Airline Founder

Airline management simulation game, now listed on Steam.

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

The Demo Is Coming Soon

I’m excited to share the latest update with everyone.

Today, I submitted the game files for the demo to Steam for review. Once the review is complete and the build is approved, the demo will be released.

The Airline Founder Demo will be the first public version of Airline Founder and will be available for free. As this is the first public release, you may encounter bugs or other issues. Please report them through our official channels on X, Instagram, or by email, and I will address them as quickly as possible.

Before the demo’s release, we have also made several updates to the game.

Core Management Gameplay

• Improved aircraft scheduling and rotations. The same aircraft can now operate multiple routes when sufficient rotation capacity remains, with aircraft costs allocated correctly across those routes.

• Improved hub strategy and connecting-passenger demand calculations.

• Improved AI airline competition, including named competitors, competitor withdrawals and replacements, partnership proposals, and monthly partnership settlements.

• Rebalanced starting funds, debt, reputation, event frequency, competition, and safety risks across Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty levels.

• The game currently includes 8 starting scenarios, 220 random events, and 80 multi-stage event chains.

Settings, Interface, and User Experience

• Added metric and imperial unit options for distance, speed, weight, seat pitch, fuel consumption, and more.

• Added autosave intervals: Off, Every 10 Days, Every 15 Days, Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly.

• Improved interface support for five languages: Simplified Chinese, English, French, Spanish, and Japanese.

• Fixed text overflow and layout issues affecting buttons, the employee screen, the settings screen, and the main menu in different languages.

• Improved aircraft markers on the world map so they remain appropriately sized at different zoom levels.

Save Files and Stability

• Improved old save migration and compatibility between different game versions.

• Fixed settlement and progression issues involving skipped months, lease-expiration notifications, employee status, and aircraft or route status following accidents.

Social Media and Interaction Fixes

• Fixed company replies being processed multiple times, as well as issues with migrating older interaction data.

• Fixed partnership proposal buttons remaining visible after a proposal had been accepted.

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to repeatedly switch employee work modes to gain morale.

Performance Improvements

• In a stress-test save containing 40 routes, the route recommendation screen’s loading time was reduced from 78.40 seconds to 5.47 seconds, an improvement of approximately 14.3×.

• At 1440p on Ultra settings, the tested screens maintained a P95 frame time of no more than 2.703 ms during continuous rendering.

Thank you all for supporting Airline Founder!

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

v0.5.3 Update Notes:

1. Added more starting base options.

2. Updated airline logo customization in Sandbox mode.

3. Added bulk actions for aircraft purchases, cabin reconfiguration, and catering setup.

4. Added sequential fleet numbers and sorting by fleet number or aircraft name.

5. Added departure airport search and filtering to route recommendations.

6. Improved route creation and added aircraft search when changing assigned aircraft.

7. Improved the presentation of selected statistics.

8. Adjusted used aircraft age distribution and the availability of discontinued models. Fixed unexpectedly empty markets with large aircraft catalogues.

9. Adjusted tourism demand in both directions for resort destinations and refined seasonal tourism market settings.

10. Corrected Melbourne Airport (MEL)’s passenger catchment market assignment.

11. Fixed the scope of route recommendations when all airports are unlocked in Sandbox mode.

12. Fixed inconsistencies between fare forecasts and applied fares across cabin classes, and profit figures changing when switching input fields.

13. Corrected aircraft holding cost allocation in fare previews and clarified one-way and round-trip profit figures.

14. Fixed operational previews altering actual flight schedules.

15. Fixed incorrect parsing of fares and aircraft sale prices in some regional number formats.

16. Added affected-route counts and linked return-route information to bulk fare and frequency adjustments.

17. Fixed public service contract eligibility failing to refresh and eligible routes being overlooked when multiple routes serve the same airport pair.

18. Fixed a potential crash when selling aircraft while time is advancing.

19. Fixed deleted saves imported from the Demo reappearing.

20. Improved save loading preparation, aircraft selection in large fleets, long-list scrolling, and bulk catering performance.

21. Fixed incomplete large route networks in “Always Show All” mode, missing segments across the International Date Line, and interrupted route lines on the globe.

