAm (13 destinations on narrowbody): SJU, CUN, NAS, GCM, MBJ, PUJ, SDQ, PTY, BOG, HAV, STT, SXM, AUA
South America (3 destinations on 787-9): GRU (São Paulo), LIM (Lima), EZE (Buenos Aires)
Domestic spokes (20): full east coast + major cross-country presence
Hub connections: 3/day to IAD, 2/day to MSP, 1/day to LAS
TPA is where you'll go when you want to fly to the Caribbean and South America.
SEA. The full storyDeep dive
SEA is modeled after Delta's focus city approach at AUS and RDU. The idea: point-to-point flying to major domestic markets, no hub banks, no international. Seattle generates 22–25M annual O&D passengers, which exceeds Delta's largest focus city (AUS at 14–18M).
MetroAir's SEA operation will include:
Hub trunks: 3/day to LAS, 2/day to MSP, 4/day to IAD
West Coast + Mountain. LAX 8/day, SFO 6/day, PDX 5/day, DEN 4/day, SLC, PHX, SJC, SAN, SMF, BOI
Cross-country + Florida. ORD 4/day, DFW 5/day, ATL, BOS, MCO, TPA, FLL
Hawaii + Alaska. HNL, ANC
PNW short-haul. GEG, EUG
SEA is where you'll fly if you want heavy West Coast flying with occasional cross-country trips.
PHNL. The full storyDeep dive
PHNL will handle interisland flying on the CRJ-700 (HNL-OGG, HNL-LIH, HNL-KOA, HNL-ITO) plus connecting traffic to all three mainland hubs plus SEA.
The CRJ-700 replaces earlier turboprop concepts. It's well-modeled in MSFS, provides a realistic interisland jet experience, and serves as the entry-level aircraft for every new pilot. Your on-ramp to the progression ladder.
The Network
All of it, on one map
Three hubs, three focus cities, and a representative view of the trunks, international long-hauls, and spokes that tie the network together. Zoom in for detail. (Not every spoke is shown. The real schedule covers 248 city pairs.)
A snapshot of the network as it stood during planning. Not every spoke is shown. For the network as it actually flies today, open the live route map.
The Fleet
197 aircraft. Eight active types
A mixed-generation mainline matching how every real US carrier operates today. Classic and neo/MAX variants coexisting in the same families. Fly whichever you prefer.
Entry-level for every new pilot + Hawaiian interisland flying.
8active
Photo: MET1284 / Chris G
Established regional workhorse. MSP Plains, IAD mid-Atlantic, LAS SW.
15active
Photo: MET1113 / Sean Mullineaux
Airbus narrowbody family. A319 on thinner short-haul, A320 classic and neo across the domestic backbone. Free substitution within the family.
~50active
Photo: MET1954 / Richard Casey · KGRB DEP
Boeing narrowbody family. 737-700 on thinner short-haul, 737-800 classic and MAX 8 across the domestic backbone. Free substitution within the family.
~47active
Photo: MET1261 / David Izzi
Transcon, medium-haul, Hawaii gateway from LAS.
40active
Photo: MET1113 / Sean Mullineaux
Thinner TATL, South America, MSP-HNL, new Euro/Med routes.
15active
Photo: MET1137 / Stephen L · KSFO
Flagship TATL. LHR, CDG, AMS, FCO, MAD, MUC.
9active
Photo: MET1261 / David Izzi
The biggest routes. LHR PM, FRA, HNL, DXB, JNB, NRT, HND, ICN, HKG, SYD. The 777-200 is a same-family variant: if you're rated on the 777, you can fly either.
16active
Photo: MET1137 / Stephen L
757 · 747 · Dash 8 and other retired types. Preserved in the database, so your PIREPs and hours from these aircraft carry forward. Flyable via substitution or Heritage Schedule routes when you're Ground Rated or higher on any currently operated family in the same equipment class. You don't earn a type rating on the heritage aircraft directly — your rating on the narrowbody, widebody, regional, or turboprop family you already fly is what unlocks the heritage aircraft in that class.
