Hopefully some other CEO's can help answer this...My Virtual Airline, American Connection Virtual Airline (http://www.fly-acva.com), has been in operations for 7 months, and I have about 30-35 pilots, but they aren't that active. We have excellent staff and everything (besides FS2002 aircraft, which are being developed), and still I only get about 1 application every 2 weeks. I dont know what to do.So the big question is...Should I just ride it out, will it get better? Or, will it just be same? I mean, I work about 2 hours every day on my VA. It just doesnt seem like my work is paying off. I've already invested almost $100 in the VA, which isnt alot, but still it is something.Should I Partner up with other VA's? Or maybe start a Corp?Should I just sell the VA? But, I have a domain...Fellow CEO's that feel my pain, please respond...

Sorry to hear that things are going so well for ACVA. Looks like you put a lot of effort/time into your VA. I guess you could try keeping your VA in the spotlight, release press releases. Might want to try contacting some pilots that used to be active pilots but for some reason have stopped submitting PIREPS. Ask them why they left and what you could improve. Lot of competition in the VA world! Good luck. =) Keep the faith!Eric Thorntonhttp://www.flycpva.org/images/banner4.jpgwww.flycpav.orghttp://www.cpavirtual.org/images/sqbanner2.jpgwww.flysva.orghttp://www.cpavirtual.org/JAL/images/JALbanner3.jpghttp://JAL.virtualATP.org

like eric said. theres just too many VA's around. im pretty sure theres almost as many as there are pilots. it seems these days that anyone will try to create a VA.anyway. some good things that could help are having events and promotional events, new scheme for the website, etc..another thing. you need to go out and recruit. alot of people think by just making a VA that people will go and join you. doesnt work that way. you have to attract people by going out and recruiting people.in August, VCAP celebrates our first year anniversary. we average atleast 10 applications a month. however our membership is very low because not many of the applicants are dedicated enough to go through our training program.i work about 12 hours a day, 7 days a week on this organization. but if people arent willing to train then theres nothing i can do. deffinitely this summer all organizations are feeling a membership drop. theres several reasons for that. but from fall and winter thats when membership is expected to go up since alot of people will be home more instead of in the cold weather.Gen. Ernesto AlvarezNational CommanderVirtual Civil Air Patrolhttp://ealvarez.net/vcap.jpg

After some consideration, I am thinking about some changes.I am really thinking about starting a Corporation or an Alliance that will originally start with Fictional Virtual Airlines. (Mine is fictional). I feel that we are less successful because alot of people join VA's because they like that VA in the real world. So, I feel that if we start an alliance, and share routes, etc, every member will benefit greatly.Why should we all be competing against eachother and have a couple of pilots each, while Pacific West Airways has 1,100+ pilots! We dont have to any more. If we combine all of our heads...we can do a lot. So, here we are. I am inviting EVERY SINGLE Virtual Airline CEO, President, Vice President, Hub Captain, Pilot, or anyone who is interested in starting up a Virtual Alliance, or even corporation. If we combine heads, this will be fun for all of us. The more of us that join this Alliance, the better. I picture a large strong corporation in a year, that is well known.If anyone is interested, email me, so we can combine our heads here!

Im interested, sounds great, bring all the airlines together but still have their own independence...

Fictional or non-fictional livery has absolutely nothing to do with a VAs success. You get out of it what you put into it. I am nearing 1000 pilots with over 400 of them active with my fictional VA. None of the pilots on our roster have 0 hours, none of the hours are transfered from other VAs and we've logged close to 40,000 pireps in a year and half. Advertise, automate and dedicate. That is the secret to success!

Anyone who is interested in codesharing or becoming a member of this Alliance, please email me at [email protected], so we can talk!

Yes, I am very interested in this alliance, New World VA has been up for not even a month yet, so I would be greatly interested in joining this alliance.RegardsNWVA CEO/Presidentwww.newworldva.tk

I currently am working on getting Cape Air VA up and running. With it I will offer things not seen before in VA's. This VA will not be for everyone but for those that do get in they will be part of something totally new and exciting. Why I'm responding to this email is to inform you on the fact that with some of these new features (I'm offering and developing into my VA) I had to come up with a standard and policy on certain things. In doing so I have started the Virtual Airline Union Group (V.A.U.G.) The idea behind the VAUG is to do what some responses to this thread have mentioned in helping other VA's become stronger. I have a strong feeling once Cape Air VA is open that others will like what I'm doing and attempt to run their VA the same way. So having the VAUG will help those CEO in how to get started and a platform on which one could base things on. That's all I can really say for now and prefer to let my actions speak for their self. If you are interested or anyone else for that matter please respond to this post because the idea behind the VAUG is to be run by the VA industry and not by myself or any certain one VA.Kilstorm

I am very much so interested. I have a couple of people that are interested...perhaps we can email eachother and work on making VAUG strong!? Im so excited! (I love CapeAir).Ben [email protected]

Ben, My quick and easy idea for the VAUG is this. Create a website that details many issues of general simming. Then come up with a policy for what would be best, all things considered, and make a ruling on that issue. Lets say 4 times sim rate is an issue. The VAUG would consider if pilots should use accelerated flight or not and if so with what restrictions. Once the board members (which is all participating VA's) provide their idea then it would come up to a vote. Everyone would vote and the bi-law would be set. Any bi-law could be challenged but it would need more than half the members to open the discussion and could only be done after 90 days of the bi-law was written. Basically it sounds like a lot of hoops but most issues we would all agree on and once something was set there wouldn't be much changes. The biggest thing would be to come up with what should be covered and what shouldn't be. I've mentioned that Cape Air VA is going to be new and one thing that will be part of 9KVA is virtual dollars. Cape Air VA (9KVA) will operate solely on V$. To create a formula on what figures are based on I came up a chart that works for all VA's and incorporated it into VAUG. The way the V$ will work is if all 9KVA pilots have FSMaintenance. Making it where not all pilots might be able to fly for us but this program is needed. Once other VA's see how this works they too might start using FSMaintenance and the charts that are established by the VAUG will come in very handy. I've been working very hard on 9KVA and have only spent a day on VAUG trying to outline it structure. Below is the temporary website of the VAUG and I encourage all CEO to look at it and help out in forming the VAUG. Once again this is a rough, rough draft and is the start of the VAUG.http://www.geocities.com/thevaug/

Mr. McBride,Could you extend me the courtsey of sending me an email, or your email address so that I could send you a message off this forum.Thank you.William [email protected]

just click the little icon in the upper left corner. and it will email me.Kil~

OK, Im definately with you 100%. General Pope is apparently starting a VA too, so hopefully he will "tag along." I will send out an email to all the current interterested Alliance Members. Wouldn't be neat if we had like 15 initial members, that would be a very strong FOUNDATION. No hurry though, I said we are going to use these next few months to build a strong foundation. I feel that is the key to success.

Nice to see VA's working together instead of petty bickering.Erichttp://www.flycpva.org/images/banner4.jpgwww.flycpav.orghttp://www.cpavirtual.org/images/sqbanner2.jpgwww.flysva.orghttp://www.cpavirtual.org/JAL/images/JALbanner3.jpghttp://JAL.virtualATP.org