It’s been 10 years since that first milestone, and the small idea has grown into a large project, allowing thousands of players to run the airline of their dreams – and around which a lively and active community has formed.

To celebrate, this year we want to put on a really special event. On September 22nd, 2012, we will join former team members – and our fans – in one of the most beautiful regions of Mallorca for a look back at 10 years of AirlineSim!

Join us!

All the information you’ll need to take part in this unique event can be found on this special website:

en.airlinesim.aero/mallorca2012

We are looking forward to meet you on Mallorca!

Another year is coming to an end, and we’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us in 2011. Thanks to all our true fans who – both financially and with their valuable feedback – have enabled us to proceed in our endeavour to make AirlineSim the best airline simulation game on the internet, and who stuck with us even when things didn’t go perfectly. Thanks to all the supporters who helped keep the project operational by taking care of our servers, providing user support, doing data research or just being there to look after things when the situation required it – free of charge! Thanks to the translators, who just recently started to put a lot of voluntary effort into making the game available to more people around the globe, with translations to Dutch, Chinese, Spanish and French finished or in progress.

AirlineSim remains a semi-professional, community-supported project and all of the things we have achieved – and will achieve – in the future wouldn’t have been possible if not for all the people mentioned above – and many more too numerous to name individually!

We will be taking a few days off to spend some time with friends and family, and we hope you are able to do the same! In case you decide to spend a few cosy winter days playing AirlineSim, rest assured that we will be available for urgent support issues and that we will keep an eye on our servers even during the holidays.

Last but not least, our little Christmas present for you: On your next credit purchase, use voucher code CHRISTMAS11 to receive 30 free credits. The code is valid until December 26th.

Happy Holidays!

Development Status
As most active players have doubtlessly notices, we didn’t make as much development progress as we’d like to have made. The prime reason for this is that we need to finish another (non-game) project which is taking far more time than planned. Nonetheless, more of these side projects will be required in the future as we didn’t succeed in shaping AirlineSim into a viable business over the past two years since its internationalization.

Of course, development and operation of AS will continue, even though we will need to make some adjustments to our development process. That said we will move away from the classic patchday model towards a continuous update strategy. Small and medium-sized changes will be deployed as soon they are ready and tested. This allows for a far more flexibility during development and a better utilization of our limited time budget. Larger features – like the new aircraft configurator scheduled for 1.6 – will be broken down in as many sub-features as possible and integrated piece by piece. To some extend this should prevent endless waiting periods in which no new new features are released due to a lack of resources.

We’ve been living this new approach for a few weeks now and you can follow and comment on our progress on the development logbook board.

AirlinSim becoming even more international
For some time now, AirlineSim has been available in Dutch. Although the game has been built with localization in mind from day one, this is the first new translation to be introduced since we launched in English two years ago. But now we got three additional translations in the makings which should be ready for release in a few months time: Chinese, Spanish and French. A big thank goes out to the voluntary supporters who have chosen to tackle this immense amount of work free of charge!

Christmas meet-up in Salzburg
This is a final reminder that this years Christmas meet-up is coming up! The event will take place on December 17th in the beautiful Austrian city of Salzburg. All details can be found non the respective board. The Christmas meet-ups are traditionally geared towards being more family-friendly and less aviation-focused. The two main parts of the program are strolling the traditional Christmas market and enjoying local cuisine in cosy atmosphere. To make long things short: The ideal way of getting to know your fellow alliance member or your biggest opponents!

Events 2012
Important information for anybody who wants to book early or has to make arrangements with his employer: The dates for next year’s community event are out! Since 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of AirlineSim, special emphasis should be put on the special birthday event on Mallorca.

• International Meet-Up, Dublin: June 9th and 10th 2012
• 10th Anniversary Convention, Mallorca: September 22nd and 23rd 2012
• Christmas Meet-Up, Location will be determined in Salzburg, Dezember 15th 2012

Further information and details on the particular events follow. As always, feel free to discuss the new events on our forums!

UPDATE II: All game worlds have been patched. Please note that some have accumulated quite a bit of backlog due to the rather long downtimes.

UPDATE: For technical reasons we were only able to upgrade Idlewild and Croydon. The other game worlds will follow tomorrow. Thank you for your understanding!

Finally, after a regrettably long period of relative silence, we are able to announce a patchday: Today we will upgrade all game worlds to version 1.5.8. This is a maintenance release, primarily, largely consisting of small new features, bugfixes and various performance- and stability-optimizations. As usual, you can find a complete change-log at the end of this post.

A few words about the course of action: We will upgrade Kaitak and Idlewild first. If all goes to plan, the other machines will follow right afterwards. Please be aware that – due to changes to our statistics database – the upgrade process can take several hours during which the game worlds will be inaccesible. Thank you for your patience and your understanding!