Photo: MET1137 / Stephen L
Mixed-generation fleet. How schedule assignment worksDeep dive
MetroAir will run a mixed-generation mainline fleet. Classic and neo/MAX variants coexisting in the same family. This matches how every real US mainline carrier operates today (United, Delta, American, Southwest all run mixed fleets mid-transition). The ~72/28 classic-to-new ratio puts us comparable to Southwest's current 737 MAX share or Delta's A321neo rollout.
Schedule assignment rules
≥1,200 nm (A320) or ≥1,400 nm (737) → neo/MAX variant (fuel efficiency matters on longer segments)
<1,200 nm / <1,400 nm → classic variant
Top-25 busiest short-haul trunks → ~50% of flights will use the neo/MAX variant, giving you mixed-fleet variety on the bid board
On a route like KLAS-KLAX (our busiest), you'll see both A320 and A320neo frequencies on the same day. Bid whichever variant you prefer.
Why the widebodies run at 70–88% utilization
Our widebody fleet will sit at 70–88% scheduled utilization on purpose. That's deliberate growth headroom. We've sized slightly above current needs so we can add new long-haul routes without immediately needing more aircraft. Future additions like Santiago, Auckland, or a second Africa destination will be absorbed into the existing fleet.
Why no 757, 767, 747, Dash 8, or ERJ-145 on the active schedule?Deep dive
If you've flown MetroAir for a while, you've seen all of these. They were part of the network that grew over the years. None of them will appear on the active SOAR schedule, but they're not gone either. They exist in our database as heritage aircraft. Your PIREPs and hours on them are preserved. They may appear on Heritage Schedule routes, and you can substitute them onto active routes via the normal substitution policy.
The 777-200 is a special case. It's a variant of the 777 family, same as the -300ER. If you hold a 777 type rating, you can fly either variant. No heritage gate, no special rules, just a same-family substitution.
How do you fly heritage aircraft?
Heritage aircraft don't have their own exam, checkride, or IOE pipeline. You earn access to them indirectly by holding a Ground Rated (or higher) type rating on any currently operated aircraft family in the same equipment class.
Narrowbody class (757 heritage): rated on the A320 or 737 family and you can fly the 757.
Widebody class (747 heritage): rated on the 787 or 777 family and you can fly the 747.
Turboprop class (Dash 8 heritage): currently gated by the turboprop family baseline — details will firm up as the class grows.
Heritage flights earn at the baseline pay and MetroMiles rate for your tier (no Type Rated or Command Rated bonus, because those bonuses apply only to the specific family you earned them on, not to substituted heritage aircraft). Substituting a heritage aircraft onto an active route costs MetroMiles like any cross-family substitution.
This model applies to future heritage types too. When a retired aircraft gets added to the database as heritage, it's immediately available to any pilot who holds a qualifying type rating in the same class. No new exam or checkride pipeline needed.
Why consolidate?
Realistic airlines don't operate 15 different aircraft types. Maintenance costs, training complexity, and spare parts management become unmanageable. Real US mainlines operate 3-5 narrowbody types and 2-3 widebody types. MetroAir's 8 active types (3 narrowbody families counting mixed variants + 3 widebody + 2 regional) is at the high end of realistic but defensible. Each type has a distinct role. Heritage aircraft let you fly the classics without bloating the active fleet.
Substitution Policy (Draft)
Fly what you want, within reason
Some pilots have strong preferences. "I only fly the 777." "I hate narrowbody transcon." "I want to fly my old 757 on an A321 route." Here's how substitutions will work on SOAR, including heritage aircraft.
| Tier | Example | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Same-family | A320 ↔ A320neo, 737-800 ↔ 737 MAX 8 | Free · always allowed |
| Cross-family, same class | A320 ↔ 737-800, A350 ↔ 777 | MetroMiles · allowed with payment |
| Cross-class | Narrowbody ↔ widebody on the same flight | Premium MetroMiles · type rating + runway gated |
What this means in practiceDeep dive
Mixed-fleet pilots will be happy by default. If you're bidding an A320 flight, you'll be able to fly it as an A320neo with no payment or approval needed. Both variants share the same type rating.
Brand loyalists can pay to substitute across families. If you're an Airbus purist and your bid has a 737 on it, you'll be able to substitute to A320/A21N/A321 for a MetroMiles fee (specific amounts TBD. Finalized in a separate currency pricing pass).
