Airline Commander Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Become a Top Pilot

Airline Commander, a game that was launched back in 2018, stands among RORTOS’ top mobile games, enjoying well over 10 million downloads as well as largely positive user review ratings across iOS and Android platforms. Airline Commander is a realistic airplane sim game that may not be as attractive for players who crave more action-oriented titles but it is definitely a treat for airplane and simulation enthusiasts alike.

The game immerses players into the role of a commercial flight pilot, primarily commandeering the plane from take-off to landing. Progression is not limited to merely mastering your pilot skills as 25 different airplanes and over 100 different licenses can be acquired to expand opportunities for earnings. Airline Commander is more than just a piloting sim game as you will also eventually manage other pilots to enter into contracts on your behalf for added profits.

To some extent, the whole idea of being an airline commander, especially on a game that centers around realism, can be a bit overwhelming. However, the manner and pace at which you are introduced to new mechanics, especially within the tutorial session, gives you ample time within which to grasp each concept.

Different times of day, weather conditions, and engine failures all contribute to what makes each flight session unique and while it may take some time to fully master everything, a little patience, calmness, and steady hands are all you need to keep getting better.

Airline Commander exhibits very intuitive controls schemes and UI layouts. Motion controls may take some time for some players to get accustomed to and consistency in performance can be a little tricky under different conditions. Overall, however, there are plenty of ways to practice around the basic tasks at no expense.

If you have just started playing the game and in search of fast and efficient ways to progress your airline career, then we have you covered as our Airline Commander beginner’s guide comes with a bunch of tips and strategies you need to become an ace pilot and commander in no time!

1. Calibrate Controls And Practice

The tutorial session in Airline Commander basically ends after you have gone through basic take-off and landing sessions as well as securing both licenses for your first airplane. Once you are free to venture on your own, be sure to check on the settings menu that you can access via the gear icon at the lower left corner of the main screen.

There are numerous in-game settings that you can tinker with, but the most important to consider relate to the controls. For starters, there is a Sensitivity Adjustment Setting that you can freely adjust to find the optimum sensitivity level for you. You can also choose between an Accelerometer or Virtual Joystick for input controls. By default, the medium level of sensitivity and accelerometer works great but it can happen that a different setup will work better for you so be sure to test different configurations out.

Once you have made changes to the control settings, you should consider testing it out. While it is okay to try out the changes you made to the controls in a contract or flight route offer, we recommend taking on practice runs under the license tests you have completed. You can fail as many times as you can in license exams and suffer no real consequence, but once you have accepted an offer and failed to complete the task, it will take some time before new ones become available.

Getting well-acquainted with the control sensitivity scheme as well as the input method of your choice are the most basic necessities to satisfy to ensure a smooth progression rate moving forward. Your succeeding performances in every contract or offers you take, even after all possible mechanics are introduced, will rely greatly on how adept you are when it comes to mastering the basic controls. As such, it is best to secure a firm grasp of it as soon as possible and maintain practice sessions during idle times to sustain your piloting skill levels.

2. Understand The Core Gameplay Mechanics

Understanding the core mechanics of Airline Commander is simple enough but it is best to completely understand all the works to ensure that you are on the right path towards a fast and efficient progression rate in your career. There are 3 types of currencies you will continuously earn in your career and these are money, flight points and AC credits.

The money stands as the most basic currency you need to purchase new airplanes. New airplanes also require you to invest money on licenses needed to operate them and earn contracts. Having a new license will always open up more routes and contracts that you need to activate using flight points. Contracts may involve taking on more than 1 job and you can earn money as well as flight points for completing them.

The AC points serve as the premium currency in the game and will be the most challenging to earn. This currency can be earned from daily missions and achievements and can be spent on a lot of things. You can speed up cool down periods or waiting times for jobs as well as license acquisition periods. As much as it can itch hard to start using it, however, there are free alternatives to cutting down wait times in Airline Commander.

You will basically take on offers from other airlines to perform piloting jobs to and earn enough cash for new airplanes and the necessary licenses to fully utilize them. Each new plane and license you unlock opens up more airports, which literally mean more opportunities to earn. There are contracts you can purchase using the flight rewards you have amassed, and taking on those contracts successfully can yield more flight points that you have invested.

