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Flying

Set your availability

Set the weekly hours you can fly and add time off or extra hours, so students find times that suit you.

For: Flight Instructor, Chief Instructor, Ground Instructor · Updated November 6, 2026

Instructors set when they can fly on their profile. Students find open times inside those hours on Schedule, under Find Availability.

Set your weekly hours

  1. Open the account menu and choose Profile. For where the account menu is, see Get help from Aerial.
  2. Open the My Availability tab. It is shown when you are an instructor at the school you have selected.
  3. Under Weekly hours, choose Add hours on a day, then pick a start and an end time. To add another range on the same day, choose the plus button next to it.
  4. To give Tuesday to Friday the same hours as Monday, choose Copy Monday to weekdays. It works once Monday has hours.
  5. To remove a range, choose the bin button next to it.
  6. Choose Save weekly hours.

A day with no hours shows Unavailable. Times are wall-clock times at the lesson's location.

Until you set your hours, the tab says they are not set. Students then see the school's opening hours for you, marked as not confirmed.

Add time off or extra hours

  1. On My Availability, go to Time off and extra hours.
  2. Pick a Type: Time off or Extra hours.
  3. Set the From date, From time, Until date and Until time. The end must be after the start.
  4. Choose Add.

Time off blocks bookings, unless a scheduling manager books over it. Extra hours add to your weekly hours on those dates. To remove an entry, choose the bin button next to it, then Remove.

How this affects booking

  • Find Availability offers students open times inside instructors' hours.
  • When an instructor hasn't set their hours, their times come from the school's opening hours and show Open – not confirmed by instructor. A request for one of those times goes to the instructor to accept, and to staff for approval if your school requires it.
  • A booking or request during an instructor's time off, or outside their hours, can be refused. Aerial says why, for example "The instructor has time off then."

Change another instructor's availability

Availability managers can change any instructor's hours. By default they are school owners, administrators, chief instructors, schedulers and dispatchers whose role covers every location. Instructors can't change a colleague's hours.

  1. Open People in the sidebar.
  2. Choose View on the instructor's row.
  3. Under Instructor Details, choose Manage availability.
  4. Change Weekly hours the same way and choose Save weekly hours.
  5. Add or remove time off and extra hours with Add and the bin button. Those save straight away.