Airline Architectv1.8.0

What changed

• New featureIntroduced crew training mechanics including type-ratings, line training, and currency clocks.
• New featureAdded Chief Pilot role to manage and monitor crew staffing and training status.
• New featureAdded buildable training centers and flight simulators to reduce training costs and time.
• New featureNew multi-stop route rotation system allowing up to five airports per circuit.
• UXReorganized UI with dedicated Maintenance section and collapsible Ops drawers with red alerts.
• ContentUpdated 141 rival airlines to use realistic hub locations.
• New featureImproved financial transparency for acquired airlines and realistic sell-back pricing for hubs.
• UXCorrected Transpacific flight paths to cross the Pacific instead of circumnavigating.
• PerformanceOptimization for large fleets at high speed and improved cross-device syncing.
• UXAcquired aircraft now arrive in airworthy condition rather than grounded.

Original release notes

YOUR CREWS ARE PEOPLE NOW, AND PEOPLE TAKE TIME TO TRAIN.

Hiring used to be instant. In 1.8 it isn't. A type-rated pilot still needs ten days of line training before you can roster them. Hire someone new to the aircraft and they're away on a 45-day type-rating course first — and if the contract school is busy, they wait for a class slot. Every crew also carries a currency clock, and recurrent training comes around whether you planned for it or not. Let it lapse and they can't fly until they requalify, at a premium.

That turns the fleet you can afford into a different question from the fleet you can actually staff. So you have a Chief Pilot now. Capt. Morgan Ellis sits at the top of the Crews tab and tells you, per aircraft family, whether you're genuinely short of people or just waiting on a course to finish — the difference that used to be invisible.

Fly big enough and you can stop renting the schoolhouse. Build your own training centre at an operating hub, add a full-flight simulator bay for a crew family, and your courses run cheaper, finish sooner, and never queue for a slot. It's real capital at real simulator prices — the payback card shows you exactly what it's returning, in fees saved and in crew days handed back to the line.

ONE AIRCRAFT, MANY CITIES

A route no longer has to be two airports. Build a rotation of up to five, pick the aircraft first, tap the cities in order, and it flies the loop and repeats. Each leg earns its own traffic, so a well-built circuit reaches thin markets a there-and-back never could.

Also in 1.8:
• Maintenance moves to its own section under Fleet, where it belongs — Ops keeps just the alerts
• Rival airlines now hub where they really hub. Air France out of Paris, Lufthansa out of Frankfurt and Munich, Copa out of Panama City — 141 carriers, checked one by one
• Buy an airline and you can finally see what it's earning NOW, not the numbers from the day you signed
• Sell-back offers for your hubs and slots are priced off what they actually earn, so a profitable hub is no longer worth a fraction of what you paid
• Ops sections collapse into drawers, and anything needing you wears a red count — with the drawer opening itself when an alert lands inside it
• Transpacific routes cross the Pacific. They used to go the long way round the world
• Aircraft you inherit in an acquisition arrive airworthy instead of grounded on da…