Fly or die's Guide

Airline Club is an airline simulator that lets you manage an airline. Airline Club is kinda hard, harder than most other airline simulators. Going bankrupt isn’t that rare, even top players sometimes do so, Don’t worry, you aren’t the only one. This guide was made by me in order to help players play the game. (My airline is named Fly or die, hence the title)

It is recommended that you check all the Menus in the left sidebar to get a feel of what AC is like.

This guide is over a year old and I haven't looked at it since, so if there's something wrong here, please ping me on Discord (username bohaska)

## Selecting a location

There are 3 main factors that determine whether a location is good, mainly reputation, demand, and competition. I recommend selecting a low competition area with plenty of demand. Since the game doesn't simulate inequality very well, budget airlines in high-income countries (like the USA) don't work. It's not recommended to start in an airport with lots of competition.

The optimal strategy for this game is to go to a place with high demand, good domestic network but weak international network, then fly lots of long-range international/intercontinental routes out of it to earn money. After earning at least 5 billion, relocate/rebuild to a competitive area and try to gain rep. However, this method may be boring.

**It is unadvised to start in an airport with a runway smaller than 2500m!**

The number next to the star is the length of the runway

   **Select Entrepreneurial Spirit when prompted.** Taking out a loan will usually result in you going bankrupt. The other options are hard to play, with big risk, but big rewards.

#### TL;DR

Pick a medium-sized airport with low competition. Check the airport stats on the top-left corner of the airport menu.

For making the most money, I recommend starting in China or India. They have lots of unfulfilled demand that big airlines haven't taken.

#### Reputation + Demand

Areas with high average income and big airports in general. Examples include the USA, Europe and Japan. It is highly recommeneded **not** to start in these airports, as big airlines can easily destroy smaller airlines there. The advised strategy for airlines wishing to grow to these areas is to start in a Demand + Low competition or Demand area, earn money, and then rebuild your airline. The recommended rebuild value for these types of places is at least 5 billion.

#### Demand + Low competition

~~Underserved destinations in general. Examples include South America. These types of destinations are good for new airlines to start in, as they can earn lots of money and grow very quick. However, the lack of reputation may lead to stagnation later game.~~ I no longer recommend South America as a place to start in. Demand is not very high and runways are short.

The optimal strategy is to base in one of these airports, then spam long-range flights from them to earn money. To deal with this region's low rep and high competition, it's best to relocate somewhere else with high amounts of rep.

#### Reputation

Small gateway airports and Africa. Due to gateway airports having a boost to rep, and the game having lots of small territories listed as countries, there are lots of gateway airports in the Pacfic and Atlantic islands. Africa, although lacking demand and having strong competition, also has lots of gateways. Africa is especially hard due to the lack of countries which allow international-international transfers.

#### Demand

Places with high amounts of people but low average income. Includes China, India etc. Although these places have high amounts of demand, they also face lots of competition and do not give as much rep as richer countries due to game design reasons. A large majority of successful airlines in these places are budget airlines.

The optimal strategy is to base in one of these airports, then spam long-range flights from them to earn money. To deal with this region's low rep and high competition, it's best to relocate somewhere else with high amounts of rep after earning a couple of billion dollars.

#### Low competition

Small airports in general. Suck in almost all aspects, but don't have much competition. It is possible to turn a low-demand airport with a sufficiently long runway into a high-traffic airport due to indirect demand.

## Starting Off

### Important notes

When you start off, it is normal to lose money. Don't fret. If your flights don't reach full capacity, just wait a few hours or even a day. You have to wait for awareness to build up in your HQ before passengers start using your airline.

If you start in a high-income country and try to compete against another airline, you might find yourself losing even though you provide better service at a cheaper price. This is normal. Due to the fact that the other airline has more loyalty than you, other passengers prefer the other airline more than your airline.

   Please do the following steps in the order I have put them.

