Trying to decide where to fly next was evidently more difficult than my brain could handle, so I decided to take a dive into career add-ons. One thing I have started to figure out is, the add-on you pick is going to have a lot to do with what you want out of your career. Hopefully this post will help anyone in the same position I am in. 

Built-In MSFS 2024 Career

I started off with the built-in career within MSFS 2024, and it was not bad. Clearly Asobo put some time and energy into this, and I think for a lot of people this might be just fine. Not being able to fly any plane I wanted, combined with the state many of the built-in planes were in, plus career bugs, and I decided to see what else was out there. But to Asobo's credit the built-in career actually got me back into FS.

NeoFly

Full disclosure: I did not care for NeoFly because I found the UI cumbersome and I just couldn't get into it. It is free, so anyone looking for a career add-on should spend some time with NeoFly, to see if it works for them. For many people it does, so don't take my skipping over it as an indication that it isn't good. It very well may be great for you.

Fly the Line: Short Haul Edition

I like FTL, and with a one-time cost of ~$35 it isn't too bad on the wallet. Basically, you can fly any plane for any airline, and it generates the schedule for you. It also rates how you do in various areas. I have 10+ flights under my belt in FTL and overall, it is not bad. It is a very light career, as there's no airline tycoon aspect to it. If I had to knock it, I would say that other than flying your schedule, which can get repetitive pretty fast, there's really nothing else going on. Sure, you get basic ratings after each flight, but it isn't too in-depth. They also have some "wellness" aspects to it (after each day you select the activities you want to do, and that impacts the ratings of aspects of your well-being), but it really didn't connect with me. I started out thinking this was all I needed but then sort of outgrew it within a few days. Go figure. 

A Pilot's Life: Chapter 2

Moving right along, I decided to check out APL2. Now this was also ~$35 so again, not terrible. With APL2 you start as a Junior First Officer with $5k and then buy licenses to fly planes. For example, an A320 or B737 license would run you $2500. A Triple 7 will cost you $4k. Next you need to apply to work for an airline. Forget the top ones, because you have no experience or skills. I started with Air Corsica and began flying in Spain and western Europe. As you fly more your rating increases, and that means you can eventually work for better airlines. There's more to it, but it takes FTL and adds layers and incentive to be able to fly for the best airlines. I only have a few flights with it, but I like it. There is a serious community around this, and they host regular events, so the online community is strong. I personally didn't see myself using this aspect, but you never know. I also wasn't sure that APL2 was "enough" which leads me to my current career add-on.

OnAir

Unlike the two choices above, OnAir is subscription based. With the amount of money I already spend on this hobby I can easily afford the $3.50 per month (annual basis) on this, so I did not let the subscription sway me one way or another. OnAir easily has the best UI of the bunch. It also has a depth to it that the others on the list cannot even remotely match. I wasn't sure I wanted that depth/complexity, which is why I waited to try it. There is a 7-day free trial, so you might want to start here in your search. For me, I don't think I was ready to decide if OnAir was right for me until I went through the other options. So let's say you really just want to fly the planes you own, and have it create a schedule for you. OnAir has that covered. I would say that I like the way OnAir implements this aspect better than the others. This onboarding mode is the recommended way to start, and from there you can decide if you want more. If you do, you can gradually ease into it. You can run a small company and fly everything yourself, or you can build a bigger airline and even have AI pilots flying for you. Heck, you can even have humans join your airline and fly your routes. You can create custom routes, and operation centers, industries, etc. etc. etc. You can go down the rabbit hole as far as you want with this one. I am in the onboarding mode, so I don't have to worry about fuel costs or any of that stuff, and there are no check rides. But if you decide to build your own company, whether to haul cargo in your Caravan, or own a fleet of A320s, you are going to need to earn money to buy those, and do check rides to get certified. OnAir is very polished, very deep and flexible enough to allow you to decide what balance fits you best. And as I have seen from myself, what you think you want today might not be what you want tomorrow. OnAir has you covered today and in the future. 

In conclusion, there isn't a bad program on this list. They all integrate well with Simbrief, and I will continue to use all of the above, although I have a feeling that OnAir is going to capture the lion's share of my time moving forward. It is just a very slick program with tons of features, and it is flexible enough to handle any career wants I may have down the road. 

Edited April 5Apr 5 by RobJC

I've tried a couple of them but now I wouldn't fly without OnAir. I've made sure my company has each of the aircraft types I enjoy flying, and get my AI pilots to fly them whilst I'm not. On the second server up now - Stratus I think it is - and a few weeks into my new company with £20m in the bank already. I love it, it's given me a reason to stick with MSFS.

