Company Mode User Guide

FSFO Company Mode User Guide

FSFO Company Mode User Guide

Learn how to run your FSFO airline as a business: contracts, fleet, AI crew, bases, repositioning, readiness checks, finances, and closeout results.

Flight Simulator First Officer • Company Mode • Pilot Portal • Contracts • Fleet • AI Crew • Finance

Company Mode is the airline-operations side of FSFO. Career Mode tracks you as a pilot. Company Mode tracks your airline as a business: contracts, aircraft, AI crew, bases, finances, reputation, and operating risk.

Plain English Overview
What this mode is

Quick Start
Basic startup flow

Company Snapshot
What FSFO shows

Portal Areas
Where to manage things

Contracts
Bidding and setup

Aircraft and AI Crew
Fleet and staffing

Repositioning
Moving aircraft to the job

Troubleshooting
Common blockers

Important: Winning a contract does not automatically mean you can fly it. The contract still needs the correct aircraft, crew, location, payload, and live FSFO validation before it can start cleanly.

Company Mode in Plain English

Company Mode is about running an airline, not just flying random missions. You are responsible for accepting work your company can actually perform.

A good company owner thinks about:

Question	Why it matters
Can I win the contract?	The contract board may contain work that looks profitable, but your company still has to be able to support it.
Do I have the right aircraft?	The aircraft must match the contract's route, payload, passenger, and operational requirements.
Is the aircraft in the right place?	If the aircraft is not at the contract origin, you may need to reposition it first.
Do I have crew support?	Some contracts and reposition moves require qualified AI crew who are available now.
Will the company still be healthy afterward?	A large payout can still be a bad decision if the reposition, wear, fees, or cash reserve damage the company.

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Quick Start

Use this sequence when starting Company Mode for the first time:

1. Sign in to Pilot Portal.
2. Create or open your company.
3. Review the company dashboard and current financial status.
4. Acquire at least one aircraft by purchase or lease.
5. Hire AI crew before you urgently need them.
6. Review bases, fleet, reputation, and finances.
7. Bid only on contracts your current company can realistically support.
8. After winning a contract, complete the required setup in Pilot Portal.
9. Start FSFO and let it validate the live simulator state.
10. Fly the contract and review the closeout result.

Best early habit: Start small. A shorter contract with easy setup is often better than a big contract that requires an expensive reposition or ties up your only useful aircraft.

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Company Mode Versus Career Mode

Mode	What it tracks	Main question it answers
Career Mode	Your personal pilot progression: rank, schedule, fatigue, balance, type ratings, and long-term pilot history.	Am I progressing as a pilot?
Company Mode	Your airline business: contracts, fleet, AI crew, aircraft locations, finances, readiness, and operating outcomes.	Can my airline safely and profitably perform this work?

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Company Snapshot

The main Company page inside FSFO is Company Snapshot. It is your top-level company status page. It is not where every management action is performed; most detailed setup is handled in Pilot Portal.

The FSFO Company Snapshot page.

The top buttons have different jobs:

Button	What it does
Help	Opens the in-app Company Mode help page.
Contract	Opens the current company contract summary.
Portal	Opens the live Pilot Portal company area where most management work is done.

Company Snapshot helps answer:

• Is the company connected to Pilot Portal?
• Does the company have enough money?
• Is the fleet healthy?
• Is the current contract staged?
• What still blocks the next company flight?

Current snapshot metrics can include balance, company status, primary base, reputation, financial health, monthly burn, cash runway, ready aircraft, grounded aircraft, staff count, active contracts, completed contracts, and failed contracts.

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Portal Areas

Most company management is handled in Pilot Portal. The company portal is organized around these major areas:

Portal Area	Use it for
OPS	Top-level company overview.
CONTRACTS	Awarded or active contract setup and management.
BASES	Company bases and operating locations.
FLEET	Owned, leased, or active company aircraft.
AI CREW	Company AI pilots and staff.
REPUTATION	Company reputation and reputation events.
FINANCE	Company money, cash runway, overhead, and cost history.
CONTRACT BOARD	Public shared-world contract opportunities.
AIRCRAFT MARKET	Aircraft acquisition, listings, and transactions.
AI CREW MARKET	Available AI crew you can hire.
BASE MAP	Shared-world map views for user bases, major cargo hubs, and gateway airports.

