COMPETITION
Competition & rankings
How airlines compete, the world's airlines, rankings, news and season results.
Any airline style can win
Low-cost, regional, legacy, long-haul and cargo airlines can all succeed. Neither cramming in seats at the lowest fare nor gold-plating every flight is the one way, and growth is limited by economics, not caps. The world → Airlines lists every airline and leasing company with its home, who runs it, alliance, brand, value and share price.
Flooding a market does not buy it
Seats beyond demand fly empty, and demand is counted by day and direction, so extra frequency soon stops finding passengers. Cramming seats lowers comfort, which travellers notice. A lower fare wins only the price-first part of a market, while an incumbent with a good reputation keeps much of its share. The airline flooding the market pays for every empty seat.
Rankings
Rankings measure more than size: market value (the average valuation outside investors put on a company, from its accounts and earnings outlooks), revenue, profit, margin, growth, reputation, punctuality and fleet, for all airlines and by size class, so a smaller, well-run airline can win something, and for leasing companies, alliances and investors. Each category shows your best place. In worlds that never end, standings are live and trophies are awarded at the end of every game year.
News
The world → News records new airlines, routes, orders and deliveries, listings, takeovers and failures, alliances, awards, world events and weather, filtered by kind. Players can post press releases from their airline.
World events are fair
Fuel shocks, crises, groundings of a type and bad weather affect everyone alike. Nothing random targets one airline, and there are no accidents.
Season end and careers
When a season ends, owned aircraft and other assets count toward final value and are not sold off; leased aircraft away from their contracted return airport forfeit their deposits. Every company you run goes into your career record on your profile, with its fleet, routes, market value and peak, revenue, final place and trophies. Worlds that never end have no season end.