Career mode is the part of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 that behaves like a business sim wearing a headset: a rating before a job appears, a job before a company licence is worth buying, a company before the good missions pay properly. Microsoft’s support team publishes the numbers behind that chain in a career FAQ last updated 18 September 2026, which prices 20 certifications, 15 company licences and 16 aircraft in credits and states the commission an employer takes in Employee mode. This piece assembles those figures into the order a new pilot meets them.
That is not ground already covered here: the only prior mention of this sim in the archive is one benchmark line inside a CPU piece on X3D cache and memory bandwidth, where it is one of eight test titles. Everything below assumes Sim Update 7.1 — build 1.9.21.0, 23 October 2026, whose release notes contain no career-mode entries at all; the last career changes shipped two weeks earlier in Sim Update 7 (1.9.18.0).
What this covers: the four things that gate a career mission — level, certification, specialization objectives and reputation — priced from Microsoft’s own FAQ, plus the employee-mode commission that decides whether a first company ever pays back. Why it matters: Employee mode hands the employer “almost 95%” of the reward, so flying for yourself is worth roughly twenty times flying for someone else on the same mission, and the fixed-wing airline spine alone adds up to 10,710,000 Cr. Who should care: new owners working out what to buy next, pilots who sold an aircraft and found themselves short, and anyone weighing whether career mode is worth starting.
The ladder, priced out
Ten of the FAQ’s certifications form the fixed-wing airline spine. The running total is arithmetic over Microsoft’s prices, not a route anyone has to fly in that order.
| Certification | Price (Cr) | Running total (Cr) |
|---|---|---|
| Private Pilot License – Airplane | 10 000 | 10 000 |
| Commercial Pilot License – Airplane | 25 000 | 35 000 |
| Instrument Rating | 175 000 | 210 000 |
| Turboprop Engine Rating | 200 000 | 410 000 |
| Turbine Engine Rating | 300 000 | 710 000 |
| Jet Engine Rating | 500 000 | 1 210 000 |
| Airline Transport Pilot License – Airplane | 1 000 000 | 2 210 000 |
| Turboprop Airline Transport Pilot Rating | 1 000 000 | 3 210 000 |
| Jet Airline Transport Pilot Rating | 2 500 000 | 5 710 000 |
| Heavy Airliner Rating | 5 000 000 | 10 710 000 |
Two things stand out. The first 35,000 Cr buys the licence pair behind every early specialization, and nothing after it is small: the Instrument Rating alone costs seven times the Commercial Pilot License. And the first million-credit item arrives long before the mission that needs it, because Passenger Transport – Airline needs the Jet Airline Transport Pilot Rating and level 50.
Branches cost extra: Commercial Pilot License – Rotorcraft 35 000, Multi Engine Rating 100 000, Tailwheel Endorsement 35 000, Hook Endorsement 400 000, Hoist Endorsement 500 000, Scoop Endorsement 750 000, Airline Transport License – Rotorcraft 2 000 000. Two are gates rather than extras: Scientific Research needs the Multi Engine Rating, hoist search-and-rescue needs the Hoist Endorsement.
Four gates, not one
A mission appears when four conditions are met. Level and certification come from the specialization table; objectives are the transversal missions Microsoft describes in three stages — meet the objectives, fly the golden “cradle” mission in that specialization’s home region, and the world map populates. A partial sample:
| Specialization | Level | Certification | Objective |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Flight | 1 | Private Pilot License – Airplane | none listed |
| Flightseeing | 5 | Commercial Pilot License – Airplane | none listed |
| Skydive Aviation | 8 | Commercial Pilot License – Airplane | 5 airplane missions at C+, 3 landings >50% smoothness |
| Cargo Transport – Light | 10 | Commercial Pilot License – Airplane | 7 airplane missions at C+, 5 landings >50% smoothness |
| Charter Service – Private | 16 | Instrument Rating | 10 airplane missions at C+, 7 landings >50% smoothness |
| Cargo Transport – Medium | 25 | Turboprop Engine + Instrument Rating | 5 cargo missions, 10 flights with full ATC procedures |
| Medevac | 35 | Turboprop Engine + Instrument Rating | 15 passenger missions at B or above |
| Passenger Transport – Airline | 50 | Jet Airline Transport Pilot Rating | 15 passenger missions at A+, 20 full-ATC flights |
| Cargo Transport – Super Heavy | 90 | Heavy Airliner Rating | 1 Cargo Transport – Heavy mission at S |
| Scientific Research | not listed | Multi Engine Rating | reputation B or above |
| Charter Service – VIP Airliner | not listed | Jet Airline Transport Rating | reputation A or above |
| Remote Cargo Ops | not listed | Turboprop Airline Transport Pilot Rating | reputation S or above |
The three bottom rows are the reputation gates, and they make reputation matter more than a score. No level requirement is printed: the rating and the reputation letter are the whole condition, and the FAQ publishes no curve connecting flight scores to those letters. Treat B, A and S as thresholds, not a projected multiplier. The one statement of magnitude is that “having a good reputation will boost your income”; Sim Update 1 changed the world-map estimate to include the reputation bonus, flagged in those notes as visual only.