The Pilot Portal company area.

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Company Economics

Company Mode is designed to make money, maintenance, and readiness matter.

Item	Current default	What it means
Starting company balance	$2,500,000	The initial money available when the company is created.
Monthly overhead	$18,500	The recurring company cost that affects cash runway.
Required cash reserve floor	$75,000	The company should not spend itself below this reserve during normal setup or reposition planning.

A contract is not truly affordable just because you can barely pay for it. The company should still be able to absorb operating costs, reposition costs, reserve requirements, and maintenance risk afterward.

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Contracts

Not every high-paying contract is a good contract. Company Mode rewards disciplined operators who consider total cost, aircraft wear, crew availability, and deadline risk.

The Company Mode contract board in Pilot Portal.

What Makes a Good Contract

A good contract usually...	A risky contract often...
fits your current aircraft category can be staged without exhausting cash reserves has a reasonable reposition leaves deadline margin does not risk grounding a critical aircraft	looks attractive only because of the payout requires a long or costly reposition needs crew you do not have available adds major wear to a limited fleet leaves little flexibility for the next job

Think in net company outcome, not just payout. A smaller contract with clean setup can be better than a larger contract that strains the company.

Contract Lifecycle

A company contract does not go straight from award to takeoff. The current setup lifecycle includes these states:

Status	Meaning
Awarded	You won the work, but setup still needs to be completed.
Pending Setup	Aircraft, crew, dispatch, or other setup details are still missing.
Reposition Required	An aircraft is assigned, but it is not currently at the contract origin airport.
Ready To Fly	Portal setup is complete and the contract is staged for live FSFO validation.
In Progress	The contract is underway in FSFO, and setup changes are normally locked until completion.

Contract Setup

After winning a contract, return to the contract-management page and complete setup. That normally includes:

• assigning the aircraft
• assigning the contract copilot when required
• reviewing the departure location
• calculating reposition if the aircraft is not already at the origin
• confirming dispatch and staging status

Setup rules: You cannot plan a reposition until an aircraft is assigned. If the contract is already underway in FSFO, aircraft setup, crew changes, and repositioning are locked until completion.

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Aircraft and AI Crew

Aircraft and crew are not just labels. They determine whether your company can actually perform the work.

Aircraft Assignment

The assigned aircraft must be:

• eligible for the contract
• operationally active
• financially sensible to use
• at the correct airport, or realistically repositionable

If the assigned aircraft is not active, the contract cannot be staged cleanly. If the aircraft is at the wrong airport, the contract moves into Reposition Required instead of Ready To Fly.

AI Crew and Availability

Depending on the aircraft and contract, Company Mode may require:

• a qualified contract copilot
• AI support for reposition
• crew who are available now, not merely hired on paper

Crew can block setup if they are resting, training, unpaid, unavailable, assigned elsewhere, or already busy on reposition duties.

A company can have the correct aircraft and still fail setup if the supporting crew state is wrong.

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Repositioning

Repositioning is one of the systems that gives Company Mode its strategy layer. If the assigned aircraft is not already at the contract origin airport, the portal evaluates whether it is reasonable to move it there before the revenue flight begins.

Current reposition planning takes into account:

• distance
• estimated block hours
• reposition cost
• time remaining before the contract deadline
• projected aircraft wear
• required pilot support
• company reserve protection

Rule	Current behavior
Same-duty threshold	4.0 hours
Pilot assumption	Reposition planning currently assumes two pilots total.
AI support	If the company pilot is counted in the two-pilot total, at least one qualified AI pilot is still required for support.
Long reposition moves	If the reposition exceeds the same-duty threshold, separate AI reposition support rules apply.

Reposition can be blocked when there are not enough qualified AI pilots, contract copilot rules are not being respected, the company cannot fund the move while protecting reserve, or the move creates too much wear or too little deadline margin.

