PlaneSim is an airline management simulation. You do not fly the aircraft: you decide which routes are worth opening, find aircraft to fly them, build a schedule that physically holds together, price four cabins against rivals who are pricing against you, and answer for the result in a ledger.
This page is the map. Each step links to the article that explains it properly.
The shape of the game#
Your airline exists in a world: a shared, persistent simulation with a posted end date, running around the clock whether or not you are signed in. Other airlines in it are human players and AI carriers, and they are all competing for the same passengers you are.
Nothing about the world pauses for you. That is the central fact to plan around. A schedule you leave broken stays broken; a route you leave underpriced keeps selling cheap seats until you change it.
First hour#
- Found the airline. Pick a home base and register. Your base decides what markets are within reach, and it is expensive to change your mind later. See Founding an airline.
- Learn the rules that bind everyone. Short, worth reading before you spend anything. See The rules.
- Open one route and fly it. One aircraft, one round trip, scheduled properly. Do this before building a network, because the constraints only become real when a flight refuses to schedule. See Your first route.
- Read the dashboard. Learn which numbers mean the airline is working and which mean it is dying. See Reading the dashboard.
First week#
Get the right metal. Aircraft come from lessors, the used market, the factory, or the estate of an airline that failed. Every one is an individual airframe with a history you can read before you sign. See Leasing, buying & ordering and Choosing an aircraft.
Make the schedule hold. This is the part that separates this genre from tycoon games. Aircraft must be where their next flight departs from, turnarounds take time, slots are finite and night curfews are real. See Scheduling gates and Slots & curfews.
Price for who is actually buying. Several customer types weigh fare against time, transfers, timing, comfort and your reputation, separately per cabin. A full aircraft at the wrong fare is a loss. See Pricing & fares and How booking works.
Watch the loads honestly. Load factor alone will mislead you. See Inventory & load monitoring.
First month#
Build a hub, or do not. Connections multiply the markets one station can serve, but only if arrivals and departures are arranged into banks and the connecting times work. See Hubs, banks & connecting time.
Understand your money before you borrow any. Debt is survivable; debt taken against a route that has not filled its booking curve yet is how airlines here die. See Ledger & income statement and Loans & leverage.
Keep the fleet airworthy. Condition decays, heavy checks ground aircraft for real time, and a tail in poor condition starts cancelling flights on you. See Maintenance & heavy checks and Reserves & substitution.
What the game will not tell you#
Demand is fogged. You can see what you have earned the right to see, and market analysis has to be worked for rather than read off a screen. Aircraft records are the deliberate exception: those are never hidden from anyone. See Market analysis under fog.
What is never hidden is the ruleset. World → Configuration prints your world's actual live settings, and when this wiki cites a default that your world disagrees with, your world is right. See World config basics.
If you get stuck#
The most common early mistakes, in order: opening too many routes before any of them fills, buying an aircraft whose heavy check falls due next month, building a schedule that cannot physically close, and borrowing against revenue that has not arrived yet. Each of those has an article above.
The glossary defines every term the game uses, and every industry term behind it.