Heritage equipment works with substitution. If you want to fly a 757 on an A321 transcon route, that's a cross-family substitution. You need a Ground Rated (or higher) type rating on any active narrowbody family (A320 or 737), and you pay the normal cross-family MetroMiles fee. Heritage flights earn at Ground Rated reward rates (full rank points, without the pay and MetroMiles bonus). Heritage Schedule routes are also available for heritage aircraft without a substitution cost, but the same access gate and reward rates apply.
Cross-class substitutions (flying a widebody on a narrowbody route, or vice versa) are allowed under a premium MetroMiles policy. This is gated on three things: you need to hold the type rating for the substituted aircraft, both airports have to physically accommodate it (runway length and gate class), and you pay a distance-scaled premium MetroMiles cost.
Why? The substitution policy is meant to preserve preferences without breaking realism. Real airlines absolutely run mixed fleets. United runs both A319 and A320 and 737-800 and 737 MAX on similar routes, and also occasionally runs a 777 on ORD-MCO or a 767 on short domestic pairs for fleet rotation. MetroAir's policy mirrors all of it: within a family, freely interchangeable; across families, covered by MetroMiles; across classes, premium MetroMiles with type rating and runway gates.
All three tiers are live at launch. Same-family, cross-family, and cross-class substitutions are all active on day one. Exact MetroMiles costs for cross-family and cross-class will be finalized and published in their own note before the network goes live, but the policy itself is in place from the start.
Career Progression
Rank and ratings. Two paths
SOAR separates your rank from your aircraft access. Rank is your career seniority, earned through points-based auto-promotion. Higher ranks earn a higher pay rate and may unlock additional benefits over time. Aircraft access comes through type ratings, earned per aircraft family. Two independent ladders. Climb both at your own pace.
For all of MetroAir's history, your rank, your flight hours, and which aircraft you could fly were a single stack. The handbook's CAT A through CAT F system gated everything together: you started at CAT A on the CRJ-700 and E175 with under 20 hours, you moved up to CAT B and unlocked the A320 and 737-800 once you cleared the next hours threshold, CAT C added the 787 and 757, CAT D added the 767 and 777-200, CAT E added the 747 and 777-300ER, and CAT F at ATP Captain meant no restrictions. One ladder, climbed in order. That's how it's worked for two decades. We're changing it.
The reason is that bundling everything together meant rank and aircraft qualification were forced to answer the same question, when they're really answering two. Rank answers "how senior are you?" Type ratings answer "can you fly this airplane?" Bundling them meant a pilot who wanted to specialize on one aircraft couldn't get rank credit for it, and a pilot who wanted to fly everything had to grind through the order whether the next CAT actually interested them or not. Splitting the two lets you pursue whichever path matters to you, and lets the right side of the model actually mean something.
The other shift: points replace hours as the rank currency. Hours-based progression rewards seat time regardless of what you're actually doing in the seat. Points-based progression rewards completed flights and weights them by distance and landing quality. A long-haul widebody is worth more than a regional shuttle because distance goes into the formula, and a clean landing is worth more than a sloppy one because your landing score multiplies the flight's point total. Same idea of "fly more, advance more," but the math actually means something now.
Your existing rank and your aircraft history both carry forward. Nothing you earned over the last twenty years gets reset. If you were CAT C in the old handbook, you'll come into SOAR with the type ratings for everything CAT A through CAT C covered, plus your existing rank. The migration honors what you've already done, just under a model that gives you more room to grow in the directions that interest you.
Rank: career seniority
Six tiers auto-promote when you cross each point threshold, plus a seventh tier (Line Training Captain) that's hand-assigned by leadership. Points come from completed flights, with quality and variety mattering more than raw hours. Early ranks stay fast to keep you engaged; later ranks earn their prestige through sustained, quality flying.
| Step | Name | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · SO | Second Officer | Where every pilot starts. Your on-ramp to the airline. |
| 2 · FO | First Officer | Establishing yourself on the line. Building hours and earning your first type ratings. |
| 3 · SR FO | Senior First Officer | A seasoned right-seater with a growing portfolio of type ratings. |
| 4 · CAPT | Captain | Left seat. A meaningful milestone earned through sustained, quality flying. |
| 5 · SR CAPT | Senior Captain | A veteran presence on the line. Deep experience across the fleet. |
| 6 · ATP | ATP Captain | The summit of the auto-promotion ladder. Earned through years of dedicated flying. |
| 7 · LTC | Line Training Captain | A recognition of leadership and contribution to the airline, hand-assigned by leadership rather than earned through points. Held by pilots who help train, mentor, and represent the line. Not a type rating, not a promotion you can grind for. A nod from the people running the operation. |
What rank gets you. Auto-promotion when you cross a threshold (no exam, no application). A higher pay rate per flight hour. A persistent badge of seniority that doesn't go backward. Future possibilities include rank-gated unlocks like priority bidding or special-event access — those are on the table but not committed for launch.
