If you’ve been flying iFly Schedules‘ Career Mode, your evening routine is about to change. Schedules are no longer generated on demand. From now on your flying comes from a bid, in the way a line is awarded at a real airline, and there’s no asking for a different one if you don’t like what you see.
That’s the main change in a pair of updates from developer Clement, alongside a full rebuild of the platform’s Route Finder.
How bidding works
It starts with a length band. Short covers one to two legs, standard covers two to four, and long covers four to eight. That’s the only thing you set, and it locks once the lines are posted.
Crew scheduling then puts up to five candidate lines in front of you, each one showing its legs, block time, distance and estimated pay. You rank them one to five, with your odds for each position displayed before you submit. One line is awarded, with the reason why, and accepting it drops the flights straight into your schedule.
Seniority is the biggest factor by far, followed by rank and reputation. The developer says time at the airline is what buys you your first choice, and that one bad flight can’t undo it. There’s also a nice touch for fairness: pilots whose hours are logged automatically by the app bid against each other, while manually logged pilots bid in their own pool, so unverified hours can’t buy bid priority.
The reassuring part is that you’re always awarded a line. According to the developer, losing a bid means getting your second or third choice rather than your first, so bidding changes which schedule you fly and never whether you fly at all.
Crucially, there is no redraw. Refreshing won’t post new lines, and you can’t switch length bands and draw again. Pick the band that matches the time you actually have before you request the packet. The full rules, including how to read your odds and the seniority pools, are in the Career Guide.
Career Mode arrived in Alpha back in January, and we covered its launch here if you want the background on how the progression side works.
The Route Finder, rebuilt
The Route Finder has been rebuilt from the ground up, and the change most people will notice first is that you no longer need an account to use it. Anyone can search routes now. An account is still required to save flights to your schedule.
Results appear in a new table that’s easier to scan, and departure and arrival airport codes now link to charts. A toggle above the table switches between Navigraph, ChartFox and LIDO. LIDO can’t be linked to directly, so clicking the code copies it instead, ready to paste into the MSFS planner’s search. Every flight in the results also carries SimBrief, FlightRadar24, FlightAware and AirNav links.
VATSIM coverage now shows on every result too. The D and A chips tell you whether the departure and arrival airports are staffed, and clicking either one opens that airport on VATSIM Radar. Handy if you’re picking a route around where the controllers actually are.
Rounding things off, the filters fold away once results load, with an Edit button to change your search, and the map loads with your routes already drawn.
Availability
The Route Finder is free and needs no account. Career Mode is part of the iFly Schedules Premium subscription at $6 per month or $55 per year, which also covers the iFly EFB released in May, the iFly Tracker and the rest of the Premium tools.
And a useful reminder: iFly Schedules is a Captain’s Club partner, and Captains get 40% off the annual Premium plan with our exclusive discount code, available in the perks dashboard.
