I’m not into virtual airlines business so I don’t claim to know the details, but I imagine if you go on your own from the very beginning you’ll need plenty of money to even rent and maintain an airliner.
Which means you will need a bank loan but since you’ll be a new pilot/company without reputation, you’ll get high interest rates.
I assume that joining a virtual airline, flying their aircraft and using their FBO and mechanics for maintenance solves many of these issues, although I’m not really sure how much money you’ll be making. Definitely more than running cheap errands with rented C172 or P28R I guess. Even owning one of these, is a slow way to climb the ladder.
Best way to find out is to either search for videos on how to make money in OnAir, or join their Discord, check virtual airlines offerings and ask for their terms.
Appreciate the thoughtful responses. I envision myself utilizing the program in much the same way you have. Airlines don’t really interest me, but the PA-28 is my go to and I’d love to have some type of progression system. OnAir seems way deeper than Skypark, which has a slick looking UI but so far as I can tell the money doesn’t really mean anything. I do like the idea of being able to contribute to someone else’s company too, either as an “employee” or partner.
Every other VA addon and online VA groups I have encountered so far have client apps (plural) that are much more of a pain to use for playing with others. The other options require a lot more work and setup to do a flight and it’s just too much of a pain. OnAir works with one client app and the simulator. You can use something like littlenavmaps for planning and tracking the flight but it’s not necessary. Compared to the few other career add-on type games OnAir is the most comprehensive and simple to use at the same time. The only downside is a yearly fee if you decide you want to play it and that is the apparent reason that the online VA’s I’ve done some group flights with don’t want to endorse or use it. But it’s a year for the cost(or less) of one decent add on plane or scenery, the benefits seem to more than compensate for that.
OnAir is mostly great but I’m a little put off paying the subscription given the long server query load times when retrieving data. I’m wondering what server infrastructure is in effect at OnAir and suspect it might be on-premises servers. I’m in Manchester, United Kingdom and wondering if the slow server query times are due to geographic distance and whether the OnAir team has considered a cloud-based server infrastructure where they can choose to replicate server database information for customers on other continents such as Europe geoghraphically closer.
I’m in the south of Germany near France - same issues here. Very slow loading times. Can be seriously annoying if your company has a big infrastructure.
On the other hand, I consider it as the best of all those managers. I tried them all.