It's been a while since the last news on the site or last newsletter posted but if you have read our forums you have noticed that the software has developed all the time. Here are the latest updates and news.

PROGRESS REPORT, JUNE 2008 A long pre-beta game has been running on the system for few months and the basic system is working almost perfectly. There are no major unresolved bugs at the moment. However some essential features are still missing from the public launch, for example better route management page and aircraft class/seat configuration. Newly added features include:

- Fleet commonality (you should have same type of aircraft to minimize costs)

- Engine model commonality (same as above but to reduce engine maintenance costs)

- Enhanced passenger demand calculation with more real world statistics and data.

- Airports will now close, and new will open according to what happens in real life. It's now possible to model for example the closure of Kai Tak at Hong Kong and so on - however basically all the data of these "historical" airports is missing but now it's technically possible to add them later.

- Airline status e-mail notification feature

- Inactivity bankruptcy

- Aircraft insurance system (all planes must be insured)

- Enhanced aircraft performance (flight time/fuel use) calculation

- Load factor distribution systems updated

- Possibility to rebrand your airline

- Staff office (major feature!). Possibility to manage staff levels and salaries.

- Airport slot system (another very major feature!). Each route must have appropriate slots at the airports it uses.

- Flight delay and cancellations (third very major feature!). Many things affect the flight delays, like how tight your routes are scheduled, how much staff you have employed and also the condition of the planes, just to mention a few items. The delays and cancellations have then effects on your profits and company image (and so on).

- Many smaller features and enhancements around the system.

- At the moment work is ongoing with the company image and advertising systems.

What's more, we have also made some bigger scale testing by running a couple of large games with 500 computer generated airlines and around 200 000 routes - just to see how the calculation scripts work and to optimize the system. The server is able to cope at least two full games running at the same time if the tests prove to be true (but beta testing will give the final answer to this). This optimization has been also a rather time consuming process. Screenshots are again available at the forums: Forum - Screenshots (6 pages in total) As you can see the progress list above is huge ... But the time has passed fast too and AirwaySim is currently behind its schedule unfortunately. But as you can see the things are progressing all the time and we are hoping to get the beta running shortly!

BETA TESTING It will be soon time to call up the volunteers for AirwaySim beta testing. Here is some info on how this will happen. After reading this please do not e-mail or post to the forums questions about "if I can test" or "how I can join". Beta is by invitation only basis. Beta testing is planned to start as follows:

- First the invitations will be sent to people who have submitted data to us.

- Then people who have subscribed to the AWS newsletter (as of 15th June 08) are invited.

- Time when actual beta testing starts and testers can access the games is not available yet. However the invitations will be sent before the testing starts.

- When the software is fully ready for beta testing, we will e-mail all those who have been selected as beta testers and ask them to join the games and start testing.

- Actual beta testing will consist of playing 1-3 full games to test the load created to servers and to scout for any additional bugs not found in pre-beta.

- There are also certain conditions to qualify for the beta, those will be available when invitations are sent.

So to sum up, the beta is closing and e-mail invitations will be sent by us later on.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more news later on!