Heads up: the points system is still being calibrated. We have working point thresholds for each rank and a working formula for how many points a flight earns (driven by distance, landing score, and a few flat bonuses for things like flying ACARS, online networks, and SimBrief), but neither is locked. Both will be tuned during beta testing so the pacing feels right: fast early, meaningful later, never grindy. We'll publish the working numbers before launch and adjust them in the open as we learn how they play. Your existing flight history will be retroactively credited under whichever formula we ship with.
Type ratings: aircraft access
Earned per aircraft family (Airbus A320 family, Boeing 737 family, widebodies, regionals). Once you're rated on a family, you have full access to every variant in it. The flow below has six stages, done at your own pace. You can fly the aircraft as soon as you pass the written exam (stage 2, Ground Rated), and that's a complete, terminal state on its own — everything above it is an optional upgrade that unlocks a bigger pay and MetroMiles bonus on every flight in the family. Type Rated is the standard upgrade most pilots will pursue; Command Rated is an aspirational upgrade above that for pilots who want the extra challenge. You're never forced past Ground Rated.
| Step | Name | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · EXAM | Written Exam | A knowledge test on aircraft systems, performance, limitations, and standard procedures. Take it in the testing center, on your schedule, as many times as you need. |
| 2 · GND | Ground Rated | You passed the exam. You can fly the aircraft immediately with full rank progression points. Completing the checkride and IOE pipeline unlocks a pay and MetroMiles bonus, but Ground Rated is a real, flyable status on its own, not a waiting room. Some pilots stay here permanently and that's completely fine. Request a checkride when you're ready, or don't. |
| 3 · RIDE | Checkride | A staff-curated flight on a specific route with specific weather and procedures, manually evaluated by a Chief Pilot. Pass/fail. The route, conditions, and grading criteria are published up front so you know what you're walking into. Requires the ACARS client for flight telemetry. |
| 4 · IOE | Initial Operating Experience | Five line flights with a minimum score threshold. Supervised early line flying after the checkride. You're qualified, you're just still proving it on the line. Ends as soon as you've shown you can fly cleanly. Requires the ACARS client. |
| 5 · RATED | Type Rated Optional upgrade | An optional upgrade above Ground Rated. Unlocks a 25% pay and MetroMiles bonus on every flight in the family. Most pilots with an ACARS client will pursue this because the bonus is real and the gating flow (checkride plus IOE) is designed to be achievable by a dedicated-but-not-expert simmer. You're not blocked by it though — Ground Rated is a complete, terminal state on its own, and many pilots will stay there on some or all of their aircraft families and that's by design. |
| 6 · CMD | Command Rated Optional upgrade | A senior qualification for pilots who want to push past Type Rated. Requires you to already be Type Rated on the family, log some additional line flying in that family, and pass a harder specialty checkride built around an iconic approach — the kind of procedure real crews train for specifically. Unlocks a 75% pay and MetroMiles bonus on every flight in the family (50 percentage points more than Type Rated), plus a distinct badge. Like Type Rated, entirely optional — this one is for the pilots who want the extra challenge and the extra reward. |
Type Rated and Command Rated carry pay and MetroMiles bonuses on top of the Ground Rated baseline, applied per aircraft family. Rank points are unaffected, so rank progression stays independent of type rating. The specific multipliers and full flow live in the pilot handbook.
The ACARS client is a PC application that hooks into the simulator for real-time flight data. If you fly on Xbox, console, or any setup where you can't run the ACARS client, you still have a complete progression path. The web platform works on any device, so booking flights, submitting manual PIREPs, viewing your logbook, and taking written exams all work exactly the same.
