FAQ
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WorldFlight 2026 will take place between October 31st and November 7th. Visit the Full Schedule page for detailed information about each sector.

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about WorldFlight. Can't find your answer? Contact us or ask in our Discord community.

WorldFlight is a group flight that flies around the world in 7 days. The event started in 1999, and over the past 22 years, it has raised over $1,000,000 for charities around the world. Each team raises money for their own charities by flying their simulator along the route. In addition to the teams, which comprise around 15 people each, anyone can fly along and join the unique event at any time of the day for 7 days.

Each team flies their simulator as realistically as possible, following their real-world airline procedures. Most of the teams are made up of real-world pilots and air traffic controllers who enjoy the different locations WorldFlight visits.

As each team is operating on a roster for 7 days, avoiding delays for the WorldFlight teams is greatly appreciated, as radio, TV, or charity visits to the event are timed around departures and arrivals. Therefore, the teams are more than happy to take a visually separated departure or implement a bit of taxiing via the grass (taxiway Golf) to speed up movements at smaller airports.

Bear in mind that Oshkosh in the real world applies special procedures for large amounts of traffic, so we have to do the same! In the real world, you would never have 70 people flying between two airports, so applying a 10-mile in-trail separation between multiple runway airports would result in hours and hours of delays.

When WorldFlight visits for a few hours out of 365 days of the year, we really do appreciate any flexibility that can be provided by ATC.

After 22 years of WorldFlight, a real community has formed both online and in the real world. Many of those who fly during WorldFlight year in and year out have made lifelong friends all around the world. With teams flying around the clock, some of the funniest moments on VATSIM have come from tired radio calls at 3 am. There is a real camaraderie between VATSIM and WorldFlight controllers, pilots, and staff.
In the first few years of WorldFlight, there was very little local ATC outside of the USA, Australia, and Europe. To fill the gaps, the WorldFlight ATC team was born. An agreement was made with VATSIM for them to be able to fill in the gaps where no local controllers were available. However, in recent years, the WorldFlight ATC team has barely been needed thanks to the willingness of local divisions to control WorldFlight. WorldFlight ATC is available at the request of divisions or in case of non-attendance of rostered ATC. Last year, this was the case when we were passing through airports at 3 am local time, for example.

Over the past 22 years, we have visited nearly 990 airports. Each event only allows for approximately 45 flights, so we cannot visit every continent, airport, or country every year. We also cannot plan to arrive at sociable hours at every airport we fly to due to the 24-hour nature of the event.

You can see all of the airports we have visited from 1999 to 2021 on the Previous Destinations page.

The route is planned to provide a varied array of destinations and challenges for the crews of the simulators. This was fine in the earlier years of the event, but now, with 70 aircraft flying along on most legs, we are starting to have to think of cunning ways to provide interesting approaches. We try to fit the small airports in with longer turnaround times and flight times after or before some larger airports. In previous years, we have set 2 or 3 airports as our destination, for example, all 3 Channel Island airports. If your division has some plans to allow for fun flying, then please do suggest them!

Following motion was passed for Worldflight 2024:

The official participants of WorldFlight 2024 shall be exempt from Section A3 of the VATSIM Code of Conduct for the duration of the event. The owner of the account logged into the network shall remain responsible for the conduct of the users utilizing the account.
The callsigns of the official participants of WorldFlight 2024 shall be reserved for their exclusive use for the duration of the event.

Following motion was passed for Worldflight 2024:

Only when requested by the specific VATSIM Division, the WorldFlight ATC team shall be allowed to staff ATC positions within the Division for the duration of the event's time in that airspace. The controllers must have the suitable rating to control the ATC position they are staffing. Local controllers have priority. If a local controller requests to staff a position currently occupied by a WorldFlight controller, and the local controller is able to commit to 2+ hours of time controlling, the WorldFlight controller shall cede the position to the local controller when traffic conditions allow an easy transfer of control.
A list of official WorldFlight participants and WorldFlight ATC, to include name and CID, must be published on the WorldFlight website.

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