And here goes the change-log:

• Defect #1213: Deletion of enterprises with long names may cause blocker
• Defect #1218: No partial leasing rate for cancelled leasing contracts on enterprise liquidation
• Defect #1219: Headline IGM – Lessee ‘{0}’ files for bankruptcy
• Defect #1221: Novation of leasing contract fails when provider is deleted
• Defect #1225: Fix and optimize relation statistics collection
• Defect #1230: Generation of weekly transport stats is skipped under high load
• Defect #1241: Aircraft naming with more than 40 characters
• Defect #1295: Interlining within holding structure
• Feature #1202: Add paging to flight numbers page
• Feature #1240: Delete Accounts on a gameworld on liquidation of last holding
• Feature #1262: Load Monitoring – Additional Filter “Load factor greater than or equal X”
• Feature #1282: Finder for free flight numbers
• Change #1088: Rework company reset/delete page
• Change #1179: English Translation – Signing IPO
• Change #1200: Replace remaining in-game links to 4players pages
• Change #1206: Truncate statistics after about 30 weeks
• Change #1239: New phrase for Office Transfer Statistics widget
• Change #1242: Multiple airline deletions by accident
• Change #1245: HTML-Code in Text
• Change #1321: Change in text small logo upload

• The game world will probably be launched some time around the afternoon, CET (the point in time may shift)
• The name of the game world will be conclusively announced as soon as it has opened
• The game world will run a standard configuration (that is, same configuration as Tempelhof or Fornebu, for example)

Keep an eye on the portal, forums, our Facebook page or Twitter if you want to be among the very first players right after launch!

For our international players this means that – besides the new forums – four new game worlds are now available in both English and German! Two of these (Idlewild and Devau) feature special configuration options, so head over and have a look! All new game worlds are listed on your dashboard in the account management system, including details on the special settings.

Please note that these game worlds were offline for several hours yesterday while they were being moved to new hardware. This means it might take up to a few days before they have picked up all their back-log. Thank you for your patience!

A crucial part of our “community unification effort” are unified forums for all players, no matter what language they speak. Although it will be another week until the transition of our German community into the international one takes place, we have put up our new discussion boards already so you can have a thorough look at them before our current board goes into “read-only mode” some time next week.

If you already possess an account (you definitely will if you are playing AirlineSim right now), just head here and sign-in: community.airlinesim.aero No sign-up required!

We are employing a different software for the new forums and as such, both you and us will probably need some adjustment time to get used to all the new or different features. Especially the fact that these boards will be multi-lingual means that we will require a few weeks to streamline our processes of posting announcements, dealing with UAB proceeding, organizing events and similar things that are relevant to all players independent of language. Please stick with us!

PS: We recommend to start new discussions on the new forums from now on!

Finally, the new version 1.5.7 is ready for launch. It has been tested on Stapleton and we think it is ready for release. Since a test with real-live data and an actual deployment still isn’t the same thing though, we will first patch Tempelhof and will wait some time (might be a few hours, maybe a few days) to see what happens. As soon as we are sure no negative side-effects have been missed, we will roll out the new versions to all game worlds.

You can find a full change-log below as usual. But in general this update is about some invisible but hopefully noticeable changes to core systems to improve performance and the removal of entry barriers as described before for new players. Please let us know what you think!

Version 1.5.7

• Defect #964: No refund after over-subscribed IPO*
• Defect #1061: Stock refunds should amount to book value instead of market value
• Defect #1165: Display in wrong language on some pages
• Defect #1168: Actually apply increased slots at airports after data changes
• Feature #1049: Hire or train pilots automatically on manual assignment
• Feature #1149: Correction script for falsely blocked funds*
• Change #997: Display date in fuel price chart more accurately
• Change #1043: Re-style airline creation form
• Change #1044: Automatically choose default maintenance partner for new enterprise (custom setting)
• Change #1045: Automatically hire pilots required for new aircraft (custom setting)
• Change #1046: Apply standard seating profile to new aircraft (custom setting)
• Change #1047: Remove explicit assignment of cabin crew
• Change #1048: Create (deletable) standard service profile for new airlines (custom setting)
• Change #1051: Remove obsolete badges
• Change #1052: Extend interface to allow setting a default seating configuration
• Change #1060: Ensure aircraft go for leasing/sale in 100% condition
• Change #1062: Completely revised deletion mechanism for companies
• Change #1065: Reduce performance impact of writing operations
• Change #1110: Rework listing of enterprises
• Change #1113: Remove deprecated legal page
• Change #1138: Delete unused typeratings from pilot management

* We were not able to figure out why some operations wouldn’t refund blocked funds correctly. Therefore the blocked funds are re-calculated at every week-end closing and corrected if necessary.

