Airlines Manager: Plane Tycoon Reviews

by Greg Ferguson

I'm about 6 months into this game and I'm not sure if I just totally screwed it up somehow but or what but I can't make any money, doing maintenance on my planes doesn't seem to help. I can't really make any sense of any of the financial documents to figure out what I need to change. I've played a handful of airline games on different devices and this one is probably at the bottom of my list. If I was going to recommend a good one that moves a bit quicker I'd recommend Air Tycoon Online 2. And by quick I mean those games take 2 months to complete. But you can makes sense of where your money is going pretty easily and running your airline is fun. This game I feel is too involved and detailed for my taste. If you are an actual airline manager like one of the other persons who wrote a review, all the financial information on this game probably makes sense. For me as your average joe, I think it's too complicated to appeal to mass audiences. Maybe being a niche game is what this game is here for though.

by Strapples (alinssite.info)

These guys just want to force more ads onto you. They aren’t receptive to feature requests either. The Discord server is full of elitist snobs who are just in a rush to make virtual coins that mean nothing. I had fun building my airline but the community ruined it for me. This game would have been nice if they didnt update it and force ads onto workshop freebies and free economy wallets but now its become an annoyance. What really struck me was the Discord server, I will not associate with a community that is snobbish and rude. Their so called “moderator” yelled at me for pinging the developers about a feature request and polite complaint and the rules said nothing about not to ping them but the “moderator” screamed at me for pinging them that if I ping one more time its an instant mute. They cant even figure out how to maintain a discord server. They seem to make rules out of thin air when they aren’t printed in the rule book. Find another game, because the community attached to this one is frankly intolerable, unless you like snobbish virtual airline folks. This is a plague upon many flight simulation communities. There’s also problems like this in the world of VATSIM etc. Find a good community and stick with it, as for the community around this game? It stinks.

by Connor $ Man

GOOD: Game is very fun to play. I love designing the aircrafts with custom livery’s in the airline painter app, and then I named them in the game with real airline names, as well as custom names. It is very easy to set schedules and buy planes, routes, etc. I never fully understood what the “demand” meant and how we were supposed to deal with that, but other than that the game was great.

BAD: After playing for a good few weeks, I managed to have like almost 20 planes and lots of routes. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to make money and buy a new hub and eventually expand your routes throughout the world. PLEASE READ: One night, I played for about 10 mins then I was done and went to bed with about 250,000,000 dollars. The next day I went into the game and found that I had about -400,000,000 dollars. At that point, I stopped playing the game as there was nothing I could do. I found out that it was because all the planes were getting in accidents and the game automatically pays for repairs, which cost a lot and happen very frequently, like every flight for every plane. So in about 1 day I lost like 600 million dollars. Please fix this

by Ktcmbl

For someone who loves a good puzzle this game is highly addictive. However, many of the formulas seem to be off. Part of the game is ensuring the correct supply and demand but the game seems to get lost. It will tell me I need 40 business seats and after I add 40 business seats to the route it will say a negative number rather than 0. It also isn’t tracking removed flights telling me a plane is still 99% booked when it is only 50% at most.

The ability to see descriptions of most key words in AirlinesManager is super helpful but there is a lack of additional guidance when you click the more button which appears at the bottom of the screen. Much of the guidance seems to be built off of an old version or maybe the computer version. I keep searching for information about the staffing needs and I can’t find the information in the online tutorial or any random a blog posts. I am hoping the instruction manual will be updated soon to reflect the newest release and fill in the gaps.

by Ozitec

While this game is great there are somethings that NEED to change. For the first 5 or 6 routes it is ok but after that it becomes too expensive to make a new route for a far or so in the Tycoon game mode and it gets way worse if you play the Professional game mode. Playing this casually on Tycoon mode I spend most of my time either watching ads or just waiting for the games to finish on auto play so just maybe there is a chance to be able to make a new route every 3 days. I put down the game for a month or so as this has gotten to be a larger part of the game. This NEEDS to change. There is one smaller thing, the adds that you NEED to watch as you NEED to play the games as you NEED to get money that you NEED to open new routes, always take a while to open while other games only take half a second.
All in all, this game is good for those who have lots of time they can spend watching and waiting for ads.

