Airline Tycoon

Airline Tycoon is a business simulation game by Thomas Holz and Robert Kleinert, in which the player must successfully manage an airline. The original was developed by Spellbound, and published by Infogrames, however, the succeeding versions were published by a variety of publishers. The original Airline Tycoon was created for Windows, however, the later Deluxe version was also ported to Linux, Mac OS X, MorphOS, ZETA, iOS and Android. In this game, like all Tycoon computer games, the objective is to become a tycoon, and in this case, an “Airline Tycoon.” This is achieved through the balance of income and expenditures.

Gameplay

A simulation computer game where the player acts as manager of an airline, competing against three other tycoons. The names of the four tycoons are: Tina Cortez (Sunshine Airways), Siggi Sorglos (Falcon Lines), Igor Tuppolevsky (Phoenix Travel) and Mario Zucchero (Honey Airlines). The player must keep their aircraft in good shape and equip them at such a level as to keep the customers satisfied, buy new planes (from the expensive Airplane Agency or from Mr Schlauberger at the museum who sells old planes at a much lower cost) and take out bank loans if required. The player must also manage their personnel, plan flights, form relationships with the air hostess, buy fuel, attend meetings in the airport manager's office and, if there is the time, slip into Rick's café for a quick cup of coffee. The player can also perform sabotages on the other players. The graphics are bright and decidedly tongue in cheek: the tycoon Igor Tuppolevsky has a set of Russian dolls on his desk—and an open tin of caviar, while Tina Cortez has a picture of a matador and a bull's head.