You should give us a try we are 100% free.  It's an Early Access - Open Beta but we are not planning on charging for all of the single player experience in it. 

Clear2Land - MSFS and Xplane 12 Career Addons - Utilities for MSFS | Flightsim.to

Jumping in to speak to Neofly - I haven't used the others but I have about 25 hours into Neofly at the moment, MSFS2020. It has a lot of positives, and if you're not looking for large airplanes right out the gate, the way it has you level up from hand-flown small GA to mid-size turbo-prop and onwards is a satisfying gamification of things. Mission generation takes some getting used to, and there are nuances that aren't explained in the tutorial pop-ups. It is very rewarding doing the qualification missions and earning 2 or 3 stars.

For example - you'll get sent to a lot of smaller airstrips/fields in the first hours with your starter plane. These are uncontrolled spaces that wont have ATC, so if you're using BATC or P2ATC for immersion, you'll find it quiet for the first Dozen hours, and that can be off putting. It wasn't until I leveled up past the starter planes and into the turbo-props that I started wanting longer hard surface runways, but kept getting soft field missions spawning. Its not very well explained, but on the Neofly mission page, you can filter out mission types with the icons, and you would think that just displays the generated missions on the map by hiding or unhiding the icons to declutter. That filter actually guides the generation of missions, but for the next time you land. So if you have "Only ATC Controlled" and "Only Hard Surface" checked off, it wont show these right away, you need either take off and land (do a mission) or move your pilot to a new location, to refresh the missions, and this time ONLY airports that are ATC controlled and with hard surface runways will generate missions. Massively helpful when moving from VFR->IFR

The other tip I have for Neofly is to use the "Backup Progression" in the setting feature often, maybe even before taking off each mission. The sim software can still bug out causing unfair crashes, which have devastating consequences to your bank account in game LOL - always take insurance on your starter plane! I've had my logitech controllers stop working mid flight, or weird rudder/trim glitches that cause erratic flight on takeoff or landing. I once lost a rental NXCub on the tarmac by putting in too much weight for the balance to stay centered, causing the plane to rock back onto its tail, which caused enough damage that the plane was considered destroyed 😞 

Suffice to say, I'm enjoying Neofly! One last point, once you level up and move past your starter planes, you can create a second profile as an "Employee" of your main profile, which will use all the same planes and funds. This means you don't need to always pay to move your main pilot to a location with a saved plane, you can have multiple employees around the country to add variety to your flights. You DO need to pay for the upgrade if you want AI pilots to fly for you however, but that's just generating income passively, and not required.

 

Except the Fly the Line, and as an addition to the list is Air Hauler 2, I tried all the career modes. The last one tried was Neofly, I bought even the career mode for 20$, but it didn't appealed me too much, is some kind similar with MSFS 2024 career mode and beside that it crashed a lot. I did a lot flight and didn't noticed that the apps crashed in background and the progress was lost.

Onair I tried only 7 days trial and was very interesting for me, but subscription method is off for me. I have many other subscriptions and yes, 3.50$ per month is not really much, but adding with others is more than enough for me.

I always looked for a realistic mode (this is my subjective point of view) and decided to create my own kind of flight management in google sheet where I can add what I want in the way I want. I am at a very beginning, managed to create an automation for routes which take account my actual airplane (I fly Cows Diamond DA40 NG) and my base. I have no coding skills, but with help of AI and google I managed to create something. Step by step I add stuffs to create a realistic environment. For start I chose a little airstrip nearby city where I live, doing round flights and adding diverse type of flights: Air Taxi, Charter, Tourism, Cargo and in future I want to add Medevac, Regular routes etc. while I "advance" in career and add more bases. While I have to add some data manually it, I created many formulas and some scripts to help me especially on the economy side, so according to my costs for each flights for e.g (fuel added with actual price from market, maintenance rate, landing fee). So as an example, I have fields with initial costs (how much I expect to be the cost of the flights which help me to know how much to money ask to have profit) and the real costs, after the flight because it depends by the weather, headwind raise the costs (more fuel consumed, much wear due to longer flight time etc). Also as main economy I have an initial budget and added total fix costs (aircraft leasing, base rental, insurance etc.) and total variable costs (fuel, maintenance check, landing fees and other vairables).

I don't want to bore you with others details, I still work to create an realistic environment and have lot in my minds. For now I just tested and I really like the way is going, It's rewarding and I have a real purpose to fly and to explore many flights type.