by AMB1217

Fun game until you start going further and it makes you wait 8 hours just to receive a plane you leased. Obviously this is the developers way of testing your patience to get you to buy more credits to just pay for the plane- if you start doing that it’s gonna get pretty darn expensive. Have played these kind of games before and they all start making you wait- which is why I usually fall off. I don’t mind waiting 5-10 minutes but when it takes me 8 hours to create a new route then it just loses the fun of the game. Also as you start growing the cost of a route gets very expensive.. paying $60 mil to fly into a mid size city airport.. I know they have said that’s realistic but is it when you only 10-12 routes, not like we have major cash flow at that point. So anyone it’s a good game, well put together, but loses its fun when it starts making you wait for 8 hours and paying all those airport route fees, this will now just become another game that I check on once in a while I will start looking at other games instead

by MRayu

I like this game, as I could make my own liveries, and could schedule my own flights. You could make this game more realistic by making the routes the planes take more like real life. You also need to add new places, as you disproportionately offer more airports in the US than anywhere else. You also need to check on the fly for new events that are happening in the real world, like the opening of the new airports in Istanbul, Eilat, Jharsuguda, and Kannur. Also, you need to includ government subsidies that are provided under special programs, like the program that provides a subsidy per passenger per flight to Eilat, and the UDAAN scheme. Also, in the new update, you removed the feature where a route which has no space in the schedule will show up red while scheduling your flights. Please put this feature back because it is difficult for me to know which routes will fit in the leftover free space my planes’ schedules have.

by My Mustang

I’ve been playing this game for a while now and do enjoy most of the aspects of the game. Between the different airports and aircrafts. No real complaints.

The improvements that I could see to the game to take it up a few steps. One is adding more airports across the world to make more routes. The selection of airports are great currently but some more smaller to larger airports with potential are missing.
Another option is airport improvement options. Similar to the research objectives, except that you could use your airlines money or request from the “city” to do extras to the airport. Such as expanding the airport and runway, plane storage facilities, improvements to the airport surrounding areas, and similar projects. This could boost the person’s overall airline and boost the number of passengers at the participating airport.

by Thegrudgeisreal

This game is really a fantastic game. I like all the routes you can get; in every country. I especially like how research aspect is to it. I also like the loans give you money back, and the new fast mode is awesome to this game, this game is great; just one thing wrong with the game.

I’ve been playing this game for a few days, and while I was playing, I noticed that some of the planes I put on the routes gone missing and not giving me money for the routes. But the weird thing is that, nothing was wrong with the aircraft’s, and the planes didn’t crash either. I’m not sure if you know about this problem or not, but it’s been driving me crazy how I have to sell, buy the route again, and waste time doing the schedule, plane buying, and wasting my time.

But other than that, this game is really good and fantastic managing an airline, you guys made a really great game, as good as roller coaster tycoon.

by Evano Posumah

Love This game, really enjoyed playing it. But probably need changes to certain cities because they’re incorrect (at least from what I saw in Indonesian cities). To start with, Medan had been using the new “Kualanamu int’l Airport” since 2013 with bigger terminal and longer rwy than MES. Yogyakarta is currently operating the new “Yogyakarta Int’l Airport” also with longer rwy. Although currently only receiving domestic, but all flights will move there shortly and be able to receive wide bodies at least B777. Jayapura should be at least cat 6 due to the fact they’ve lengthen the rwy and sometimes being visited by a330. Banda Aceh and Padang should be at least cat 8 in the game because their airports are often being visited by 747-4 or 777W (not just for hajj). Also little suggestions: More Russian airplanes such as il-96, il-114, and presumably mc-21 in the future; lower the price on creating new route, and more airports would be welcome. And please fix the “connection lost” bug, I have a reliable network and this is annoying. Thank you.

by Imadeupanickname

I like this game because I find the financial management aspect interesting. It really makes you think about how to maximize the utility of your resources. The first few months of playing are pretty slow while you wait to earn money for new planes/routes and you should use them to learn the ins and outs of scheduling, how to maximize and plane usage. People complaining about going bankrupt are usually impatient, choose the wrong hub/routes, and take out too many loans. Once you get a good revenue base going and unlock the services the challenge becomes finding efficient routes for all the planes you can buy. I started in November and am up to 4.5 billion in revenue per day and top 2,000 ranking. I usually buy between 10-20 A380’s each real day.

The only annoying part is how long the maintenance game and plane delivery takes but honestly people should have figured out by now how to multitask with these issues. Buy planes in the evening and they are ready when you wake up the next day. Play the maintenance game while you’re watching tv or doing something else so you aren’t stuck watching an hour of ads every day. Hit button, do something else, hit button when the ridiculous ad is over. Repeat.

by Tsp83

This game is really detailed and intricate. You really get a sense of the complexity associated with running an airline. I especially like the way the employee training aspect is implemented. Also the way that loans and general finance is done is really superb.