Once you have secured all the necessary licenses for a specific airplane, you can also start assigning pilots to specific tasks. This is an excellent game mechanic that practically lets you earn idle income even when you are away. You can assign another pilot to perform tasks idly once you have completed another set of licenses for your next airplane.

Not that while auto pilots take a lot longer to complete a flight task, they do the job perfectly and will continue to progress on that task even if you are offline and away from the game. Note that once a pilot has completed an activity and you have claimed the payout, you will need to assign them to the same activity or any other again, provided that other options can be performed with the plane they are piloting.

3. Slow And Steady Flights Are Keys To Success

If you are a player who lacks experience in games that revolve around airplanes, or perhaps have played only the more common genres that involve fighter planes and involve a lot of shooting, then one of the things you have to keep in mind are the core gameplay mechanics of Airline Commander. For starters, what you will be typically piloting are passenger planes, so evasive maneuvers or anything close to sudden shifts in movements is neither needed nor helpful to your objective.

The first thing you need to focus on as you prepare to pilot a plane, whether it is for take-off or landing, is to keep it as stable as possible and limit movements to the best of your abilities. This may not have a bigger impact on license tests but are especially crucial in landing planes.

Just as a reminder, the payout shown for jobs you can accept in your career are actually the maximum amount you can obtain, you will receive the full amount if, and only if, you get a perfect rating across the various metrics that gauge your performance. There are more metrics to consider on a landing, making it a little more challenging than take-offs.

Adherence to the flight path, passenger comfort, and quality of landing are just some of the metrics by which your flight performance is graded and it all starts as soon as you begin the mission. Keep in mind as well that while you can always pause the game in case you really need to, choosing the exit will actually fail the activity and you will wind up not earning anything and losing the flight offer as well.

While there are plenty of ways for you to hold your device however it suits your tastes and preferences, we recommend an arm position that is rested, whether on your lap or a table, or whatever makes you comfortable. One basic necessity is to find a position for your arms that ensures no unnecessary movement will be made at the start of the activity.

A wobbly start to your flight can lead to additional deviances from the flight path and as challenging as that can be given the basic conditions, having engine failure occurrences and bad weather can make it even more challenging.

As far as speed is concerned, it is best to stick to the minimum required. Speeding up to get the airplane off the ground is always necessary but in all other aspects of the flight, keeping an eye on both speed and altitude are also important.

One potential chance for making mistakes is when you are off your mark as far as the needed knots or altitude is concerned and when you are not perfectly within the flight path. Always maintain a calm approach towards the desired levels and work slowly towards achieving it instead of rushing into it.

Sudden movements will have a stewardess inform you about caring for passengers in an assisted flight. In the more challenging simulation mode, however, you will be all on your own without any sort of assistance, so be sure to take on those challenges once you have experienced a satisfactory level of consistency across flights you take.

4. More Licenses Mean More Practice

Airline Commander starts you off with the most basic mechanics possible to more easily blend you in with the unique gameplay aspects of the game you will possibly not encounter in any of the games you previously played. The motion tilting controls and a mere accelerometer and lever for landing gears is actually very easy to get used to even for complete beginners and the idea of having stable hands and calmness in controlling the plane’s movements can really go a long way.

Beyond everything we discussed so far, however, Airline Commander tends to introduce new mechanics with almost every license you acquire as added features that contribute to the game’s complexity will be presented with each license test you take. The first tip we actually discussed relates to going for practice runs just to be at ease with the sensitivity level of your device in relation to how it moves the plane as you control it.

As new mechanics and control systems will be introduced with each new license application, simply performing well in your initial practice sessions may not suffice to keep you performing at top shape. As you unlock more and more airplanes and licenses, the number of possible combinations and mixtures of game mechanics for succeeding jobs will also grow more challenging. Given that payouts for contracts that unlock later will be generally bigger, it should go without saying that you should not risk performing poorly on them or failing to finish the activity.

