Handling Scheduled Flights For Non-existing Airports

This issue has come up with several pilots due to the variety of simulators used, so I will offer some guidance on what to do in these instances.  When a scheduled flight has a origin or destination airport that is not found in your simulator, you will most likely want to land at the nearest suitable airport from the missing airport that your simulator supports.  If the airport goes by a different or updated code than the one listed in the schedule, you will want to land at that one.  In either case, the airport code will not match that listed in the schedule, and an attempt to use any other code than that listed in the schedule will not be accepted as a valid PIREP.

If for any reason the scheduled origin or destination code of your actual flight requires a different airport code than the one listed in the schedule, you have two options you can choose from to successfully upload your PIREP:

Option 1
Use the scheduled flight number but change the airport code from your actual flight to the one listed in the schedule so that the airport codes in your PIREP match that of the scheduled flight.  This can be done in either the manual pirep entry of the pilot's office or through SPAACARS.  In the case of SPAACARS, you can load your flight plan into SPAACARS using the "Flight Plan" button - then simply change the origin or destination field in SPAACARS to match the scheduled airport codes.  Also know that you can alter the flight number, origin or destination fields of SPAACARS during the flight and it will record the change when PIREP is sent.

Option 2
Use your user-defined flight number and keep the correct airport codes of your actual flight if there is not an existing flight in our schedule for your alternate orig-dest combination.  If there is an existing flight in the schedule database for your alternate flight plan, you must use that flight number with SPAACARS along with the orig and dest of your alternate flight plan.  

Happy flying,

John