The one element that makes so sense is the exponential increase in route costs. After about 5 routes, it costs over 50 MILLION dollars to open a new route. After about 8 routes this jumps to between 90 MILLION and 110 MILLION. And that’s for routes to any city, not just major cities. So far it seems like there’s no ceiling on these costs. This is completely unrealistic and really throws off the financial strategy of the game. Think about airlines like Ryanair or JetBlue. They expanded pretty quickly and did not pay 100 million dollars to open each new route. The cost to open a new route should not be the same as or more than the cost of a brand new aircraft. In my opinion this is the worst part of the game and really takes away a lot of enjoyment from what otherwise is an amazing game.

I also noticed the omission of a few major cities for some of the countries. Maybe looking at the top cities by population might help avoid this.

by Jrob Hawk

The exponential growth of route costs is unacceptable. How can buying a route through Hays, KS ever be $70,000,000? It makes getting past a certain part of expansion impossible because they force you to take out loans early and then once you start having to pay off those loans, then you’re being forced to spend $70 million on tiny regional airports and at least $90 million for bigger ones. So then you have to max out your loans just to buy one route, plus a short haul plane, which leasing at this point is about your only option. But then those loans have to start being paid and then you’re lucky to come out even because you can’t afford planes/route that would make enough to cover loan payments. I’ve restarted 4 times, becoming more thrifty each time to start, and I always arrive in the exact same situation because of route costs. Will definitely rate higher if/when this gets fixed because it’s a pretty deep game and could be a lot of fun.

by Maci M.

Please improve these little things: For example, the airport for EL paso TX is slightly in the wrong state when it should be In Texas. Second: The one thing that definitely needs an update is airport category please. For example, the real actual airport KIAH (Houston TX) is actually a category 10 & can service large planes like the A380 or 747 because of larger runways, but in game it is categorized as a 7 or something like that. I do like that planes themselves are categorized correctly. Just this kind of little tweak for multiple airports could make the game far more realistic!! Last thing definitely should be updated: plane speed. Real airliner jets actually now have an average speed of 530knots. Especially the newer generation ones like 747, 777, & A380. Plane finder, Boeing, & Airbus will tell you they can fly much faster. In fact those 3 models can fly a whopping 600 knots. Just thought I should share this cause it needs an update.

by Abdulla Mardini

Good: Realistic, addicting, stable, fun to play, free gifts, mini games, gives you an opportunity to grow if done right.
Bad: SO SLOW! But growing a multi billion dollar airline doesn’t take over night.

I’ve been playing the tycoon (fast) version for about 2 months now and it’s pretty addicting. This game will definitely have a slow start but if you choose your starting routes and hub carefully you can grow real quick. My first hub was JFK and first route was to LAX cause everyone knows NY and LA 😂. I’ve managed to grow to a 6.5 billion $ company in game. The sense of realism is great from managing aircraft, maintenance, staff, and services. Most games in order to grow you would have to make in game purchases but this game is truly free! Yes there are in game purchases but you won’t need them to succeed. The mini games help save you a lot of money like the aircraft maintenance game which helps reduce and breakdowns of aircrafts BOB is the man. Also the slot machine helps give you small bonuses to reduced spending as much as possible. Financials in this game are highly complex from random incident cost to staff salaries. This game will definitely have you scratching your head to maximize profits.

Also the developers of this game are very quick to respond which surprised me a whole a lot. There was an issue about a free gift and I emailed them in the evening and got a response the next morning! Thumbs up for that. Problem was rectified!

by Justin Brainerd

I’ve been playing this game on and off for around 4 years now. I absolutely love this game. But I do have one fix that many other players have mentioned, and I agree would make it much more realistic. The rate at which prices increase for buying new hubs and routes is a little too high. I understand that the feature is there to extend user play time and influence in app purchases, but at the same time the goal is to match the realism of prices for purchasing routes and hubs. I am not saying to completely get rid of the increases, rather decrease the rate at which routes and hub prices increase. This would allow players to build up their airlines stronger without taking a whole week to save up for a 600km route. Looking forward to seeing the idea possibly implemented!

