Airport Slots

The busiest airports are slot coordinated: there are only so many departures and arrivals each hour, and most are held by other airlines. To fly there you need a slot for each one: a departure slot to leave, and an arrival slot to land.

Only a few airports are slot coordinated, and the Slots tab shows which. Everywhere else, fly whenever you like.

How slots work

• A slot covers one hour, in UTC, every day: for example, a departure between 07:00 and 08:00Z. Each daily flight uses one.
• Slots are yours to keep. Taking a flight off the timetable frees its slot for another flight in the same hour.
• Busy hours have fewer slots free, by the airport’s own time of day: mornings and early evenings are the peak.
• A free slot is yours for the asking.

Planning slots for a route

Go to the Slots tab (Alt+L, or type SLOTS), and choose a route on the left (Tab moves between the routes and the grid). The grid shows the day hour by hour, with the outbound flight on the left and its return on the right. Each side shows the departure and arrival times and, at a busy airport, the slot each needs: 3 free, held if you have a spare one, or full. A dot means the airport needs no slot.

• The outbound leaves at the top of its hour. Block times are for the aircraft type shown at the top; A changes it, and D swaps the direction.
• The Turn column shows how long the aircraft would be on the ground between the outbound on the selected row and a return leaving in each hour. The return leaves as soon in its hour as your turnaround allows. Set the turnaround you like with T; it’s 40 minutes to start with, and the route manager uses it to time return flights too. The arrow ◄ marks the hour that gives it.
• Turns shorter than yours are in orange; anything under the 25 minute minimum can’t be flown.

Staging and confirming

Press Enter on an outbound hour to stage it: the cursor moves to the return hour that gives your turnaround, and Enter stages that too. Stage as many legs as you like, on any routes; they’re listed at the bottom. Enter or Del on a staged leg takes it off.

Press C to confirm: the coordinator is asked for every slot the staged legs need, all at once. Slots you already hold and don’t use count first. If any slot can’t be had, none are granted.

Then schedule the flights in the route manager (Alt+R). From its schedule dialog, S comes back here, on that route and hour.