Your first route: the first ten game days

Published

2026-09-13

Updated

2026-09-13

Reviewed by an editor

2026-09-13

Founding an airline here takes a minute: a name, a two-letter code, a base. Then the game starts. Spend your first ten game days on a single route: open it, wait for the first closed day, work out why it looks the way it does, and make one change. The second route can wait.

You pick a world once, and it does not wait

The lobby shows every world as a card: game year, region, pace. A standard game day takes 20 real minutes; a blitz day takes 5. Ten game days are therefore about 200 real minutes in a standard world and 50 in blitz. The pace is set when the world is created and never changes, and there is no pause: while you are away, aircraft fly, rivals open routes and your cash moves.

Pick a pace you can follow and an era you want to fly. You can start as a guest and link progress to an email later; the airline and the world stay yours.

Founding: five fields and two leased aircraft

Founding is one screen, not a seven-step wizard. A name of 3 to 24 characters. A two-letter code, with taken codes flagged as you type. A colour on the map. A company project: regional, long haul, low cost or premium. And a home base: the largest bases open in that year are one tap away, the rest are found by city or code.

Press Found and the starting capital lands: 25 million in 2024 prices, restated into the game year (about 2.13 million nominal in 1955). Two aircraft wait at the base, not bought but leased for 36 months, the first three free. The server picks the model from what pays best out of your base that year.

The server has already priced three pairs

Founding leads straight into Suggested first routes: three pairs costed for your base and fleet. Each card carries distance, seats, passengers a day, load factor, profit a day and a line about rivals, including the share left for you. One button, Open and assign, puts the route on the map with the aircraft on it.

Your first route waits for no permission and flies the same day; later ones do, and the card names the days and the fee.

The geography is real: runways, coordinates, codes. OurAirports publishes airport and runway data; Jetopolis runs on its own accepted set. Today's runway record does not prove the same runway existed in 1961, and real passenger totals are not your demand.

Why day one looks thin

Nobody knows a new route. Route awareness starts at 0.6 and reaches 1.0 over 150 game days, so by day ten you are at roughly 0.63. The card says as much and names the date of full awareness: some seats leave empty for reasons that have nothing to do with your fare.

So read the early days by three numbers rather than by cash: load factor, break-even and the daily result. The card prints both in one line: load factor and the points it stands above or below break-even. A red result on day two settles nothing; closing does, because a closed route cannot be reopened, only created again.

Three columns and the daily report

The route card sets its numbers in three columns: Yesterday, Today (forecast) and, once you touch the fare or frequency, At 1.05 (forecast). The first is fact, the second the server's run for today, the third the price of a change you have not saved. "Where the money went" splits costs into fuel, crew, landing, navigation, passenger handling, security and maintenance. The server does the arithmetic; the browser only shows it.

When a game day closes, the report arrives: revenue, passengers, result, a comparison against forecast and yesterday, and two or three buttons with what to do next.

One calculation you can repeat

The controlled scenario: London Heathrow to Paris Charles de Gaulle, 29 June 2019, one three-year-old A320neo, two round trips a day, fare index 1.00, rating 50, awareness 1.00, seed 12345. On aircraft 1.0.0, airports 2.0.0 and series 1.0.0 the server returns 92% load, $17,525.74 revenue, $16,186.72 flight costs and a route result of $1,339.02 for that game day. An automated test runs the same simulation the server uses, so this number cannot drift from the game.

Look at the scale: a nearly full A320 on one of the densest pairs in Europe leaves a little over a thousand dollars a day. IATA's June 2025 outlook put the industry's expected net margin at 3.7%. That forecast is not a target inside the game, but it explains why a full aircraft and a good profit differ. And awareness in the example is 1.00; your ten-day route is still climbing.

Days 5 to 7: one change you can explain

The fare runs from 70% to 140% in steps of 5%. Move the slider and the price of the decision appears beside it: "1.00 to 1.05", and what it does to the daily result. That is a forecast. Apply it, then read the next closed day.

Change one thing at a time. Raise frequency, fare and fleet at once and tomorrow's difference explains nothing.

Publishing a fare is a separate switch, not a price change. While it is on, other players see your fare and every change you make, and your offer strength rises by 3%. Alliance partners see the fare either way. A rival's unpublished fare is labelled Not published; do not read it as zero.

Days 8 to 10: three refusals and a second route

A refusal always names its cause. Short on range: take a nearer pair, since your fleet is still the two you were given. Runway too short: another airport. Frequency above what the aircraft can turn in a day: the server says how many aircraft that needs and how many are assigned. A fare change cures none of the three.

You open a second route for a connection, not for the count on the map: a passenger from a third city boards at your base and pays for both legs. IATA defines minimum connection time as the time needed to move passengers and baggage between flights; in Jetopolis the window at your base runs from 40 to 90 minutes by airport size. The hub screen shows who you are missing today and why: no window, no seats, or a hub off the way.

By day ten the goal is simple, to explain one route's result in words. Then read what your route and hub really earn, browse the guides or go straight back to the sky.

This text was generated by AI and reviewed by a Jetopolis editor. The person or team responsible for publication is named in the byline. Sources and the review date are provided in the article. Game parameters are distinguished from historical facts.