As such, we recommend hitting the license exams regularly and backtracking to ones you might not fully remember at some point. Again, there are no extra costs for taking these exams again and there are neither drawbacks on your subsequent practice runs and you can go over and over as many times as you wish.

If you have a good memory and remember each and every license exam you take, then good for you. Before you take on an important task, however, always make sure that you are familiar with everything you have learned so far and always opt for the assistance or easy mode until you perfect all your runs.

5. Take Advantage Of Ad Boosts

Ads in mobile games, most especially free ones are nothing new and should be an expected part of the usual package. While some mobile games can do away with the inclusion of any sort of ads, games like Airline Commander that do not heavily, or at all, rely on micro transactions to keep the game available and continuously updating for players to enjoy for free, required these ads.

Although it is understandable that some ads may play at some points during gameplay, most of the ads you will see in Airline Commander are actually helpful and can tremendously boost the rate of your progression in the game. There are basically 2 types of ad boosts that you will constantly have an opportunity to take and, most especially on the early part of your career, you should grab as many of them as you can.

Completing a job in Airline Commander will trigger a cool down period for the same job, which usually takes 15 minutes at the shortest. Playing a short video ad, however, can cut down the reset time by 5 minutes so playing 3 ads one after another can almost instantly have you ready to start earning again.

The same applies to applications for licenses. There is a waiting period after you apply for a license and you will also wait for a while before you can take the license exam. Again, watching an ad on the exam window will cut down the waiting time by 5 minutes, so if you are raring to make progress, then you should opt to take advantage of these opportunities.

Another helpful set of ad boosts comes in the form of bonus payouts. After completing a job, the amount of money or flight points you can earn can have a 30% increase if you choose to play a short ad for it. Given that you will hardly run out of needs for both money and flight points, spending 15 to 30 seconds to play a short video ad can be worth it given the percentage of income boost you will receive.

Ad boosts, patronized on the early part of your career in Airline Commander, will ensure a speedy progression considering the rate at which you can earn profits, purchase planes, and acquire license and contracts as an end result. Note that while you will continue to have more sources of income as a result of this, the payouts and waiting times for subsequent activities and license applications also increase.

At some point, you can rely less and less from these ad boost as there will hardly be enough idle time for you to take advantage of them. From mid to end game of your career, however, you can still utilize them for more profits and cut down waiting times if you still have plenty of time available to stay online.

6. Pursue Daily Quests And Achievements

Payouts from the activities you engage in your career in Airline Commander are actually fairly decent and if you choose to play ads during idle times, then you can feel how fast you can make progress and unlock something new every once in a while. While you can actually enjoy Airline Commander without ever spending any of the AC credits you have earned, it is best to grab as many of them as you can to use for emergencies later on.

AC credits cannot be earned from piloting tasks directly, but Airline Commander provides enough means for you to keep racking them up. AC credits can be earned from accomplishing achievement targets as well as participating in daily quests. For the achievement targets, all the objectives directly relate to the usual activities you engage in on a regular basis, which means that you can potentially complete some targets without even knowing what they specifically are.

In addition to being a means towards receiving extra AC credits, you should let the achievements feature serve as your guide towards progression. To check the list of achievement objectives, simply click on the medal icon at the lower left side of your screen. There are plenty of different objectives that are basically accomplishable in tiers, with each new one presenting a bigger challenge but comes with a heftier reward as well. You can check each target to try and look into ones you hardly have progress in as well as ones you are close to completing.

Daily challenges can be different from one day to the next. These challenges typically require great skill and can serve as an excellent training ground for new and experienced players alike. For instance, one of the challenges is to land as close as possible to a specific spot and players compete records against one another to obtain the top rewards. While bigger amounts of AC credits await the best players, mere participation in the daily challenges will also net you rewards.

It will certainly be a long but exciting road to travel as you pursue the rank of airline commander in Airline Commander. For now, this is where we end our Airline Commander beginner’s guide and we hope that our compilation of tips and strategies we shared will suffice to fast forward tour progression rate in your career. We certainly still need to work on perfecting every metric consistently across all flights we engage in and if you have some extra tricks and strategies you want to share with us, we gladly welcome you to do so down in the comments!