Your heads and what to delegate

Why heads

At each meeting, every head also shows you one part of the game in their area that they have not shown before, starting with what a new airline needs. Call your heads every week in the first months and you will have been shown the whole game by the time you need it.

An airline has more jobs than one person can watch. Department heads do them for you, as well as their skill allows, and write when they act, so your inbox is where you hear from them. Hire them on the Management page: three candidates per post at a time, skill 35–95, asking more the better they are.

Who does what

• Crew Planning Manager: hires pilots and cabin crew for your timetable every day, and reports crew you no longer need.
• Director of Operations: fewer delays; sizes your own ground handling at every station each Monday.
• Commercial Director: a reputation boost; reviews every route's fares each Monday with the pricing desk's model and keeps revenue management on.
• Technical Director: fewer technical faults; books heavy checks ahead with cover, and extends or returns leases as they end.
• Head of People: better morale, fewer resignations; settles union talks, keeps pay at market and lets surplus crew go.
• Chief Financial Officer: sets the yearly budget with the board and hedges fuel monthly.
• Head of Facilities: runs the head office: desks, fit-out and the lease.

Skill

Skill decides how well they do it: a weak commercial director misreads the market by a few percent, a weak head of people overpays the unions, a weak CFO plans optimistically. A head near 50 asks about standard pay; a 90 costs more but earns it on a big airline.

Careers

Your people can grow. Make a captain Chief Pilot, a purser Chief Purser or a mechanic Chief Engineer: a raise for them, and better morale across their group. When a head's post is empty, one of your own can step up (a senior captain to Director of Operations, a mechanic to Technical Director, a purser to Head of People or Crew Planning Manager), bringing most of their skill. Heads retire at 65, with six months' notice: time to groom a successor or hire one.

The meeting room

Once a game week you can call your heads together in the Meeting room. Each raises what they see in their area: a route losing money, a full one worth a higher fare, cancellations, defects, pay below the market, how long the cash lasts. Every point comes with an estimate of what it is worth a month, a button to act on it and a Why? that explains how that part of the game works.

How good their read is depends on their skill. A strong head finds the issue that matters most, quotes figures close to the truth and says so with confidence; a weak one may raise something minor, miss what matters or tell you all is well. The minutes are kept as they were said: asking again the same week changes nothing.

Heads have temperaments too: a cautious one raises risks first and quotes figures low, a bold one opportunities first and quotes high. At the next meeting each reports on what they raised last time (sorted, better, worse or still open), and their card keeps a record of good calls: the biggest issue in their area, with a figure close to the truth. Over the weeks you learn whose word to trust.

The meeting keeps an eye on the board too. Each objective that falls behind pace is raised by the head whose area it is, with the confidence at stake; a department running over its approved budget is raised by its head. When the CFO is in the room, they open with the board: when it meets, how its confidence has moved, and whether a request is worth making now.

Everything links

Names of airlines, airports, your people, aircraft and aircraft types lead to their own pages, in tables and in letters and news alike. Rest the pointer on one for a moment to see a card with the essentials without leaving the page.

Reminders

When the inbox fills up, put 🔔 Remind me on any letter you need to come back to: a rule that takes effect next year, a big event, a head's retirement. Letters with a date suggest one (two months before a rule, a month before an event). On the day the reminder returns to the top of the inbox with your note. Inbox › Reminders lists them all, and takes reminders of your own too.

Letters that ask you to choose

Now and then a letter asks you to decide: the foreign ministry wants an evacuation flown, the unions want a summer bonus, a journalist is asking about your maintenance, a football club wants a charter. Each choice costs or earns something now, moving money, reputation, the board's confidence or your staff's morale, and some come back weeks later, for better or worse. Answer within a week, or the letter says what happens without you. Before you choose, the head concerned gives their view in the meeting room: a cautious one plays safe, a bold one goes for the upside.

The computer-run airlines are run by chief executives with temperaments of their own (their airline page shows them). A bold one cuts fares hard and goes after your routes; a cautious one rarely starts a fight. When one moves on a route you fly, you hear about it in their own words, and now and then one tries to hire away your best head.

Taking a job back

Every head has a switch on the Management page: Leave it to them or Run it myself. Learn the game one department at a time: start with everything delegated, then take over the part that interests you (fares on the pricing desk are a good first one). Hand it back whenever you like. Fare sales and marketing budgets always stay yours.