22. Added search within aircraft selection dropdowns for aircraft images and liveries in the Mod Creator.

23. Added more Chinese translations for city and map labels and fixed mixed Chinese–English place names.

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

Over the past few days, I’ve continued to receive feedback from players about the game. Based on some of the issues reported, I’ve released the v0.5.2 update.

New Content

1.Added 6 real-world aircraft models: the passenger variant of the Cessna 408 SkyCourier, L 410 NG, Tu-214, Tu-154M, NAMC YS-11, and Fokker F27-500 Friendship. (Some of these aircraft have been out of production for many years, so I recommend trying them in Sandbox Mode. They were added in preparation for the upcoming historical mode.)

2.Added "Historical airport simulation"

Gameplay Adjustments

1.Rebalanced aircraft utilization and on-time performance.

2.Corrected passenger allocation between airports in the same city and route competition assessments.

3.Rebalanced subsidiary synergies and ownership returns.

4.Fixed missing cargo offers for newly opened routes and improved contract replacement warnings.

Performance and Stability

1.Further optimized route recommendations for large fleets.

2.Fixed date advancement repeatedly restarting route recommendation searches.

3.Fixed settings changes delaying autosaves.
Interface and Bug Fixes

4.Fixed aircraft availability by year across purchases, leasing, and the used-aircraft market.

5.Improved route-opening error messages.

6.Fixed invalid used-aircraft offers.

7.Improved map view retention and airport labels.
Fixed disappearing recommendation cards and interface text display issues.

8.Improved button and dropdown visibility.

9.Fixed catering list scroll jumps and delayed image resizing.

10.Fixed an issue where AI Route Suggestions did not work in Sandbox Mode.

11.Fixed transaction and reward notifications blocking buttons.

12.Fixed department staffing recommendations exceeding hiring limits.

13.Corrected interface, airport name, Wiki, and news translations.

Steam Workshop

1.Added support for adding Workshop content to existing saves.

2.Improved mod compatibility and save protection.

3.Fixed unintended mod list changes in sandbox saves.

4.Updated the modding documentation.

Also fixed several other issues that may not have been mentioned above.

Thank you to all players for your support.
Tomorrow, I’ll share more about the future plans for the game in the Roadmap & Community Announcement, along with information on how to join the online player community.

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

Thank you for your patience! Airline Founder is now available in Early Access on Steam. Continue building your airline with sandbox mode, Steam multiplayer, Workshop support, and more ways to grow your business over the long term.

Thank you to everyone who played the Demo, shared their experiences, and offered suggestions.

The Early Access version removes the Demo’s limits on operating time, fleet size, routes, and departure airports. Keep adding aircraft, expanding your hubs, and connecting regional routes into a global network.

As your company grows, explore stock investments, IPO financing, subsidiaries, and corporate groups to shape your airline’s future.

Play your way in Early Access:

Sandbox & Custom Scenarios: Set your own rules.

Steam Multiplayer: Create or join a room and invite friends to play.

Workshop & Mods: Subscribe to or create aircraft liveries, aircraft models, staff portraits, rival airlines, and more.

You can continue playing your existing Demo saves in Early Access.

To switch between the real and fictional aircraft catalogs, select your preferred catalog when starting a new game.

About Early Access

Throughout Early Access, we’ll use player feedback to refine gameplay balance, usability, and performance. We’ll share news about future updates through Steam announcements.

Let us know in the community what you’d most like to see improved.

Thank you for your support.

Nerowan

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

@Tazilon124 I see it’s been resolved, which is great. But I’d still like to know whether windowed mode was causing the issue for you. If so, I’ll make some fixes so other people don’t run into the same problem.

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

Hi! I’m very sorry... The Early Access release is still pending Steam’s approval. If you add the game to your wishlist, you will receive an email notification when the game is released. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

In the meantime, I’m continuing to work on the demo update.

I submitted the store build two weeks ago. Steam asked me to make a few changes this Monday, and it is still under review now.

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

Build your airline from the ground up in Airline Founder, an airline management simulation game.

Choose your home base, purchase and manage aircraft, open new routes, plan operations, manage staff and finances, and grow your airline into a global network.

The Airline Founder demo is available now on Steam.