### Set some important things in the Office tab

In the Office tab, set service quality (20 service quality = 1 star) and aircraft replacement. To reduce initial costs, increase service quality by 10 around every 12 hours until you reach your desired amount of service. It's best to use low service quality, lower than 50 is good and will save you lots of money. I suggest using 35. For new airlines, I recommend you set aircraft replacement at 50%.

### Select an aircraft

For a small airline, I recommend that you start off with using either Embraer planes or Bombardier planes, especially the Bombardier DHC-8-200 and Embraer EMB120. All of the Embraer planes and Bombardier planes are good planes in general. Embraers are cheaper, have better range and help you expand faster, but Bombardier's are more fuel efficient and are a better choice in the long term. Pick the planes that suit your airline (e.g. do not buy 100 seat planes for routes with low demand)

To sort airlines by family, select the tab that says Family on the top

### Level up your HQ

You start the game with a level 1 HQ. Although this is obviously better than nothing, you will be severely limited if you don't upgrade your base. Level 1 HQ's only allow you to make flights with 5 frequency (its a soft cap, not a hard cap). Adding more frequency will drastically increase the amount of delegates required to negotiate.

To level up your HQ, you will first need to assign a delegate to the country that the HQ is based in. To do so, click the country button on the left side, search the list using Ctrl-F (Cmd-F for Macs), and enter the name of the country you are based in. When you select a country, a country relationship management panel will appear. Add a delegate using the plus button and confirm your decision.

The next step is to actually level up your HQ. Select your HQ on the world map and select the "upgrade" button.

### Create a route

To create a new route, select another airport and click "plan route". In there, select the amount of frequency you want on that particular flight. For service quality, just leave it at 2 stars or 1 star if you are a budget airline. You may want to drop the price 1 time in order to attract more passengers.

For more information, go to Making a route or Troubleshooting routes.

### Create a campaign [OPTIONAL]

If you still have some remaining delegates and you would like them to be put to work, you can use campaigns! In the office menu, look at the right side and scroll down (or use Ctrl-F) until you find something that says Campaigns. Add a campaign with 1 delegate and leave the radius of the campaign unchanged. The strength of a campaign varies depending on the amount of people in range, so a campaign in a small town will be stronger than a campaign in New York.

Because of that, campaigns may not work very well if you are based in a big city (small airports close to big airports count, such as LCY or ORY). For these cities, don't make a campaign in the airport you are based in, make a campaign in a nearby small airport. For example, a campaign in Dusseldorf with 100km radiua will cover 14 million people, well over the 7 million people in Dusseldorf, therefore wasting delegates on improving loyalty in places where you do not need to do so. In comparison, a campaign in Weeze Airport (NRN), a nearby regional airport, will only cover itself (which adds a negligible amount of population) and Dusseldorf, saving you lots of delegates.

### Join the in-game Discord server

Most of the Airline Club community is located in its official Discord server (online chatroom). If you need more advice, you can ask people there. You can join it here.

### Wait

Wait a few hours in order to get your delegates recharged and money replenished.

## Early-game

### Expand

#### Make more routes

If you forgot how to make a route, check Making a route

##### Operate some intercontinental routes

Intercontinental routes (or IC routes) have less competition, and earn a lot more money. Don't be fooled by direct demand, as IC's usually have a lot more demand than what is shown. However, the planes required to make an IC route are very expensive. IC flights also use a lot of staff, so don't make too many of these flights. It is better to increase capacity on existing IC routes.

It's best to try to run as many long range flights as you can, as they are great for earning money.

#### Buy bigger planes

When your flights start to get too small for the traffic you are carrying, try buying a bigger plane instead of using more frequency on smaller planes.

Note: If your frequency is too low (<7), Swift pax may not fly with you, so don't buy an airplane that's too big.

#### Build a base

When your HQ is level 3-5 (you decide when to start), it is recommended to build a base in a new airport. Assign a delegate to the country, go to the airport you want to build a base in and find the Build Base button. Bases are not as powerful as HQ's.

