This is a guide for new players and will help them get set up. You may have noticed things are not in order, and that will be fixed eventually. For now I will get all of the stuff on this page needed for new players, and then will work on getting order established. I also have plans to add pictures to make it easier to understand.
Lesson 1: explaining the basics and who to watch.
If you are new, I highly suggest you click Here and here.
You should watch their airline empire videos, to see how they play. I watched these videos and they helped me tremendously.
Explaining the basics.
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First of all you must sign in, which is obvious and if you don't have an account, I suggest you create one before moving on in this tutorial
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Now this is where you can view your airlines, click on this to see all the airlines you own.
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If this is your first time starting this is all you see, but if you already have a world, you should be redirected to my airlines.
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Now I will create my airline, I personally like the realistic worlds, but if you are brand new I highly suggest you try out sandbox, as they are quick and you can see where you went wrong. Name your airline and click start new airline. I also suggest you start when the world has been refreshed, and is brand new( green bar is not even 1/4 of the way). You can join mid worlds, but don't expect to climb the ranks very quickly or reach top 10 or top 5, unless you are very experienced.
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After you click start new airline, you will be redirected to this page. Now there is where you choose your aircraft, you should go for the one with the longest range, and has more seats, but I will go for the Boeing as it is better when switching in the long term.
Choose your airport location, a good decision would be to choose an airport that has a really low gate cost, and can serve any plane type. You will also see cash, that is how much you will start with. After you have made your decision, the next step is to confirm the starting airport and airplane.
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This is where you are redirected after you click confirm starting airport and airplane. As you can see there is quite a bit of tabs at the bottom so I will try my best to explain them.
1- Game news, this is stuff related to the game and you can check on this to see if any plane will be coming out, and then you can place your order.
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2- Airline news, this is stuff related to you and other airlines. Like any new players who set up an airline, any airline who leased planes etc.
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3- Aircraft production, this is where you can see when planes will be starting deliveries, and when their end of life is coming.
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4- Expiring leases, this is where you can look at any planes you leased and see if they are expiring, you can also go here to renew them in bulk I think. Keep a close eye here, as once a plane goes past the expiry date, it will be gone and your routes will be lost.
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Here in the top left, you can see the date.
2- messages you receive from the lessor because you leased a plane or you bought it.
3- how much cash you have.
4- you can see which position you are in and who is above you and beneath you.
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This might be intimidating if you are brand new, but don't worry I will also explain this.
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So first of all we have the airline details, this is where you can see your airline slogan, description, logo+livery, routes, all aircrafts owned/leased, seating configuration., airports you go to, and recent news.
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Here you can see your reputation, employee morale, financial health, route reputation, your network size, age of your airline, the average age of your fleet.
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Here you can write your two letter code, slogan, description, upload you logo+livery pictures if you have some, and change your name( but this will bring down your reputation for a while, so think about it before doing it).
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This is where you can make your airline even more known, and this will bring in more customers and revenue. I highly suggest you don't do this if you are new and just starting out. If you have enough cash to throw away, by all means go for it.
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This is for setting your employee salary, and all you have to do is change the salary. Adding employees is done by itself, so you don't need to worry about that. Employees are added as soon as you lease/ buy a plane. If you are new I suggest you keep the salary to the lowest( 7 dollars) to save cash, and by all means change this when you make enough.
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This is where you can share you airline with another person, if you need to go somewhere and it's not possible for you to look after it. When sharing use the forum id, and nothing else( like passwords, gmail accounts). But be careful, make sure you trust this player enough, that you are even willing to let them know your biggest secret, as they can declare bankruptcy and that's it.
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Finally we come to the last one in this list, bankruptcy, as the name suggest this is where you shut down your airline because you don't have enough money or are no longer willing to play that airline.
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Now we move on to airline finances, this is where you can see how much cash is coming in and out. Make sure you are spending less than what you earn or there can be problems. Of course it is normal to have a larger spending that an income for the first few months when you first start, but if you play right it should turn around.
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Here you can see the gate leasing payments, and this should increase in number and price once you lease more gates. Since i only started out I only have one gate shown and a price of 250,000 thousand. Also on the 16th a payment is made. so you might not get any cash.
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This shows you how much you owe for leasing an aircraft. When you lease an aircraft, you pay for the first six months, and when the six months are done, you have to pay every month. All aircraft families are shown here.
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This shows you how much maintenance costs every month, and if you have a different family you must also pay the family you started with and the other family you leased. That is why it is ideal, to stick to one family at the start if you are new, and when you have enough cash( 500m) go for more families. If you are used to the game, then you should have no problems leasing more than one family.
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Bonds this is where you can get extra money if you need more planes, but if you see the circle around the credit rating, this bb will go down, and you will only be allowed to lease a few planes. They are not like Loans , so don't expect to pay them back immediately, you will pay them monthly, with interest. As you pay them back, over time you will notice your credit rating go up, which is a good thing.
As we go down, we can see our airline history. Since I don't have any, I will add a pic later in the future. This will come once you start adding routes and play the game.
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The next thing we have is alliance options, and make your own alliance. I suggest you join an alliance as this will allow you to get more passengers and make you more cash. You should also open a hub. more info found here
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The next thing we have is aircraft overview, this lets us see the number of planes we own, how many hours are left( i will explain that later in this tutorial), age, when lease expires, how much profit it makes and you can click on the details button to see more info about the plane.
