Bookings and starting a flight

Your bookings come from your airline. Book a flight on your airline’s website, and it appears in Flight Tracking in Stratos, ready to start. Stratos starts tracking when you press Start Tracking, or on its own when you’re parked at the departure airport and auto-start is on.

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Find your bookings

Open Flight Tracking from the sidebar. Flight Bookings lists every flight you’ve booked, with its Flight number, Departure, Arrival, Aircraft, Distance and estimated time (Est.).

• Click a booking to open it. You see the route and any Notes from your airline, with the buttons to start or cancel it.
• Booked something on the website just now? Press Refresh to load it.

No bookings available. means your airline has no bookings for you. Book a flight on your airline’s website, then press Refresh. If the list can’t load at all, Stratos shows the reason and a Try Again button.

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Start a flight

1. Start your simulator and load the aircraft on the ground at the departure airport.
2. Wait for the top bar to show Connected to your simulator. Until then, the button reads No Simulator Connected. See Connecting your simulator.
3. Open the booking and press Start Tracking.

Stratos starts the booking as it stands on your airline’s website, so a change you made there (a different aircraft, say) counts. If the booking has gone from your airline’s site, Stratos tells you and refreshes the list. Once tracking starts, the tracking screen opens. See The tracking screen.

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Pre-flight checks

Before a flight starts, Stratos checks that it can track it properly. If anything fails, Pre-flight Check Failed lists every check with a tick, a cross, or a grey question mark for one it couldn’t check yet. Plugins can add their own checks. Each shows under the plugin’s name, with the plugin’s reason. Fix what failed and press Start Tracking again. Or, if you’re sure everything is right, press Start Anyway to start without the checks. A common reason: some aircraft never tell the simulator they’re on the ground, so Aircraft on ground fails when you’re parked at the gate. If Start Anyway is greyed out, your airline requires every check to pass. Hover over it to see Your virtual airline requires all pre-flight checks to pass before a flight can start.

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Your airline’s confirmation

Your airline’s system can also check what your simulator is reporting before it accepts the flight. For example, it might check that the aircraft or the fuel loaded in the simulator matches your booking. If something doesn’t match, Please check your simulator setup shows your airline’s message, with the Simulator Variables it was given: Aircraft ICAO, Aircraft Type, Livery, Position, Altitude, On Ground, Fuel (lbs) and Simulator.

• Fix it in the simulator (load the right aircraft or livery, for example), then press Re-validate simulator to ask your airline again.
• Or press Start tracking anyway to start as things are.

If Start tracking anyway is greyed out, your airline needs the issue fixed first.

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Start automatically

With auto-start on, you don’t press anything: load up at a booked departure airport and Stratos starts the flight. To turn it on, open Settings → Plugins, choose Flight Tracking, and switch on Auto-Start Tracking under Your settings. It’s off until you turn it on. When your aircraft is within 5 nm of a booked departure airport, Stratos gives you a few seconds to settle in, then starts that booking. If several bookings leave from that airport, it picks the one whose aircraft type matches the aircraft in your simulator, or leaves you to choose. The same pre-flight checks and airline confirmation apply. If your airline asks you to confirm, Stratos opens Flight Tracking and shows the prompt. If the start is turned down three times in a row, by your airline or by a pre-flight check, Auto-start blocked tells you which and why, and auto-start leaves that booking alone for 5 minutes.

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Why hasn’t auto-start started my flight?

The bookings list tells you. Under the heading, Auto-start is waiting: gives the reason:

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Change the aircraft

If your airline allows it, the Aircraft on each booking is a dropdown. Pick another aircraft and the booking updates straight away; you don’t need to save. The list only offers aircraft your airline lets you fly on that flight, grouped by type and shown by registration, and you can type to search it.

• No alternative aircraft means there’s nothing else eligible for this flight.
• Set by your SimBrief flight plan. Re-plan in SimBrief to fly a different aircraft. means the aircraft comes from your SimBrief plan. See SimBrief.
• If your airline refuses the change, Stratos shows its reason and puts the old aircraft back.

If your airline doesn’t allow changes, the aircraft is plain text. Change it on your airline’s website instead, then press Refresh.

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Cancel a booking

If your airline allows it, an open booking has a Cancel Booking button. Press it, then Cancel Booking again to confirm (or Keep Booking to back out). The booking is removed from your bookings on your airline’s site too. If your airline refuses, Stratos shows its reason. No Cancel Booking button? Your airline doesn’t allow it from Stratos. Cancel the booking on your airline’s website.

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For VA owners

Three of your Flight Tracking settings change what pilots see here: Change aircraft (the aircraft dropdown), Cancel bookings (the Cancel Booking button), and Allow Start anyway (whether Start Anyway and Start tracking anyway work). Your flight-start API can return can_override to decide Start tracking anyway for one start. See Flight Tracking.

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Related pages

• The tracking screen
• Connecting your simulator
• Flight phases