As mseiwald has said, you need to wrok hard. A VA is not an easy job as you think it is. You really have to work hard behind the scenes. If one thing is not working, try another. Not another VA. You need to give pilots a reason to fly. Dont just join the band wagon and go for a EU based airline or an American based airline. It may be a bit harder, but going for a place that is not served by a lot of VA's can actually get you more pilots, as it gives them more places to fly that are interesting, instead of the boring old EU/US routes. Not that they are bad, but they have been done to death. People like to explore places, so give pilots that opportunity to do so. You need to plan your VA's better. Don't just go out, get some hosting, a domain and slap phpvms up with a template, and change a small amount in it. Plan it first, decide where you want to base your VA, what airline you want to base it on. If fictional, you can use a real world airlines routes, so you can make it a bit easier. But if fictional, start small, a few 737's or A320's or smaller, depending on the type of VA you want. Don't go straight for the 30 A380's, 50 747's, 10 777's, 20 A330's, that is just unrealistic, and it won't get you many pilots, and any pilot that does join, is unlikely to actually fly.
You need a proper foundation to work on. And that is your plan. Your plan gives your VA the foundation on which you can build. You need to run it like a real business. This is what is actually very interesting about running a VA, it gives you an insight into how to run a real business (not all aspects of it, but a lot) You wont be able to go into the real world with just a plan for a VA and put it directly into real world use, but you can use it as a base to do so.