Passing a written exam puts you at Ground Rated, which means you can fly that aircraft family, earn rank progression points, and build your career. You rank up at exactly the same rate as a PC pilot. Pilots who complete the full checkride and IOE pipeline earn a pay and MetroMiles bonus on top of that, but Ground Rated is a complete, permanent status on its own. Many pilots will stay Ground Rated on some or all of their aircraft and that's by design.
What requires ACARS: checkrides (the evaluator needs flight telemetry), IOE (requires scored ACARS flights), landing scores, and real-time flight tracking. If you're on hardware that doesn't support the ACARS client, those features won't be available, but nothing about them blocks your ability to fly, rank up, or participate in the airline.
What's still being calibratedHonest status
The model is locked but a couple of numbers are still being tuned. Sharing them so you know what's settled and what isn't.
IOE score threshold. The minimum score required to clear an IOE flight depends on the new score distribution, which has been recalibrated but is still being validated. Expect a fair number against the new scale, not the inflated current one.
Rank point thresholds. Recommended thresholds are in place (FO through ATP Captain) and are being validated against historical flight data before going live. The pacing targets fast early, meaningful later, never grindy.
Command Rated hours floor and specialty checkride design. The Command Rated upgrade is a post-launch feature. The tier model and the bonus numbers are locked (+75% pay and MetroMiles over baseline). The exact post-Type-Rating flight floor and the specialty checkride design will be announced per aircraft family closer to when each one ships.
Everything else (the rank ladder, the type rating flow, the Ground Rated path, the migration rules, the checkride evaluation system) is designed and ready for launch.
What this means for you
Two kinds of pilots. Both welcome
The casual pilot
You fly for the experience, not to climb a ladder. Earn a Ground Rated on the family you care about and spend your flights exploring the network. You'll notice new neo/MAX variants alongside classics, and new destinations you haven't seen before. Munich, Dubai, Sydney, Johannesburg, Buenos Aires. Rank points accumulate in the background whether you pay attention or not, so one month you'll just notice you got promoted. You never need to pursue Type Rated or Command Rated. Both are optional upgrades, and Ground Rated is a complete, terminal state on its own.
The career pilot
You treat MetroAir as a long-term hobby. You'll pursue Type Rated on the families you fly most, then chase Command Rated on the one you love. You'll watch your rank points tick up and plan your flights around hitting the next threshold. Over the years you might collect type ratings across three or four families. Earning your widebody type rating and flying IAD-DXB or IAD-JNB becomes a meaningful achievement on top of whatever rank you hold.
Both pilots share the same rules. You need at least Ground Rated on any family you want to fly. You earn rank points from every flight. You are auto-promoted when you cross each threshold. Currency and conduct rules apply to everyone. The only thing that differs between the two kinds of pilots is how much you engage with the optional upgrade ladders. Both ways are how MetroAir is designed to work, and the system does not prefer one over the other.
Flying on Xbox or console? Everything above applies to you too. The ACARS client is PC-only, so features that depend on it (landing scores, checkrides, real-time tracking) won't be available on your hardware. But the web platform works on any device, and you can rank up at the same rate as anyone else. See the type ratings section for how Ground Rated status works for hardware-limited pilots.
What we couldn't preserve (and why)Deep dive
We've tried to preserve as much as we can:
All flight hours, PIREPs, rank, and type ratings carry forward unchanged
Legacy brands (Makai Express, Prism, Dash Airlines) will be folded into MetroAir, but routes you flew under them will either appear on the active schedule or on the Heritage Schedule during the transition period
The Heritage Schedule is a temporary transition tool. Available for a window after launch so you have time to adjust to the new network, and it'll count for progression while active. The exact length of the transition window will be announced closer to launch.
What we couldn't preserve:
Some routes won't make the active cut, and they won't last forever on the Heritage Schedule either. The transition period is finite. If there's a specific route you care about that isn't on the active schedule, let us know before launch and we'll evaluate it.
The existing liveries stay on the aircraft that already wear them, so if you love your Makai or Prism or Dash bird you'll still see it on the ramp. We're folding the operation together for fleet conformity (and to give our livery painters a little break).
