How to Enable Flight on Your Minecraft Server

If you or your players are getting kicked with the message "Flying is not enabled on this server", this is a quick fix. The allow-flight setting controls whether players can fly in Survival mode without being automatically kicked by the server's built-in anti-cheat.

Enabling Flight

What This Setting Actually Does

This is one of the most misunderstood settings in Minecraft. allow-flight does not give players the ability to fly. It tells the server's anti-cheat system to stop kicking players who are detected as airborne for too long in Survival mode.

Players still need one of these to actually fly:

• Creative mode — Flight is built into Creative
• Elytra — Gliding wings found in End cities
• Mods — Mods that add jetpacks, grappling hooks, or flight abilities
• Plugins — Plugins like EssentialsX that grant /fly permission

When allow-flight is false (the default), the server monitors how long players stay in the air. If a player is airborne for too long without a valid reason (like jumping or falling), the server assumes they're using a hack and kicks them.

When You Need This Enabled

You should set allow-flight=true if any of these apply to your server:

• Modded servers — Mods that change player movement (double jumps, jetpacks, grappling hooks, climbing gear) trigger false flight detection. This is the #1 reason for "Flying is not enabled" kicks on modded servers.
• Plugin flight — If you use plugins like EssentialsX, CMI, or LuckPerms to grant /fly to players, this setting must be true.
• Custom maps — Adventure maps and minigames that use command blocks to levitate or teleport players can trigger false kicks.
• Lag-related kicks — On laggy servers, players may appear to "float" during rubber-banding, causing the anti-cheat to kick them. Enabling flight prevents these false positives.

📝 Note: If you're on a Paper or Spigot server and want proper anti-cheat instead of the basic vanilla flight detection, consider installing a dedicated anti-cheat plugin through Plugins. Plugins like NoCheatPlus or Vulcan are far more accurate than the vanilla system and won't false-kick legitimate players.

If you get stuck at any time, you can join our Discord.