#### Join an alliance

**Try applying for an alliance**. You can find potential alliances by asking in the Discord server or the in-game chat. It's best if the alliance has good connections to your area, but that's not the only factor. Being in an alliance will help you get more transit passengers from other airlines in the same alliance, and alliances give 5 bonus rep. The best part of alliances though is the advice from more experienced players. They can help you grow quickly and avoid common AC mistakes.

There are several small, newbie-friendly alliances specifically looking for new players, such as **Golden Sun**. Try applying to them. Their requirements are much more lax compared to other alliances, and they have many more spots for airlines.

#### Vote in the Olympics

Airline Club has an in-game Olympics, which can be accessed through the medal button in the left sidebar. If a warning icon appears next to the medal button, it means that you **can vote** for a city to host the Olympics. After the voting cycle has ended, you can go to the Olympics tab to claim a free 10 million dollars. **You even get the reward if you didn't vote for the winning city**, so feel free to pick whatever city you fancy.

The Olympics will give a lot of demand and competition to the winning city for 2 days.

## Mid-game

### Expand into a big airport

Lack of reputation may doom your airline mid-game, so after opening 1 or 2 bases, you should expand to a big airport. Big airports provide more rep than smaller airports. Gateway airports are especially prized, as they get a reputation gain bonus for being a gateway airport.

The amount of reputation you gain in an airport is determined by how many loyalists you have, how big the airport is, average income of the cities around the airport, whether the airport is a gateway and the charms the airport has.

### Add business seats

When your airline is small and your quality is low, its very hard to attract business pax to your airline. However, when your airline expands and dominates airports, you can more reliably attract business class passengers. Business class passengers tend to be Elite passengers, with a few Swift pax, so in order to attract lots of them, you'll have to have a lounge and provide good service, but if your flight has high frequency, then you can add a few business seats. Business class tends to earn more than economy.

To add business class seats, select the model of the planes that you want to change in the aircraft tab, and then click Config. If you want to edit all planes, change the above configuration (the all economy one). However, if you only want a few planes to have business pax, make a new configuration. After making it, go to the planes that you want to change, and switch the configuration.

### Rebuild your airline

Not the same as declaring bankruptcy. Don't declare bankruptcy unless you want to reset your account.

When you rebuild your airline, all of your airplanes and bases will be converted to cash, but loyalists and reputation would not be changed. This is great for moving your airline to a new airport.

#### Why you might want to rebuild

Rebuilding your airline is the only way to move your HQ. HQ's based in a big city are very powerful, and can help you gain rep quickly in said airport.

If you started in a place without lots of rep, you may want to go to another country. Due to your huge amount of cash, you will usually grow quicker than other airlines and more easily champion airports.

Rebuilding your domestic airline and converting it into an international/intercontinental airline is a potentially lucrative strategy.

## I need help!

You can ask your question in Airline Club's Discord server. You can also check the FAQ.

## Game concepts

### Indirect demand

Airline Club's pax simulation is far better than many other airline simulators. Passengers can take and transfer to multiple flights in order to get to their destination, unlike some other airline simulators which only simulate direct demand. Because of this, a small airport can have a lot of passengers (Not the same as having a lot of demand). For example, if someone from London wants to get to Sydney, but there are no direct flights, then the passenger can go via another airport, such as Dubai. If a small airport has a lot of flights to underserved destinations, then pax from other airports may go through the small airport to the underserved destination.

The possibility of indirect demand is greatly reduced when the country the airport is in has an openness < 7, because these countries do not allow pax to go to 2 different countries via said airport (e.g. London to Sydney via Mumbai is impossible, since India has an openness of 4). However, this does not affect international to domestic transfers (e.g. London to Mumbai via New Delhi), which means that larger countries are less affected since they still have a large amount of domestic demand.

The best example of such an airport is Kigali (KGL), Rwanda.

## Recommended aircraft

Short/Medium range flights: Embraer's and Bombardiers. All of them are good planes.

Long haul flights: Boeing Dreamliner family, Boeing 757-200 (239 capacity), Boeing 777-200 (440 capacity), Airbus A350-800 (390 capacity), Boeing 747 SP (400 capacity).