What is a Flight?
A flight defines when your line item (campaign) is active and eligible to serve ads. Every line item needs at least one flight before it can be activated.
Flight Types
There are three flight types available:
- Week - Runs for a single calendar week. Select the specific week from the picker.
- Month - Runs for a single calendar month. Select the specific month from the picker.
- Custom - Set your own start and end dates. Leave the end date empty for an open-ended flight (runs indefinitely until paused or concluded).
Calendar Types: Standard vs Broadcast
When using Week or Month flights, you can choose between two calendar systems:
Standard (ISO)
- Weeks run Monday to Sunday
- Months align with normal calendar months (e.g. January 1-31, February 1-28)
- Week numbering follows the ISO 8601 standard
Broadcast
- Weeks also run Monday to Sunday
- Broadcast months always start on a Monday and end on a Sunday - they do not align with calendar month boundaries
- Months follow a 4-4-5, 4-5-4, or 5-4-4 week pattern within each quarter
- This means a broadcast "January" might start on Monday December 30 rather than January 1
The broadcast calendar is the standard used across the advertising and media industry for campaign scheduling and billing. If your agency or advertiser reports on broadcast calendar periods, use this setting to align your ART19 flights with their reporting.
The calendar type also affects how the flight filter works on the Line Items page - filtering by "January (Broadcast)" will show a different date range than "January (Standard)".
Days of Week
By default, flights run on all days. You can optionally restrict a flight to specific days of the week - for example, only serving ads on weekdays (Monday-Friday). When days are restricted, the flight duration is calculated based only on the selected days.
Multiple Flights
A single line item can have multiple flights. This is useful for campaigns that run in bursts - for example, a campaign that runs for one week, pauses, then runs again the following week.
Editing Flights
Flight timing can be edited when:
- The line item is still in draft
- The flight has not started yet (is in the future)
Once a flight has started, it automatically switches to Custom type so you can only change the end date. You cannot change the start date or switch back to Week/Month type for an in-progress flight.
Dark Periods
When a line item has multiple flights with gaps between them, the periods where no flight is active are called "dark" periods. During a dark period, the line item will not serve any ads - it's effectively paused without needing to be manually paused.
For example, if you have a flight running Week 20 and another running Week 22, Week 21 is a dark period - no ads will serve that week even though the line item is still active.
This is useful for campaigns that need scheduled breaks (e.g. running every other week, or pausing over holidays) without having to manually pause and resume the line item.
Flight Status and Delivery
Flights work together with your line item's goal and pacing settings to control ad delivery. When all flights on a line item have ended, the line item moves to an "over" state and stops serving.