Cash
Earn when you claim landed flights. Spend on aircraft, fuel, leases, base upgrades and shop boosts. You cannot go into deficit on purchases — if a buy fails, fly more claims first.
How to play
From first hop to hub.
Flyorian is map-first. You don’t manage spreadsheets — you pick airports, fly planes, and watch the network thicken. This page is the full early-to-mid game tutorial path.
Treat this as the operating manual. The features page lists what each system is; here you learn the order to touch them so your first cash does not stall in a widebody you cannot park. For CEO framing and decision vocabulary, the airline manager page is complementary — it does not replace these steps.
A good first session lasts fifteen to thirty minutes of active clicks: found the airline, fly a handful of short hops, claim once or twice, and leave aircraft airborne while you close the tab. When you return, claim again, then decide whether to lease a second feeder or upgrade the hangar. That rhythm — short bursts, offline progress, deliberate reinvestment — is the whole skill of learning Flyorian.
If a question is binary (download?, offline?, mobile?, lease?), jump to the FAQ. If you want long-form strategy after you understand the loop, the beginner guide on the blog and other guides go deeper without changing the steps below.
- 01
Found your airline
Create an account, pick a home base, and name your carrier. You start with cash, a modest hangar and a short-range aircraft — enough to open your first routes without a tutorial wall. Your home base choice sets the first ring of airports you can reach; you can grow outward later via airline XP, so pick a region you enjoy looking at on the world map. Naming and identity matter for your public profile, but they do not change the economy — see build your airline if the fantasy of a personal carrier is why you are here.
- 02
Buy, lease or pick used
Open Fleet to compare seats, range and price. Buy outright when you can, lease for a deposit plus a daily rate on a 30-day contract, or grab a used airframe to stretch early cash. Short-range feeders are the best starters because they turn cash over quickly on nearby hops. A lease is a tool, not a trap: use it when a second aircraft unlocks more claims than the daily rate costs, and cancel early only if you accept the termination fee. The FAQ covers lease terms; this step is about not buying a long-range jet before the hub and XP unlocks can feed it.
- 03
Launch from the map
The world map is your cockpit. Click a destination within range, choose an idle aircraft, check distance, duration, fuel and expected profit — then buy fuel and wait for the refuel timer before takeoff. Prefer short, frequent hops early: they teach the claim rhythm and keep hangar slots busy. Long arcs look impressive but tie up cash and aircraft time before you understand utilisation. The fleet tracker shows who is refueling so you do not stare at the map waiting.
- 04
Fly offline, claim on landing
Flights progress on the server even if you close the tab. When a plane lands, claim revenue. Cabins always fly full — payout scales with seats × distance, with light modifiers by destination type. Unclaimed flights wait patiently; you never lose a landing because you were away. That offline-safe design is why Flyorian fits real schedules — and why the FAQ stresses closing the tab mid-flight. For the exact revenue math, read the airline simulator page after you have claimed a few times in practice.
- 05
Keep the fleet healthy
Every 20 flights — or when condition drops too low — an aircraft must return home for a timed Maintenance Bay A-check. While worn, it also burns more fuel and earns less revenue. Upgrade the bay to cut check cost and duration. Plan returns into your map routing instead of treating maintenance as a surprise: if a plane is due soon, send it home with a paying hop rather than stranding it abroad. Hub facilities are part of the airport management fantasy — upgrade them when idle cash sits unused after claims.
- 06
Grow the hub & unlock the map
Airline XP from arrivals levels you up. Level unlocks distant airports, larger aircraft and more hangar places at your home base. Spend cash and materials on hangars, the refinery, Maintenance Bay and ops facilities — then dispatch parked planes onto the map again. Expand hangars before you buy more aircraft than you can park; expand range unlocks before you buy types that cannot reach new destinations. That reinvestment order is the difference between a compounding network and a stalled one — the growth story continues on the airline tycoon page once these steps feel automatic.
Currencies with clear jobs
Revenue is transparent: cabins fly full, and every seat pays for every kilometre (plus a light destination-type bias). Fuel is the operating cost. Everything else has one job — do not treat materials like cash or prestige like XP.
Materials
Earned from claims. Spend them on seat densification and hub facilities — hangars, refinery, Maintenance Bay, ops and more. Stockpile before a big hub upgrade rather than sprinkling upgrades that do not free capacity.
XP & level
Airline XP from claims unlocks distant airports, larger aircraft and more hangar places. Level-ups also grant cash, materials and fuel credit. XP is the gate on map geography — cash alone cannot buy a destination that is still locked.
Prestige
Earned on strong claims. Spend on permanent perks — flagship brand, VIP hangar slots and premium yield — once your network is mature. Early prestige is better saved than spent on cosmetics of growth you have not earned yet.
Fuel & why bigger planes matter
Fuel is bought when you start refueling. Cost depends on aircraft type and distance; a timed uplift gates takeoff until you confirm. Because revenue scales with capacity, a 180-seat jet on the same route earns more than a 19-seat feeder — but costs more to buy and burns more fuel. Short props dominate early local hops; jets own the long game. Shop boosts can temporarily cut fuel burn or stretch range, but they do not replace matching the airframe to the hop — see features for the boost catalogue and airline simulator for how yield and time interact.
A practical session rhythm
Open the fleet tracker first: claim everything landed, note who is still airborne, and only then open the map for new dispatches. Second, spend: if hangar slots are full, buy capacity before another airframe; if slots are free and cash is healthy, add a feeder or renew a useful lease. Third, leave: queue refuels, confirm takeoffs you care about, and close the tab. Returning later to a set of waiting claims is more productive than babysitting a single arc.
Missions are best treated as directed versions of the same loop — complete them when they align with routes you already want to fly, not as a distraction from hub upgrades. Friend hub visits and the leaderboard are optional spice after the economic loop is comfortable; they never gate progression. When you are ready to think in empires rather than sessions, the airline tycoon page and the hub expansion guide pick up from here.
Early-game mistakes to avoid
Buying range you cannot unlock yet wastes cash on parked potential. Ignoring A-checks quietly taxes every claim through worse fuel and yield. Leaving hangars full while shopping for a third aircraft creates a queue of planes that cannot dispatch. Holding huge cash piles without upgrading the Maintenance Bay or hangars caps your throughput even if the map looks busy.
Another common stall: treating every destination as equal. Destination-type bias is light, but distance and aircraft fit are not — a feeder on a hop at the edge of its range burns time and fuel for a claim that a shorter ring would beat on hourly cash. Use the map preview numbers before you commit fuel. When something still feels opaque, the FAQ and features pages answer “what is this system?” while this tutorial answers “what do I do next?”
Core loop
Buy → Fly → Claim → Upgrade → Unlock → Expand. Each lap opens more range, larger aircraft, and denser routes. Missions and shop boosts accelerate the same loop — they don’t replace it.
Tips for early game
Use small aircraft on nearby hops, claim often, free hangar slots before buying another plane, and fly aircraft home before spending materials on upgrades. Watch the fleet tracker so you know who’s airborne, refueling or parked.
Live fleet tracker
A dedicated dashboard view plots every aircraft — airborne on its arc, refueling with a countdown, or parked at a gate — grouped by airport and updating in real time. Make it your session start screen.
Leaderboard & profile
Airlines are ranked by flights flown, distance and fleet size. Your public profile shows how your network stacks up — climb when you want, or just fly your own map. Social play never blocks a solo claim.
Ready to fly?
Found your free airline in minutes — the world map is waiting.