Play the demo and wishlist the game:
https://t.co/MJu53BmahD

This trailer features gameplay from the current demo version.
#AirlineFounder #simulationgames #managementgame #indiegame #steamdemo

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

Update Notes:

1.Updated the map system with a new 2D satellite map, standard 3D globe, and 3D satellite globe.

2.Added German, Arabic, and Italian language support.

3.Improved the UI for the Staff and Routes systems.

4.Added a Frequent Flyer Program system.

5.Improved business and economic logic, fixing economic balance issues with custom routes and short-haul routes.

6.Added Public Service Obligation (PSO) contracts.

7.Fixed an issue where bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, were displayed incorrectly.

8.Fixed an issue where starting debt could not be repaid.

9.Fixed an issue where expansion costs were not displayed when there was insufficient cash.

10.Fixed various other known bugs.

Thank you all for your continued support of Airline Founder!

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

The demo has now been available for three days. Thank you all for your support!

During this time, I’ve received a lot of feedback from players. This update addresses some of the issues and suggestions you’ve shared, while others will be worked on in future updates.

Update Notes
Language & Tutorial

On first launch, the game will now prioritize the game language selected in Steam. If the Steam language cannot be detected, the game will use your system language instead, with English as the default fallback.

Expanded the tutorial and onboarding system to make the game easier to learn and understand for new players.

Route & Fleet Management

Aircraft assigned to existing routes can now be changed directly, without having to close and recreate the route.

Changing aircraft will preserve the route’s existing operational history and data.

Leased aircraft can now be returned before the end of their lease.

Flight Frequency & Aircraft Capacity

Flight frequency information now displays both flights/month and the corresponding flights/week.

Added aircraft rotation information to the route creation and editing screens.

Route Fares & Fuel Costs

Routes now support entering an exact one-way base fare while keeping the existing quick-pricing options. Before adjusting fares, you can now view the market reference fare, recommended price range, estimated load factor, and projected profit.

Route details now display the fuel price index, current monthly fuel costs, and fuel costs as a percentage of total operating costs.

Added fuel sensitivity analysis, showing the estimated impact on profit if fuel prices increase by 10%.

Expanded Catering System

Catering can now be configured separately for Economy Class, Business Class, and First Class.

Each cabin class can offer meals for free, sell them on board, or provide no meal service.

Up to three menu options can be configured for each cabin class.

Long-haul routes now support two meal services per flight.

Catering choices now directly affect catering costs, onboard sales revenue, demand attractiveness, service ratings, pricing potential, and on-time performance risk.

Route Interface Improvements

The existing route overview now displays additional key metrics, including profit, profit margin, revenue, load factor, effective demand, fare, aircraft, flight frequency, on-time performance, and competitive pressure.

Capacity, fuel, pricing, scheduling, service, cargo, and aircraft-change controls have been moved to more accessible positions within the route details screen.

Added a fixed shortcut bar for quick access to pricing, scheduling, service, cargo, and aircraft settings.

Increased scrollbar width and contrast to make navigation and feature discovery easier on longer pages.

Improved text sizing, panel spacing, and top navigation readability at lower resolutions and in smaller windows.

Added help buttons for recommended routes, aircraft availability, and employee role effects. Clicking them now provides explanations of the corresponding game mechanics.

Map & Airport Data

Added actual effect description of "Airport Marker Density".

Adjusted automatic route recommendation filters. Some airports that are not suitable as regular commercial passenger destinations will no longer appear in automatic recommendations.

Corrected airport data issues reported by players.

Airport names and locations can now be displayed in the appropriate localized language on the map, airport details pages, and search results.

Conducted another review of airport data worldwide and updated the database accordingly.

Thank you again for all your support.

If you encounter any issues or have suggestions, feedback is always welcome.

I’ve also heard from some players who are interested in having a community space for the game. I’m currently working on plans for that.

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

Today, I am very happy to announce that the demo of Airline Founder has officially been released. You can now download and play it. The demo is a pre-release version of the game intended primarily to gather your thoughts, feedback, and suggestions before the full release.

The demo allows you to play for up to 18 in-game months, operate up to eight active routes and ten aircraft, and use up to two origin airports. The IPO feature and Steam achievements are not available, but Steam Cloud saves are supported. The full version will remove these gameplay limitations and add the features unavailable in the demo, including IPOs and Steam achievements.

