🚀 flyLAT Welcome to 2026

Good evening, maybe good morning and certainly a good afternoon.

I'm your host Simmy for this, our first progress update of the grand year of 2026, so buckle up grab a glass of milk and a pack of cookies this one is unplanned and therefore I have no idea how long it will be. 


2025's Roundup

So after we released v0.8 in late November last year, it saw a host of new features with spotlight being on Airframe conversions & overhauls to prolong the life of your fleet. We decided it would be best to slow updates after that with the exclusion of say bug fixes when I break stuff or if Luke breaks stuff. blames me and makes me 'fix' his issues. With this time, we review the market, competition and our own progress with things we've previous not discussed so we could maintain what's best for you, our community. 

What came of that round up was quite interesting, something I know I never thought would be a thing so early on but that is of course the sudden surge in the need for more in depth features that enable role play, and serious RP at that. The boys over at AGW were the first of that kind where we really sat down to understand what they'd need. Next came Brussels airlines who by their own rights have grown on our platform and have expanded with such a pace that they've out grown our feature set. With both of these and more coming on board we noticed folks are more bothered about us fulfilling our features to a high complexity and depth, instead of broad spread basic features. 

I think the real nail in the coffin on this subject came once we reached out to our long term community members and they too stressed the importance of quality over quantity, something I know my favourite flappy friend stunk up my Dm's about, and gladly so. 

2025 was a fun year actually, we saw our new maintenance system take hold, we launched our mobile companion app, we grew 3x our size and integrated / partnered up with more 3rd party members thus expanding our reach. Quite importantly, Luke welcomed Luke Jr into the world and also took his firm place as Papa Luke or if it's a Tuesday night, Daddy Lukey Wukey. (I am so dead when he reads this). For me personally, well the achievement there is I didn't take a sweet swan dive into the concrete again so a win is a win. 

Overall the round up showed us that even if we didn't deliver and achieve what we set out, we did in fact still achieve so much, including things that weren't on our Radars. 

Now then, why do we care about that? 

Let me introduce you to some plans for 2026.


2026 Overview

So you've already been introduced to the first major plan and that is of course the new web dash. Mr Luke himself in all of his almightiness took the comments for quality to heart and said hold my baby, watch this and did in fact deliver an outstanding new site. He's not done with that by any account, just he identifies as a choo choo now and needs to go learn how to be a choo choo. Context for anyone who's english isn't up to the ol' crumpet humour, Luke is a train driver now. Does anyone else get Katy Perry Hot n cold song stuck in their head when they think of Luke and his jobs? 

Luke did briefly talk about this in his update however upon my request he kept details out of it so I am of course talking about Schedules. Growing as an aging joke just as quickly as we're developing it. Things I've said in the past that I'll recap now, I started work on schedules v3 around July / August last year. In that time I've designed the databases, the ai system that runs schedules and most of the interface api's that are needed to make the damn thing work. In September, I turned on our new ai, randomly named "Lola", she's been running on the server since while we test departure times, time zones and a good 60 other factors that schedules is integrated with. You'd be right to think "well okay, when we getting access to it?". The answer, as always, isn't simple. You're getting a basic version first on the new web dash which some beta users under our secret branch have access too just to test the experience of using it. I've got some work on the ai and of course the app needs updating but that comes last anyway. Bottom line with schedules is that Luke has stressed we can not get this wrong, any other feature we can get wrong, just not this one. So forgive us if we drag our heels. Schedules 3 is staying as it's been developed too far now to turn back, so if you take comfort in knowing we're actively developing it then I'm pleased but for the folks that are so excited to see it, I just ask that you understand we seriously can not get this wrong and in time, it should be worth it. That's as open as I can be for you. 


Now on to the less wordy shit. 


What's new in v0.8.1?


Loadmaster

We finally said good bye to the shoe horned cargo screen that look awful. I gave it some Simmy love, with in reason, and I humbly present this. I even gave it a fancy name to celebrate the purging of my previous work that we shall not speak of. For the eagled eyed few, you'll notice some details are missing. Fear not, for I have another shiny for you: 


Featured with much clearer information, while you're selecting your cargo contract and the aircraft you wish to use. I hope this is sufficient enough to un-confuse the nation as to be fair, the old screen confused the shit out of me too. There I said it and I said a naughty word in a progress update. I'm feeling good about this, what can I say?

Actually I know what I can say, it's take a look at the final shiny for this subject:


As you can clearly see, the information we give you about the selected contract and aircraft now provides you with a clear breakdown on the aircraft, where it is, how far it can fly and just how much cargo it can carry. The contract, where it's from, to and how much is currently remaining. Finally, the flight itself, again showing the chosen load (future updates), and how much that load will return. Pretty cool right? 

Just a note on this, after using this screen you might be thinking about well what about the other screens not quite being right or misleading? They're on my list and I'm going screen by screen to update them. 

Also how do we feel about this theming I'm doing? Do we like it? 


Next up is last year's main feature, servicing and mx. Following a lovely amount of feedback I now present you the new wave of updates coming to the servicing screen. Coming complete with: 


Oooo this next one is small but will hurt a select few

Ignore 80% of that image and focus on the top left. The transaction panel now got an in debt mode. Along with some fixes to the formatting, you also can't buy aircraft in debt, or even attempt as much anymore. It's small but now you're not lead into a false sense of security. 


My final showcase before it'll get too boring, is the highlight of this update and that is route restrictions. Are you tired of pilots taking your damn 777's on a 20 minute joy ride 200 nmi down the road, are you sick of seeing an A321 run a 6 hour flagship route that your 747 would otherwise run? well worry no more! For I, Simmy, have had enough of it too and I absolutely developed this in anger when I saw an A380 doing a MAN to CDG. That's a 50 minute flight. How annoying. 

So now I give you the tools to prevent this and mass unemployment for the virtual airline world for some rogue employee's. I am joking about that part of course but yeah, company owners, am I right or am I right?

Mode 1: Exclusion 
Restricting an airframe from a route essentially says, fly what you want except these specific airframes. 


Mode 2: Exclusive

Approving an airframe for exclusive use is quite the opposite, you're saying only use these specific airframes on this route. 


Mode 3: CBA

The third mode is "can't be arsed" and that's okay. Just don't touch it and nothing will change! See I'm nice, I don't force people to use the features I've spent hours of my free time developing. 



Along side the airframe restrictions, the route management has started it renovation to feel like a functioning area, so much so I've added a dashboard for you. It only has two things on it but at least I added it. More than anything it's a foundation setter so I can quickly jump in over the next few updates to improve it. 

Summary

So that's your look at how we're feeling, some insight to upcoming projects for the year and what to expect in the very very near future (beta testers I'm looking at you). I'll splurge some more on future plans in another progress update, I think that's enough words for one day. 


So hope you enjoyed the milk and cookies, let us know what you think in our discord and we'll see you real soon with an update and another Simmy Progress. 


Until next time,

Simmy