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FSFO Readiness Checks

This is one of the most important concepts in Company Mode:

Portal-ready does not automatically mean sim-ready.

Pilot Portal decides whether the business setup is staged. FSFO decides whether the live simulator state actually matches that staged contract.

Before a company flight starts cleanly, FSFO can validate:

• the account is linked to a Pilot Portal company
• an active company contract exists
• the contract is staged with no unresolved blockers
• the active flight plan route matches the contract route
• the live aircraft in the sim matches the assigned company aircraft
• the aircraft is within 10 NM of the contract departure airport
• the planned payload satisfies the contract payload requirement
• the planned passenger manifest matches the passenger target when one exists

This is why a contract can look ready in the portal and still fail in FSFO. The business setup and the live sim setup are related, but they are not the same check.

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Payload and Passenger Matching

Company Mode does not only care about route and aircraft identity. The live setup also has to match the contract's transport requirement.

Depending on the contract, that can include:

• required passenger target
• required minimum cargo payload

If the flight does not satisfy the contract requirement, FSFO can reject the live start or fail the closeout result later. This is especially important when switching aircraft layouts, payload plans, or boarding assumptions between contract setup and departure.

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Flying the Contract and Closeout

Company Mode continues after landing. After the flight, FSFO uploads the company result back to Pilot Portal and builds a company closeout report.

The closeout can include:

Financial result	Operating result	Aircraft result
payout handling cost late penalty net company change airport fees ground-service cost dispatch cost	fuel usage route/contract success passenger or cargo result deadline outcome	maintenance status aircraft condition before and after whether the aircraft is grounded afterward

The closeout is not just a success stamp. It is the business consequence of the contract you chose to take.

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Why Margin Matters

A contract can be completed and still be a bad company decision. That can happen when the job drains cash reserves, pushes the aircraft into maintenance trouble, ties up one of your few usable aircraft, or leaves the company with weak recovery options afterward.

The strongest companies usually:

• protect cash reserve
• keep at least one ready aircraft available
• keep qualified AI support available
• avoid ugly reposition traps unless the margin is clearly worth it

Company Mode rewards disciplined operators more than aggressive ones.

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Common Blockers

Most Company Mode problems come from a predictable set of failures.

Portal or business blocker	Live FSFO blocker
no company linked to the current Pilot Portal account no active company contract assigned contract setup still incomplete assigned aircraft is not active assigned aircraft still needs repositioning assigned contract copilot is unavailable or not qualified company cash is below the reserve threshold	live route does not match the contract route live aircraft does not match the assigned company aircraft payload does not meet the contract requirement passenger count does not match the contract target aircraft is not within 10 NM of the departure airport

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Troubleshooting

The company page says no data or read-only

Check that you are signed in to Pilot Portal, the account has a linked company, and the portal session is still valid.

I won a contract, but I still cannot fly it

Winning the contract is only the first step. Check aircraft assignment, crew assignment, reposition requirement, contract status, live route match, and live aircraft match.

The contract says reposition required

This usually means the assigned aircraft is not at the contract origin airport. Open contract management, calculate the reposition, and confirm the move only if the economics and crew support are acceptable.

FSFO still rejects the flight even though the portal says ready

Recheck the route in the sim, live aircraft in the sim, departure airport, payload, and passenger target.

My company seems healthy, but setup still fails

Check crew state and cash reserve. A contract can fail setup because the assigned AI pilot is unavailable, the required crew license does not match the aircraft, or the company cannot cover setup/reposition costs while protecting reserve.

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Practical Tips

• Keep at least one ready aircraft available whenever possible.
• Keep qualified AI pilots hired before you urgently need them.
• Do not chase payout alone. Always factor reposition, wear, crew, deadline, and reserve.
• Treat the Company Snapshot like an operations board, not just a status page.
• If FSFO says no, debug the mismatch methodically instead of guessing.
• Open bases at smaller airports near major hubs

For initial setup help, see Getting Started. For personal pilot progression, see Career Mode. For general problem solving, see Troubleshooting.