Airline Legend vs AirlineSim
AirlineSim is the deepest airline simulation there is, and it costs money after a two-week trial. Airline Legend is free, simpler, and has a solo mode.
Both put you in charge of an airline against competition, with real aircraft and real airports. AirlineSim is built for players who want to run an airline the way an airline's planning department does — flight numbers, departure times, cabins, crews and maintenance windows — and it is very good at that. Airline Legend keeps the decisions that make an airline win or lose and leaves out the paperwork, so you can start in minutes, play on a phone, and never pay to keep playing.
At a glance
| Airline Legend | AirlineSim | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free to play for as long as you like; optional Jet Coins only save time | 60 free credits (about two weeks), then paid: 4 credits a day for each world you play in, packs from €2.49 |
| Solo play | Yes: your own world against AI airlines, and it can be paused | No: multiplayer only, with no AI airlines |
| Multiplayer | Yes, in the same game with the same account | Yes: persistent worlds with other players |
| What you decide | Route, aircraft, fare and weekly frequency | Flight numbers, departure times, cabin layouts, service profiles, staff, crews, maintenance gaps, transfer times, fares |
| Before your first flight | Pick an era and a hub, buy an aircraft, open a route | Ten tutorial chapters: company, fleet, routes, staff, service, cabins, crew, maintenance, then the schedule |
| Learning curve | Gentle: the first round shows you what worked | Steep: built, in its own words, for pros |
| Pace | One week of airline time every 10 minutes; Jet Coins fast-forward; solo can be paused | Real time, 1:1 with the clock |
| The interface | Modern web app built for phones as well as desktops | A legacy look the developers call partly intentional, partly age-related |
| World events | Oil shocks, recessions, deregulation, hijackings, typhoons, volcanic ash | A detailed present-day market |
| Aircraft and map | 180+ types, 500+ airports, 17 historical eras, 1970–2030 | 440+ aircraft types, 4,500+ destinations |
| Languages | Eight: English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese | English, German, Japanese, simplified Chinese, Hungarian |
AirlineSim: the simulation for pros
AirlineSim, from simulogics in Germany, is the most serious airline game you can play, and it means it. Behind it is a real reservation and inventory system: passengers book seats on your flights days and weeks ahead, compare your timetable, price, service and aircraft with everyone else's, and connect at your hub if your waves line up. It has more than 440 aircraft types and over 4,500 destinations, alliances, interlining, holdings and subsidiaries, and stock market listings. Everyone pays the same price, so no one can buy an advantage. If you want the closest thing to a real network planning job, it is the best there is.
It also asks a great deal of you before anything happens. The beginner's guide runs through setting up the company, building a fleet, creating routes, hiring staff, writing service profiles, configuring the cabins, assigning cabin and crew, and arranging maintenance — and only then scheduling flights. Every flight gets its own flight number and a departure time you choose; leave less than two hours on the ground and the maintenance can't be done, overlap two flights and the schedule turns red, and nothing can be booked until you activate it. That is micromanagement by design. For a newcomer it can feel like being handed an airline's operations manual and told to get on with it — much like Tailwinds, the other game in the genre that leans toward business software.
There is no solo mode: AirlineSim is multiplayer only, with no AI airlines, so the competition is whoever else is in your world. The interface is old, and the developers say so themselves, describing its look as "partly intentional, partly age-related"; better tutorials are planned for the end of its Early Access on Steam, where it has been since June 2024.
And it is not free. New accounts get 60 credits, which last about two weeks. After that, every world you play in costs four credits a day for a regular account. Packs start at €2.49 for 50 credits — about twelve days — and the developers put the cost at as little as €4 a month if you buy bigger packs. There is no subscription, but there is no free way to keep playing either: when the credits run out, so does your airline's time.
Airline Legend: an airline game you can just play
It's free, for good. Every era, aircraft and airport is open to every player, with no trial and no clock running on your wallet. Jet Coins are optional and only save time; they cannot buy aircraft, cash, slots or a result. You can leave a world for a month and come back to the airline you left.
Play alone if you want. A solo world is yours, against as many AI airlines as you choose. They open routes, undercut your fares, take the slots at crowded airports and follow you into your best markets — but the world moves at your pace, and you can pause it to think. When you want people instead, multiplayer worlds use the same game and the same account.
The decisions, not the paperwork. You decide where to fly, with what, how often and for how much. There are no flight numbers to create, no departure times to juggle and no maintenance windows to leave; an aircraft flies its rotation of connected routes up to its weekly hours, and the schedule runs itself. The first round tells you what worked, and you can be running an airline within minutes of signing up.
Easy on the eyes, and on a phone. Airline Legend is a modern web app, built for a phone screen as much as a desktop. The screen updates in place; nothing reloads. Your airline lives on the server, so it is the same at home and on the bus.
History, and a world that pushes back. Each world is set in a real era between 1970 and 2030, with the aircraft that were in production that year. The oil shocks, recessions and deregulation of each era move demand under you, and the unexpected happens: a flight is hijacked, a typhoon closes airports across a region, volcanic ash shuts the sky.
Simpler controls do not make it easy to win. Fares against rivals, slots at full airports, debt and the right aircraft for each era still decide who is standing at the end of a world.
Which should you play
- You don't want to pay to keep playing — Airline Legend.
- You want to play alone, against AI, at your own pace — Airline Legend.
- You are new to airline games and want to start without a manual — Airline Legend.
- You play on a phone, or between a desktop and a phone — Airline Legend.
- You want to build timetables flight by flight, down to the minute, and will pay for the deepest simulation there is — AirlineSim.
Airline Legend is free, and AirlineSim has a two-week trial, so you can try both. Play Airline Legend · How to play · More airline management games
FAQ
Is AirlineSim free? For about two weeks. New accounts get 60 free credits; after that you buy credit packs, and each world you play in uses four credits a day for a regular account.
Does AirlineSim have AI competitors or a solo mode? No. It is multiplayer only; every other airline in your world belongs to a player.
Do I have to write a timetable in Airline Legend? No. You set how many times a week a route is flown and assign aircraft; every flight after that is automatic.
Is Airline Legend too simple if I come from AirlineSim? It is simpler to operate, by design. What it keeps is the competition — fares, slots, fleet and timing against rivals — plus a historical world that changes under you.
Disclosure: Airline Legend is our game. Everything said about it here you can check by playing it for free. What is said about AirlineSim comes from its own website, handbook and Steam page, and from its players' reviews; nobody paid for this page.
Last verified: 3 October 2026. Games change — if something here is out of date, tell us.