The demo is free, and I plan to keep it available and continue updating it over time.

If you would like to share your feedback, there is a pinned thread in the Steam Discussions forum for feedback, suggestions, and bug reports.

I hope you enjoy the demo.

A Few Words from the Developer

Hello, everyone. I’m Nerowan, the independent developer of Airline Founder.

First, let me tell you a little about myself. I am a seventeen-year-old high school student from Beijing, China.

I have been interested in games from a very young age. However, rather than simply playing them, I have always seemed to enjoy something else even more, creating the kinds of games that interest me.

When I was twelve, I formed a team to develop a China map mod for Euro Truck Simulator 2. Over the following years, we created a mod that reached more than 20,000 players and built a community of over 3,000 members.

I have also been fascinated by the sky and aviation since childhood. I am currently a student pilot working toward my Private Pilot Licence. At the same time, I have chosen business and economics as my academic direction in high school. Eventually, my interest in aviation, my interest in business, and my experience in game development came together. That was how the idea for Airline Founder was born.

Recently, I happened to come across a discussion in the community of a similar game. Its developer had made many promises, but some time after the game was released, the developer disappeared and abandoned the project, leaving players feeling deceived. Some people have wondered whether the same thing might happen to Airline Founder.

I understand why players may have this concern. I hope to earn trust over time through the game, its updates, and my communication with the community.

I am fortunate to be at a stage in life where I do not depend on this game for my livelihood. This gives me the freedom to focus on creating something that I genuinely care about, rather than having to make every decision around short-term revenue.

For that reason, I intend to continue updating the game, listening to your feedback, and improving it over time. My current plan is to price the full version at no more than US$10. I strongly encourage everyone to try the demo first. Whether you decide to purchase the full game is entirely up to you.

I do not want players to feel that they had to purchase the game without knowing what they were getting. That is also one of the purposes of the demo. I also try to remain easy to reach through the game’s community and my public social accounts. I use the same name on Instagram, X, and LinkedIn.

I welcome all discussion about the game, including criticism, questions, doubts, and different opinions.

Finally, I would like to say something to everyone who has shown an interest in Airline Founder.

I developed this game with passion. If you have found your way here, I believe there must be something here that you are passionate about as well. So take that passion with you as you play, explore, and discover.

Nerowan
Developer of Airline Founder

Originally written in Chinese and polished with AI assistance.

[Nerowan @Neowan]

@AirlineFounder Dev Log 2:

This week, I continued optimizing the game as I move toward the release of the first demo.

First, I further improved the way national borders are displayed on the map. For special or disputed borders, the map now uses dashed lines to avoid creating political ambiguity. I also optimized the logic for map vertices to ensure that the map can be zoomed smoothly and stably even on lower-end computers.

Second, I created Spanish, French, and Japanese versions of the game, which are now supported languages. I hope players from around the world can experience this work without being limited by language barriers. In the future, I will continue adding support for more languages. Thanks to the high accuracy of AI translation today, the overall language quality of the game is quite solid.

Next, I optimized the information area for opening new routes in the game. I also redesigned the editing panel with a simpler and more direct interaction method, making operations and feedback clearer. In the settings section, I added a new option to disable background music during gameplay.

Thank you all for supporting Airline Founder.
Nerowan

[Nerowan @Neowan]

Dev Log 1:

It has been over a month since development began on Airline Founder, and we are getting closer and closer to the Demo version. If everything goes smoothly, I hope to release the first Demo by the end of June.

During the past week, I updated and optimized the visual display of city and route data. Previously, the relevant data was shown purely as text. After this update, players can now clearly see where a city stands in relation to the overall picture, making its data much easier to understand. I also improved and built out the Cabin retrofit system, making it clearer and more flexible. Cabin modifications are now more intuitive, and the player’s changes are visualized in a 2D layout.

I also updated the map system. When zooming in on the map, country names can now be displayed, and airport names will appear appropriately based on the size and importance of their city as the map zoom level changes. These are all optional settings.

Thank you for supporting Airline Founder,
Nerowan

[Airline Founder @AirlineFounder]

Airline Founder is now on Steam!