Data patch D4

• Defect #868: Ground network error for SSG / Malabo
• Defect #873: Airport Data: location of Qiqihaer (NDG)
• Defect #904: Wrong image for Britten-Norman BN-2T Turbine-Islander
• Defect #930: Airport Data – Wrong ICAO Code for Tunis
• Defect #931: Airport Data – Wrong ICAO Code for Johannesburg
• Defect #1000: Airport Data – Rename Oslo Torp to Sandefjord Airport Torp
• Defect #1132: Wrong Country Assignment Airport Ratanakiri
• Defect #1141: Spelling: Solomon Islands
• Defect #1166: Wrong timezone at Northwest Florida Beaches KECP
• Feature #908: Check runway lengths of Canadian airports
• Feature #911: New Airport: Can Thon Airport, Vietname
• Feature #912: Airport Data – Misc. Airports in CZ and SK
• Feature #920: Airport Data – Vietname Airports
• Feature #933: New Airport: Lauriston Airport near Hillsborough (Grenada)
• Feature #953: Rename Bristol, VA to Tri City, relocate to Tennessee
• Feature #968: Airport Data – New Airtport Tartu, Estonia
• Feature #971: New Airport Pardubice, Czech Republic
• Feature #977: Ground Network Hawaii Islands
• Feature #1129: New airports in Peru: Huanuco and Jauja
• Feature #1135: New Australian airport: Rottnest Island (RTS)
• Change #857: Night Time Ban in Baku/GYD
• Change #885: Night flying ban in Klagenfurt
• Change #905: Dubai World Central renamed
• Change #918: Spelling of Harrisburg (MDT)
• Change #922: Aguni and Taramajima in wrong subdivision
• Change #932: Match naming of Tenerife Airports
• Change #954: Runway Length and passenger demand Riga
• Change #959: Correct name of La Fria (LFR)
• Change #960: Algeria: Two new airports and various runway/demand/data updates
• Change #961: Casablanca Anfa closed
• Change #962: Runway length Nanaimo, BC, CA
• Change #963: Runway lengths Aleknagik, Anacortes and Roche Harbor
• Change #967: Boeing 737-900 not offered anymore
• Change #972: Boa Viste, CV runway length
• Change #973: Nelspruit, SA wrong location
• Change #974: Kubin Island, AU runway length
• Change #975: Caxias do Sul, BR wrong location
• Change #978: Tokyo Haneda – lift night flying ban
• Change #979: Tegucigalpa runway length
• Change #990: Various runway lengths in Island
• Change #993: Runway length St. Maarten (SXM)
• Change #996: Runway length and passenger demand of Natal (NAT)
• Change #999: Uummannaq (UMD) is a heliport only
• Change #1131: Additional ICAO codes Phillipines
• Change #1134: Runway length Singapore Seletar
• Change #1148: Runway length Sao Vincente (GVSV)
• Change #1167: Runway length Sofia

This June, however, this community split will come to an end! As we will be saying goodbye to our German publisher, we will have the ability to merge our German and international communities under one roof – both administratively and technically, giving us an integrated support and administrative structure for the first time – and, naturally, we’ll be taking the opportunity to do just that.

There are plenty of advantages for both the players and us in this deal: First of all, all players – independent of their language – will be able to use any of our game worlds! When we make the switch (probably on June 18th), there will be a total of 7 game worlds available, with an 8th and more being added in the near future. We will set up a new discussion board* with both language-specific and common areas which will only require a single login and give access to the latest information to all players at the same time. Last but not least, the overhead caused by running two completely independent systems will be reduced considerably so we will have more time for what’s most important: Working on AirlineSim!

If you currently only have an international account, you won’t have to do anything. We will let you know as soon as the new forums are ready, but beyond that everything will mostly remain the same for you. In case you also call a German account your own, please refer to the more elaborate announcement on our German page for more in-depth information.

* The current forums will be set to read-only and kept available for future reference.

New payment method 1: Online Transfers

This payment method allows you to initiate a bank transfer online. The payment is executed immediately and we receive the payment confirmation right away. Consequently, the payment process is as brief as that of a credit card payment.

Online transfers are available in these countries: Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. Please note that some banks do not offer the required interface for this payment method.

New payment method 2: Prepayment

This method is similar to Online Transfers but differs in the fact that you pay via a a regular bank transfer. The advantage: You can use your bank account even if your bank does not support online transfers. The disadvantage: It might take a few hours or days until we receive the payment and your credits are available.

Prepayment is available in all Euro-countries. If your bank supports SWIFT transfers in EUR it might even be possible to use this method outside of Europe or in non-EUR countries.

New payment method 3: Pay-by-Call

If you neither possess a credit card nor a bank account, this payment method might come in handy. It allows you to pay for your credits using your fixed line phone. Please note that this is a rather expensive means of payment, especially outside of Germany. Depending on country it might still be cheaper than mobile payments though.

Pay-by-Call is available in these countries: Germany, Belgium, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, Slovakia, Spain, Czech Republic and Hungary.

UKash: Extended list of countries

UKash is a prepaid card that can be purchased at many outlets worldwide. As such it can be paid for in cash and allows for completely anonymous online payments. Since we have activated plenty of new countries for this payment method, see the following list to check whether UKash is available in your country.

Europe: UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Slovenia, Cyprus, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary

Middle East: KSA, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel

Africa: South Africa, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Nigeria

Asia: China, Malaysia

North America: Canada

South America: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Bolivia, Mexico

Oceania: Australia, New Zealand