by Louvre2019

I’ve been playing this game for a few months now and I love how detailed and realistic this game is. However, there are some things I feel that are needed to be improved which could help the game out a ton. 1: Create a more realistic world map and more accurate airport locations. I’ve noticed with a few airports that they show up on another countries side even though it’s not part of that country and it can be confusing. For example, you see the Geneva airport in France but not in Switzerland and some of the airports from Mexico are found in the United States. 2: There needs to be more tools to help filter out the routes and airplanes you own. Once you start getting more routes, hubs, and airplanes it becomes extremely difficult to navigate around everything.

by BennyChua669

I am a month in professional mode knowing that this game would be running slow due to realism mode. However, creating an airline in a real time setting rather than tycoon speed is more intriguing. An airline doesn't reach 5 stars in a month, it takes lots of time, perhaps years. Just like any rpg/building game, it starts slow, as you progress, things get better such as more planes, more routes, research services. The challenge within the game is, as you buy more routes, it gets more expensive. And that's where the waiting and saving money comes to play. In real life situations, we don't see major airlines buying aircraft everyday or announcing new routes every week. Which gives us a real life feel of managing our own airline.

We have a choice if you want to play the tycoon version or professional. I choose professional for the endless and real life experience. It's slow but I'm sure the journey to becoming a 5 star airline will be worthwhile.

by Donnydadude

This is an amazing game. I love how realistic and customizable it is. Amazing. I love all the plane options and how you can change everything from the livery to the ticket prices. However, the constant change and increase of the route prices is absurd! I don’t care about your lame excuse of wanting to make the game more realistic. You make us pay more for a route so that we will eventually HAVE to spend actual money on buying more coins to actually be able to expand. Let’s face it, 90,000,000 to buy a route from SFO-LGA is ridiculous! You have to pay these insane prices for regional airports as well, and it is ridiculous. Please, I don’t care that you want to make it as realistic as possible. The route prices don’t increase at that rate in reality, managing a large airline becomes more difficult because of your fleet size, and maintenance needs and meeting growing/changing passenger demands. Please just keep the prices at a consistent, reasonable and affordable price to allow us to keep playing this amazing game. I love this game, but really, 100,000,000 for a regional airport with a category 4 runway? That’s just not at all right. No airline can consistently expand and maintain a price like that and you know it

by Alex_07.__

The game is amazing there is so much stuff to do. I’ve been playing for almost a year now and it’s been amazing, the graphics are really good and it’s very realistic. After one year of playing on easy I decided to start a professional account on my computer and I really like it.

Things to fix

I wish when you did the research point and set it to the max I wish it could alert you if you were going about what you made in a day so you wouldn’t go into debt. It’s happened to me multiple times and I was in debt so much that I had to restart multiple times.

Complaints / requests

I would really like it if you could have the alliance on AirlinesManager it would make it better to interact with the alliance. I also was wondering why you can’t have an alliance on easy mode, and if we could have an alliance on easy mode we could have alliance options with easy and professional players. The alliance system for airlines manager for is great, I think you guys could implement some of the features onto this game. It would also be nice on professional mode if we could buy stocks in other companies and have other be able to invest in us. It would be nice if you added a feature that there could be more demand for travel demands during the summer and winter.

by Danny3795

I love how realistic this game is! I played this game everyday for about 8 months and really expanded all over the world. But I felt that the more I grew the more I had to maintain my aircraft to the point where I would waste so much time playing the maintenance wear game. Only 50 planes at a time? Why not all? I feel like you’re kinda forced to buy the monthly subscription so you don’t have to maintain your aircraft the “free” way by playing the maintenance game and watching endless ads. That’s why I decided to stop playing because I wasted so much time everyday and 6$ is not worth it for me just so I don’t have to maintain my aircraft. When I got the free month on Gold I felt like I had so much relieved off my shoulders because of the maintenance. I really loved this game and had great plans ahead. I would definitely start playing again if this issue for me was fixed or tweaked.

by Pervious

Most importantly doesn’t shove ads down your throat! I play the Tycoon mode just because I mean if I had thought about I probably should of went with realism but either way still enjoy it. Only issue is cost of routes are crazy high after about 5-10 routes but once you get your second hub things really speed along. I am up to 4 hubs I wish there was an easier way to see demand before you buy a route instead of spending extra to see. I love planes, I wish there were more challenges along the way. After you reach a certain point there are no more specific challenges only a bar to complete number of planes/stars/money etc. Love the game and plan on playing it for a long time. To the guy that lost a lot of money to his planes having incidents, you have to fix your planes, I do this everyday with BOB.