Happy 10 Year Anniversary MetroAir Virtual!

A little more than 10 years ago on a cold Michigan morning, founder Mark McCoy had a crazy idea to build a new virtual airline that was focused on realism. The plan was to start the airline off like a new real world airline with a very limited fleet (and  cash balance).  The airline officially started with 6 Boeing 737-200ADVs and 3 Bombardier Dash 8-Q200s. ”Today is just the beginning” said McCoy on that very first day; his words have never rang so true.

For those of you who like numbers, in the 10 years we’ve had some impressive stats. Keep in mind that we did lose some data at one point so the numbers for all are really a little higher. In the 10 years, we’ve had:

• 90,591 bids
• 69,276 pireps
• 49,699 acars flights with 8,642,628 position reports
• 7574 unique flights
• 111,718 forum posts

…and don’t forget all of the nose cones!

It’s been a great 10 years at MetroAir. We’re sticking to the original motto of “realistic. innovative. professional.” We’re planning a full year of celebratory fun, starting with the re-activation of the old 732 flights.

N711MT has been in storage at Ontario Int’l Airport since it’s retirement in March of 2008. Over the past few months, MetroAir mechanics have been working to get it back in flying order. In celebration of our 10th anniversary, the B732 will be making a grand tour of some of historically notable MetroAir destinations. Tour flights will be routed DTW-PDX-ONT-LAX-MCI-AUS-FLL-BWI-ORD-DTW, along with a ferry flight between Ontario and Detroit.

Stay tuned, we have tons of events, competitions, and prizes all lined up over the next year!

Here’s to another 10 years!

The original MetroAir route map (Jan 2006):

MetroAir Homepage (Apr 2006):