Back in the day it was common for planes to be withdrawn from the service for a while, usually shortly after they were introduced or crashed. I think the game needs events like the Comet being grounded after it crashed thrice or the SE.161 being grounded in 1946 till its problems would be fixed. I guess these problems could also appear at random, adding to the immersion.

I haven’t seen this plane in the game. Air France AI should be forced to buy it and Polish LOT also bought them after the war.

Being Polish, I hate to see Polish airines working for the nazis. I think the game needs to be able to put airlines on hiatus when their countries are occupied, or be forced to move to their country’s colonies (I guess France, Belgium or the Netherlands could do that).

I’ve seen a post on Reddit about this game and it seemed a dream come true. Unfortunately, it was not. It may be great, but so far, it’s unplayable.

This engine is great, there are a lot of planes and airports, and I love that you can play in the Golden Age, but the game lacks competition. While the world may be so advanced, the lack of meaningful AI makes it completely unplayable - there is no competition to speak of and there may be 400 companies beside you and you will still not feel like they are there. Please, fix that soon, before that, there’s hardly any gameplay in.

If I start my game in 1930, would new airlines become available over time, as they are created? In 1930 there are just a few of them, it would be a shame if the world remained static.

Is it just me or is the AI rather static? I started a game in 1980 and it seems that airlines spawn without any planes and they only slowly build them, being quite immersion-breaking. They are rather slow at picking slots at airports too, even the most important ones like LA, NY, etc.

Hi! I just discovered this game and I love it. I’m 29, from London, and a big fan of the Fleet Air Arm. That’s about it 

In my game in 1940, I can see a large number of used Commando C-46 Cargo, even though this type was only introduced in 1941, and truly entered service in 1943 IIRC. Overall, though, postwar planes probably shouldn't be available until 1946-7.

I have contemplated creating my own airline game set in the 30s a few years back and did some resource finding, and among the best were Pan American annual statements, aircraft year books and governmental reports. I also had some collections of statistics regarding US aviation in the 1930s, but I've lost them. Overall, PAA statements can provide a valuable insight into numbers - mainly passenger numbers, revenues and costs.

PAA Annual Statements
https://merrick.library.miami.edu/cdm/se...rder/title

1930 Aircraft Year Book
https://www.aia-aerospace.org/wp-content...R-BOOK.pdf

1935 Aircraft Year Book
https://www.aia-aerospace.org/wp-content...R-BOOK.pdf

Report of the British Committee regarding the future of air transport
http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk...CP-327.pdf

I haven’t noticed any values that would tell the player how favourably a plane is seen by the passengers. Some planes had particular image problems, like the Comet, while others were kept by the airlines, even though they were borderline unprofitable, just because they were immensely popular with passengers and seen as a technological wonder of the time (Stratocruiser is probably the best example). This should also penalise airlines in the west for buying Soviet craft, which was popularly seen as unsafe and even obsolete. 

Airlinesim has an interesting system with image and passenger popularity buffs or debuffs, based on the craft you have. It was a huge boost for Pan American and BOAC that they had a Stratocruiser, the largest and most luxurious plane of its era, even though they struggled to keep them profitable. In the modern era this wouldn’t be as spectacular, but planes like the Dreamliner can still be a strong statement regarding the airline’s strength, and similarly, a US airline buying Russian craft would suffer a terrible PR blow.

Also, although it’s a separate suggestion, it would be rather important to place restrictions and preferences on airlines in some countries.

1) Soviet bloc airlines should not be permitted to buy non-Soviet bloc planes.
2) If possible, airlines should seek to buy a plane made in their own country first, at least until the 50s/60s, regarding political preferences. I guess it could be tricky for the AI to decide whether to buy a half-decent local plane or a much better foreign one, but factors such as the design date, speed, capacity and costs should do the convincing bit.
3) West Berlin was historically only serviced by one airline each from the western countries, I wonder if that’s doable, perhaps as a separate license granted at the start to historical airlines and later available to purchase for a very significant price?
4) Some airlines had significant “first dibs” on planes, Boeing 314, Stratocruiser and Boeing 707 are a good example, as Boeing had a long-lasting relationship with Pan Am.