2025 Member Survey Results

[Camden Bruno]

Over 150 members (approximately 5% of our membership) took part in our 2025 Member Survey, which was available between February 1-March 5, 2025. The Administration Team is grateful to those who took the time to provide feedback on the community and ideas for how we can continue to offer great service to our members.

We’re pleased to provide a snapshot of the survey results below. If anyone is interested in seeing additional data, feel free to reach out. We're happy to make additional data available for members to complete their own analysis! 

BVA members are represented by all age categories, with the largest demographics being 56+ (27%) and 26-35 (21%): 

 

 

Consistent with previous years, controllers tend to be younger while members of our community tend to be older. The trends have been relatively constant year-to-year.

 

79% of our members connect from Eastern or Central time, although the community has members from around the world. This is part of the reason we consistently schedule events to benefit this time zone (i.e., weekday evenings or weekend afternoon/evenings). 

 

 

 

A little less than half of our members have some form of real-world experience within aviation; most of those are pilots. 46% of our members do not have any real-world flight experience.

 

 

The majority of our members find themselves flying online, connected to VATSIM, for more than 75% of their flights. Most of these members are connecting to VATSIM two or three times per week.

 

   

 

 

 

70% of our members have either already purchased, or plan to purchase, Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) 2024, but their use varies. Most of those members who have already purchased MSFS 2024 reported that they are still using MSFS 2020 more often. While most members use MSFS, 38% of our members find themselves regularly using X-Plane.

 

 

Consistent with previous years, members are pleased with the community experience, with 95% of members rating their experience as a 4 or 5, out of 5. 72% of you rated the overall experience as a 5, which is an 8% increase from the 2022 survey:

 

 

One point from the member survey, specifically for controllers. Out of 169 responses, there was not a single ATC member that rated their experience with the training process, documentation, and sectors files as a 1 or 2 out of 5. In 2022’s survey, 4 respondents expressed concerns related to the ATC training process and, as a result, the A-Team committed to reviewing the training program in that calendar year. We are happy to see this review proved successful.

 

In addition to on-network events, this year we also asked about events unrelated to flying/air traffic control. 62% of respondents wish to see more of these events, such as member socials and game nights. We also asked about town hall style, all-member meetings. 53% of respondents wish to have more than just one of these per year.

 

 

As far as upcoming projects, as we mentioned in the survey, due to VOR decommissioning throughout our airspace, this year we’ll be embarking on a redesign of our signature WINGS Over New England program. Over 50 of you provided recommendations as to subjects or airports you’d like to see featured. We will be taking all of these into consideration – more to come on this.

 

In addition to reviewing the demographics and data, the Administration Team also read through thoughtful, insightful suggestions from those who completed the survey. We read each piece of feedback individually and have already followed up with approximately 10 members about their questions and input. 

 

If you'd like to get access to additional data or the full dataset to conduct your own analysis, feel free to reach out! 

 

If you have questions, comments, or feedback about the community, please don’t feel the need to wait for our 2024 survey! Reach out to the Administration Team, submit ATC feedback, or share your thoughts on our forums or in Discord and TeamSpeak.