The 95% commission is the biggest number in the mode
The FAQ’s Employee mode answer reorganises every other price here: an employee mission pays out after the employer takes “a commission of almost 95% of the total amount of the credits that are rewarded”. Keeping about a twentieth of a listed reward means reading the certification bill in reverse: a 175,000 Cr Instrument Rating is roughly 3.5 million credits of listed reward flown as an employee, and the 2.5 million-credit Jet Airline Transport Pilot Rating roughly 50 million.
Hence the push to a company. Passive income is conditional: the “Crew” trigger has to be on, and the payout is calculated from time spent in career missions without using aircraft with Crew On — it does not accrue in menus, in free flight, in World Photographer, or with the game closed. Sim Update 1 made Employee-mode flying generate passive income; Sim Update 2 added fuel management to employee missions and put the mission’s credit value on the briefing; Sim Update 6 added an Employee-mode aircraft filter that switches all compatible missions to the selected airframe.
The first company, and the licence bill
Company licences are their own price list:
| Company licence | Price (Cr) | Company licence | Price (Cr) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tour | 10 000 | Search And Rescue | 300 000 | |
| Commercial Flight | 25 000 | Medevac | 300 000 | |
| Cargo Transport | 25 000 | Aerial Filming | 700 000 | |
| Skydive Sport | 30 000 | Scientific Research | 700 000 | |
| Private Charter | 40 000 | Agricultural Aviation | 1 000 000 | |
| Aerial Advertising | 150 000 | Firefighting | 1 250 000 | |
| Airline | 1 500 000 | Aerial Construction | 1 750 000 | |
| Military | 2 000 000 |
Here the documentation stops short in a way worth naming: the FAQ publishes company licences and specializations as two separate lists and never maps one onto the other. “Tour” at 10,000 Cr is the cheapest licence, but no published table says which specialization it matches. So the defensible answer to “which company first” is not “the cheapest licence” but “the earliest specialization you can reach” — Flightseeing at level 5 with the Commercial Pilot License, and Skydive Aviation behind it at level 8 with five C-grade missions and three landings above 50% smoothness.
The FAQ’s worked example makes the light-cargo sequence concrete: level 10, the 25,000 Cr Commercial Pilot License – Airplane, Cargo Transport – Light completed, then “enough money to purchase your first aircraft ($ 2 500) and company ($ 25 000)”. Note that 2,500 Cr, because the same FAQ prices the cheapest airframe it names, the Cessna 152, at 150,000 Cr. The two do not reconcile; budget from the price list.
What patch history did to the pay table
Reward balance has moved several times. Sim Update 1 raised base rewards across eleven specializations:
| Specialization | Base reward change in Sim Update 1 |
|---|---|
| Skydive – Plane | +91% |
| Aerial Agriculture – Plane | +75% |
| Search & Rescue – Rotorcraft Hoist | +66% |
| Aerial Firefighting – Initial Attack | +35% |
| Aerial Firefighting – Extended Attack | +35% |
| Search & Rescue – Airplane | +33% |
| Search & Rescue – Rotorcraft | +33% |
| Aerial Agriculture – Rotorcraft | +32.5% |
| Cargo Transport – Aerial Construction | +30% |
| Aerial Advertising | +12.5% |
| Cargo Transport – Hook | +8.7% |
Against that, the strongest published argument for a first company: Skydive Sport’s licence is 30,000 Cr and its airplane specialization took the largest base-reward increase any row has received in the patch notes since launch; Aerial Agriculture is close behind at 75% but behind a 1,000,000 Cr licence and a level 40 gate.