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Here we can order/ lease new aircrafts, if we want new ones or we can't find any in the used market. If you buy an aircraft, delivery takes time, so buy them in bulk as you never know you might need it. If you don't buy them in bulk, well.... you must wait a bit.
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This is where we can order used aircrafts, there are very little aircrafts in early game, but as soon as the years go on, planes start popping in. I suggest you use this is you join mid world, and the planes do arrive when your order/lease them. Sometimes you can get planes very cheap, so keep an eye out in the used aircraft section.
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Here you can configure the cabin layout, you can add first, business and economy class. If you make a new cabin layout and want to change the planes cabin layout immediately, you can do so by pushing the replace all and choose your aircraft. There is a small fee though.
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Here we can manage our IFS( Food related stuff) and IFE( tv, music newspapers etc). If you are new I suggest just sticking to IFS and running a scam economy, to see what it is like.
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Here you can see if you have any aircraft being delivered to you and when. You can also delay deliveries and cancel them. If you cancel orders, you don't get your money back.
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Here you can see all the planes ordered by different airlines, and where you are and when your plane is coming. It gets very messy later in the game.
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Here you can browse aircrafts, to learn more about them. This area is very useful if you want to know runway length required for the type of plane you want.
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This allows you to see your daily operating profits, your routes, number of destinations, how much each class is making etc.
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This allows you to open routes, to fly to other countries and start expanding your business. When you open a route, it goes to your destination, and flies back to your chosen airport.
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Once you add routes, this map will have orange lines showing where you fly to. Start filling them in, if you want to see them.
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This shows how much gates you own, how much profit you make and how much the monthly gate fee is for each gate. If you lease more than one gate at any airport then the price doubles.
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This lets you browse airports, to help you find routes you can fly to. First of all place a number in the first box like 1 and another number like 200, then write your chosen airport, and a list should appear.
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If you find that you leased an extra gate, or you simply realise you don't use a gate, then you can simply return it by pushing return. However once you return a gate, you don't get your money back, so be careful when leasing gates.
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Here you can open hubs, more info on hubs can be found here
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And finally the last one, this is where you can build terminals. By default Airline Empires lets you lease a certain number of gates at any airport, once you reach that limit you can no longer lease any gates. A solution to that is to build a terminal, but this doubles the cost, so it is best if you go to airports with cheap monthly lease payments. You can also sell terminals if you no longer need it. More info on terminals here
Now we finished the basics, it is time to move onto game play.
to be deleted or changed very soon, have a read if you want
If you are a new player and you notice a deficit/ minus figure in your balance, and are wondering if this is normal? the answer is yes. It is normal to have a deficit for the first few months, and if you played it correctly then it should go away.
If you are brand new to this game, you should get used to trial and error. Once you are used to this you will find a way of playing that suits you. Also watch tutorials to see how other people play.
Another thing is when you first started out which aircraft did you choose, if it was a Boeing 737 and you leased an airbus A319, then you screwed up. A rule of thumb is to lease aircraft from the same aircraft family( Boeing - Boeing/ airbus - airbus. Not Boeing - Airbus/ Airbus - Boeing). if you lease from different aircraft families this will just add to your maintenance costs. To know which family your aircraft belongs to just go to where how much profit each plane is making, and click on the plane for greater detail, it will also include the aircraft family. Also if you own Boeing planes like a 737, just stick to that. Don't lease a 757, 767, 787 or 747 etc.
If you are leasing gates, which airport are you leasing these gates from?. If it's from London Heathrow then the cost will go up, by a lot!. Instead you should look for airports with cheap monthly lease payments and an airport that has a really long runway that can serve any plane type. Another thing would be is to first fly to small airports (as the competition is low), then when you have visited every airport you could think of, start going to international airports. Beware there will be increased number of people there, so make sure to check if your profits have been affected as competitors will do crazy stuff to try and bring you out of business.
If you need money desperately, then my advice would be to run an ifs scam, basically this is where you charge crazy amount of money, for very poor products you offer. Another thing to note is avoid setting up an IFE( in flight entertainment), as this will cost more. Avoid adding first class if you are new, as this is expensive. Stick with just economy and when you have a bit more cash go for business. First class should only happen when you have enough money and you know you won't lose it easily.
I also recommend joining an alliance, as this can help you fill your plane with connecting passengers, if you are struggling to fill it up normally. How to tell if your plane has connecting passengers, the will be a blue bar next to the green bar. more info can be found here
As I mentioned earlier about leasing gates, make sure to set up terminals as this will continue to let you lease more gates. The price will vary and as I stated before go for airports with cheap monthly leasing payments and a runway that is long enough to serve any aircraft type, if you are planning to become an international airline.
Always lease planes in early game rather than buying them straight up. Once you have a stable income start buying them one by one, and make sure to replace them, when they get old. To replace them buy a used or new plane, go to the plane you want to replace, and there should be an option to place a new plane. Then you can either sell the old plane or scrap it, the choice is yours.
You may be wondering what a bond is? if you are a new player this is like a loan, but can't be payed back immediately, and instead you have to pay month by month with interest. Bonds are good in one sense as they let us lease new planes, but they will reduce our credit rating, which means we can't lease more planes. A poor credit rating will slow down your business, so avoid getting lots of bonds.
I probably left out a few more stuff but will update it once I realise what it is.