What We're Watching
A living, growing airline
We've made the big decisions for launch, but MetroAir is a living airline. Things will shift and grow as times change. These are the areas we're actively thinking about for after we're stable on SOAR. None of them affect day one, but they give you a sense of where we're heading next.
Ski season seasonal routes. Jackson Hole (JAC), Vail/Eagle (EGE), Aspen (ASE) as 3–4 month seasonal Metro Connect destinations. These make sense for winter but it's spring now. We'll revisit in fall 2026 before the ski season and see if we can run a seasonal sub-fleet pattern.
A second Africa destination. JNB will be our first Africa route. Cairo or Nairobi could follow later depending on how 777-300ER utilization shakes out after JNB settles in. We'd love to have more African flying on the board.
Asian expansion. Singapore and Osaka are on the backlog but have technical constraints (Singapore is at 777-300ER range limit from LAS; Osaka has weak recent demand). We may revisit with different equipment or from a different hub as the fleet grows.
New aircraft as the sim community ships them. The MSFS addon ecosystem keeps maturing, and several aircraft in active development could find a home at MetroAir. We're watching Synaptic Simulations' A220 (in final testing as of this spring, partnered with iniBuilds) as a potential addition to the active mainline fleet. It's a natural fit alongside the A320 family. We're also watching BlueBird Simulations' 757-200/-300, targeting a 2026 release. The 757 is already a heritage type in our database, so when a quality addon ships, any pilot with a narrowbody type rating can fly it immediately through the heritage access model described above. Same goes for other classic types as they're preserved in the community.
Diversion handling. The landing analyzer already recognizes when a filed arrival doesn't match where you actually touched down. Right now that signal just gets stored quietly on the flight record; the next step is surfacing it as a real diversion workflow where you can declare the divert, get scored against the airport you actually landed at, and have your flight log reflect the route you actually flew. Useful for the "weather at destination turned to garbage" scenario and for the "mid-flight emergency, put it down somewhere closer" scenario.
The point: launch-day MetroAir isn't the final form. A real airline evolves. Routes come and go, fleets modernize, hubs grow and shrink with the market. Ours will too. The design principles stay the same, though: realistic, innovative, professional. Same as it's ever been.
The platform we've been quietly building underneath all of this. A modern virtual airline OS purpose-built for the way pilots actually fly in 2026. Here's a first look at what you'll be logging into.
A cockpit for your career.
Your dashboard surfaces what matters: next flight, points to rank, monthly line progress, MetroMiles balance, recent flights at a glance. Real-time airport delays across the network at the top of every page. No spreadsheet aesthetics. No 2006 phpVMS tables.
Find your next flight fast.
Filter by hub, aircraft, distance, new destinations, active tours, or tags. Day-of-week availability shown inline. Personalized suggestions surface at the top. The full schedule is yours to browse.
Native desktop ACARS.
The new ACARS client runs as a native Windows app. SimConnect, FSUIPC, and X-Plane support, live flight tracking on a map, dispatch and event monitor tabs, and automatic position reporting to the rest of the airline.
Post-flight that feels rewarding.
Every flight becomes a detail page with your route, flight score, rewards breakdown, full ACARS event log, and route replay on the map. A record worth looking back at, not a row in a table.
Multi-leg adventures.
Themed tours string together multiple flights into a story. Race competitors on cross-country runs, chase sunsets through the Caribbean, or work your way around the world. Progress is tracked automatically from your PIREPs.
Goals worth chasing.
Five independent streak chains run in parallel: consecutive route continuity, perfect landings, weekly activity, on-time arrivals, and incident-free flying. Each one resets or freezes on its own, so you're always chasing multiple goals at once. On top of that, monthly challenges and dozens of awards trigger automatically from your PIREPs. Butter touchdowns, centerline precision, flying in every weather condition, tenure milestones. Your lifetime stats stay visible so you always know what's next.
Build your own adventure.
Want to go from SFO to Washington via London? Hong Kong? Both? Drop any sequence of airports into the trip builder and SOAR finds the flights for you. It stitches together scheduled routes where they exist and generates charters where they don't, so any city pair you can imagine becomes a bookable trip. Perfect for chasing personal goals, recreating real-world itineraries, or just seeing a part of the world MetroAir doesn't normally serve.