The aircraft is the second bill
The FAQ’s aircraft table is short and incomplete — Microsoft says so — but its range shows where the money goes:
| Aircraft | Price (Cr) |
|---|---|
| Cessna 152 | 150 000 |
| Cessna 172 Skyhawk | 400 000 |
| Diamond DA62 | 1 500 000 |
| Air Tractor AT-802 | 1 500 000 |
| Cirrus Vision Jet SF50 | 2 500 000 |
| Cessna 208B Grand Caravancaravan. A player-driven trade convoy that moves goods between settlements — valuable, and vulnerable to attack. | 2 500 000 |
| Airbus H125 | 3 000 000 |
| Beechcraft King Air C90 GTX | 4 000 000 |
| Pilatus PC-12 | 5 000 000 |
| Cessna Citation CJ4 | 9 410 000 |
| Cessna Citation Longitude | 30 000 000 |
One ownership rule catches people who own the dearer editions: “If you do not own the aircraft/helicopter listed below, you need to first purchase it from the in-sim marketplace before you are able to purchase it in your career mode.” Only the default planes included in the standard edition are currently available in career mode, so an Aviator edition does not put its extra aircraft into the career fleet for free.
Running costs are real but only partly documented. Sim Update 2 added feedback when you try to repair without enough credits, fixed incorrect mandatory checkup times in the Fleet screen, and added an error for a grounded aircraft you try to transfer. Insurance and Salvage Coverage have their own confirmation and clarify popups, and repainting only refreshes a paint job worn by wear and tear. Sim Update 6 narrowed one cruel failure mode: where the sim detects a failure caused by WASM issues, a bad configuration after Skip or Back-on-Track, or an airport surface problem, the player no longer takes Aviator Performance penalties, score reductions, reputation loss, or wear-and-tear consequences requiring repairs.
What the patches changed about payback
| Date | Build | Career-economy change |
|---|---|---|
| 6 Mar 2025 | 1.3.23.0 | Reputation bonus in the world-map estimate (visual only); passive income from Employee missions; 11 specializations’ base rewards raised |
| 15 May 2025 | 1.4.20.0 | Mission credits on the briefing; company creation blocked until that specialization’s cradle is played |
| 20 Aug 2025 | 1.5.27.0 | Locked certifications inspectable; popup when you cannot afford a certification |
| 8 Dec 2025 | 1.6.32.0 | Reward compensation when the game crashes mid-mission |
| 30 Apr 2026 | Sim Update 5 | All career modes unlocked; Heavy and VTOL specializations available; dispatch checks runway length and lighting |
| 13 Aug 2026 | 1.8.14.0 | Aborting pays a partial amount based on progress; “No Skip Bonus” becomes “Skip Cost”; night missions at unlit runways return with an increased difficulty bonus |
| 13 Oct 2026 | 1.9.18.0 | Wider protection from reputation loss and repair costs after configuration-caused crashes; mission filters on the career world map |
| 23 Oct 2026 | 1.9.21.0 | No career-mode entries in the release notes |
Two rows change tactics rather than numbers. Because aborting pays on progress, bailing out of a mission that has gone wrong costs less than finishing it badly; because skipping is now a “Skip Cost” rather than a forfeited “No Skip Bonus”, skipping every cruise leg is no longer free. Night missions to unlit runways, restored in Sim Update 6 with lighting fixed at 742 airports, are the cheapest difficulty bonus the notes describe.
The purchase order this implies
Start with the 10,000 Cr Private Pilot License and the 25,000 Cr Commercial Pilot License – Airplane. That 35,000 Cr buys First Flight at level 1, Flightseeing at level 5 and the objective grind for Skydive Aviation and Cargo Transport – Light — the only stretch where a few missions close the gap. Fly Employee mode only as long as you must: at that commission you keep about a twentieth of the reward, and passive income is the real return.
Then pick a company deliberately. Tour is the cheapest licence at 10,000 Cr, but with no published mapping the choice has to rest on what you can unlock. Skydive Sport at 30,000 Cr sits behind a level 8 gate and its airplane specialization took the largest base-reward increase in the mode’s patch history; Cargo Transport at 25,000 Cr is cheaper and lands two levels later; Aerial Advertising at 150,000 Cr arrives at level 12 with 12.5% behind it.
Hold the Instrument Rating until you have a reason. At 175,000 Cr it is the first genuinely expensive line item, gating Charter Service – Private at 16, Cargo Transport – Medium at 25 and Medevac at 35 — real content, but three level bands from a fresh account.