Behind the Tagline
Realistic. Innovative. Professional
Three words we've carried since day one. Everything you've read about is shaped by them. The hub decisions, the fleet consolidation, the route structure, the platform you just toured. They're all answers to "what would a realistic, innovative, professional version of this look like?" Here are a few more specific systems underneath the hood that make the tagline concrete, tagged with the pillars they embody. They're a sampling, not a complete list.
Every airport has a gate budget.
Airports aren't infinite. KBOS has a fixed pool of MetroAir gates. KIAD has terminal A and a specific slot allotment. KMSP has hub banks. The schedule knows about all of it. Every flight is assigned to a specific gate at each endpoint, and the system actively tracks hourly utilization and flags conflicts when two flights try to occupy the same gate at the same time.
That means when we say "five flights a day from IAD to BOS at MetroAir" we've actually verified that KBOS has the gate capacity to turn those arrivals without bumping another flight. Peak hours light up red on the utilization chart so dispatch knows where the pressure is. It's the kind of thing real airline operations centers watch all day, and the kind of thing that almost no VA actually models.
Every aircraft has a life story.
MetroAir doesn't just have "sixteen 777s." It has sixteen specific tail numbers, each with a home base, a current position, and a complete flight history. When you fly N-whatever from KLAS to HNL, that exact airframe is now sitting in Honolulu until someone rotates it back. Pull up any tail on SOAR and you'll see where it is right now, where it's been, who's flown it, and a lifetime stat sheet (hours, cycles, average landing score, favorite city pairs).
This is what enables things like repositioning flights, fleet rotation planning, and (eventually) suggested flights where the system says "N358MT is stuck in Los Angeles, fly it home to Dulles for a bonus." Your flights aren't isolated events. They move real aircraft around a real network, and the next pilot picks up where you left off.
Your flight score tells you how to improve.
Most VAs give you a landing grade based on one number: touchdown rate. SOAR scores the whole landing. Touchdown rate, G-force, bounce count, centerline drift, rollout distance, braking profile, and where on the runway you actually touched down all get measured and shown on the post-flight landing analysis page. Each component is called out individually, in context, with the metric that cost you (or earned you) the grade. Once the next ACARS client update ships with higher-resolution telemetry, more phase-specific criteria come online too: flare technique, approach speed trend, crab angle, rotation pitch rate, and a dozen others that read off the cleaner data stream.
It goes further on the flight score breakdown: when you lose points anywhere in the flight, SOAR tells you exactly why. "Approach speed was less stable than it could be." "Very soft touchdown, nicely on centerline." That's not a scolding, it's a debrief. The idea is simple: over time, the habits that make a better pilot become obvious, and your score trends upward as you internalize them. Fly more, see trends, get better.
Real delays. Real data. Real network.
SOAR pulls live data from the FAA's National Airspace System feed every couple of minutes, filtered to the airports MetroAir actually serves. Ground delay programs, departure delays, closures, airspace flow programs. The same feed real-world dispatch and crew portals read.
It shows up in two places: the ticker at the top of every page, and the briefing page for any flight whose departure or arrival is affected by a live advisory. If a traffic management program is in effect at your destination, you see it before you bid, with the actual delay duration pulled straight from the FAA. Real airlines plan around NAS status. No reason a virtual airline built on "realistic" shouldn't.
Most VAs treat their schedule as a static PDF and their landing score as a single number. A route exists, you fly it, the aircraft magically teleports back to base, and a floating-point touchdown rate gets logged to a table. SOAR treats the schedule like a real airline does and treats your flying like a real training program: every gate has a cost, every tail has a position, every landing has a story, and the same delays the real NAS is dealing with right now are on your dashboard. That's what Realistic, Innovative, and Professional look like when they stop being words on a website and start being things you can point at.
And none of it is required. Casual simmers can pick a flight and fly. The gate assignment, tail tracking, landing analysis, and FAA feed all run in the background whether you engage with them or not. Fly as deeply or as lightly as you want. The data is there when you're ready for it.
One More Thing
We know this is a lot
If you have concerns or questions, let us know. This is your first look, and we'd rather hear what doesn't land well now than after we go live.
We didn't make every decision easy, and on some of them we're still open to being talked out of our position. The goal is a MetroAir that's worth flying in five years. One that honors the twenty years of history behind us while giving the next chapter room to breathe.