what the pay is made of, what cuts it and what reputation unlocks
What the pay is made of
A job’s pay grows with the number of passengers or the cargo weight and with distance — but a mile on a long route pays less than on a short one. It is then multiplied by urgency (deferred pays least, critical most), the kind of cargo (mail, chilled, outsized, dangerous goods, live animals, valuables and medicine pay more than general cargo), the class of service for small passenger groups, how remote the destination is and the demand pressure at the airport. The job detail in Dispatch shows each of these multipliers separately.
Deadline and delay
Every job has a deadline set by its urgency. A small delay is forgiven; after that the pay is cut evenly by how much of the time window you overran, and when the delay equals the whole window you get nothing. That is why an extra hour hurts a critical shipment far more than a deferred one. Delivering on time raises reputation, delivering late lowers it.
Demand pressure and airport activity
When players carry a lot of cargo or people out of an airport, what is left there becomes scarce and new jobs from it pay more; the destination, in turn, gets saturated and jobs out of it pay less. Both return to normal over days — so it pays to look for airports nobody has flown from in a while and to leave a saturated destination alone for a bit. Besides that, every airport has activity: every settled player flight from or to it enlarges the board, a small airport up to double, a major hub by a quarter. Without flying, activity fades within weeks and the airport is back where it was; it never drops below its baseline. The “activity” tag next to the airport in Dispatch and on the map says how many extra jobs it has right now. An emptied airport also has a smaller board: whoever carried a lot out of it finds less work rather than twice the pay — the emptied-airport premium is at most ×1.5. And the more companies have a base or a parked aircraft at the airport, the more jobs the board keeps.
Reputation
A company’s reputation runs from zero to a hundred and is kept worldwide and separately in each region; a job uses a mix of both. In a region where you have not flown yet it counts as average — an unknown carrier is not a bad carrier. Reputation moves pay a few percent up or down and makes insurance dearer or cheaper. Above all, it unlocks work: shippers entrust valuables, dangerous goods, medicine, live animals, outsized cargo and critical shipments only to a company with enough reputation. Without flying, reputation slowly drifts back to the middle.
What raises reputation and what lowers it
It rises with on-time deliveries, fulfilled contracts, humanitarian missions and event wins. It falls with late deliveries, lapsed bookings, contract cycles not flown and breached contracts, closing a facility (in that region) and a crash of an insured aircraft.
Sightseeing flights
A sightseeing tour takes off and lands at the same airport and leads over real places nearby — castles, lakes, peaks, lookout towers. It pays for time over interesting places, not for distance, so even a small aircraft from a grass strip can make a living on it. Half of the pay is for the flight and half for the stops your track shows you actually flew over. A tour is carried on its own — nothing is added to it — and AI crews do not fly it.
Job bundles
A bundle is several jobs to the same destination with the same kind of cargo and a similar deadline. You take all of it or none, and it pays more than the same jobs one by one — a reward for carrying the whole lot. You will not find it on the regular board; the Contracts screen shows the bundles at an airport.
Job board. What leaves this airport, where, for how much and by when — long routes and local jobs to nearby airports, small and large alike. Large airports refresh it every hour, grass strips about twice a day. The “only what the selected aircraft can carry” filter hides what you have no plane for — fuel in the tanks and takeoff weight included.
Based on the in-game help and manual (Help tab) — the numbers are the default rule values; the in-game manual shows the ones the server is using right now. Post questions and experience in this thread.
Jobs, pay and reputation
what the pay is made of, what cuts it and what reputation unlocks
What the pay is made of
A job’s pay grows with the number of passengers or the cargo weight and with distance — but a mile on a long route pays less than on a short one. It is then multiplied by urgency (deferred pays least, critical most), the kind of cargo (mail, chilled, outsized, dangerous goods, live animals, valuables and medicine pay more than general cargo), the class of service for small passenger groups, how remote the destination is and the demand pressure at the airport. The job detail in Dispatch shows each of these multipliers separately.
Deadline and delay
Every job has a deadline set by its urgency. A small delay is forgiven; after that the pay is cut evenly by how much of the time window you overran, and when the delay equals the whole window you get nothing. That is why an extra hour hurts a critical shipment far more than a deferred one. Delivering on time raises reputation, delivering late lowers it.
Demand pressure and airport activity
When players carry a lot of cargo or people out of an airport, what is left there becomes scarce and new jobs from it pay more; the destination, in turn, gets saturated and jobs out of it pay less. Both return to normal over days — so it pays to look for airports nobody has flown from in a while and to leave a saturated destination alone for a bit. Besides that, every airport has activity: every settled player flight from or to it enlarges the board, a small airport up to double, a major hub by a quarter. Without flying, activity fades within weeks and the airport is back where it was; it never drops below its baseline. The “activity” tag next to the airport in Dispatch and on the map says how many extra jobs it has right now. An emptied airport also has a smaller board: whoever carried a lot out of it finds less work rather than twice the pay — the emptied-airport premium is at most ×1.5. And the more companies have a base or a parked aircraft at the airport, the more jobs the board keeps.
Reputation
A company’s reputation runs from zero to a hundred and is kept worldwide and separately in each region; a job uses a mix of both. In a region where you have not flown yet it counts as average — an unknown carrier is not a bad carrier. Reputation moves pay a few percent up or down and makes insurance dearer or cheaper. Above all, it unlocks work: shippers entrust valuables, dangerous goods, medicine, live animals, outsized cargo and critical shipments only to a company with enough reputation. Without flying, reputation slowly drifts back to the middle.
What raises reputation and what lowers it
It rises with on-time deliveries, fulfilled contracts, humanitarian missions and event wins. It falls with late deliveries, lapsed bookings, contract cycles not flown and breached contracts, closing a facility (in that region) and a crash of an insured aircraft.
Sightseeing flights
A sightseeing tour takes off and lands at the same airport and leads over real places nearby — castles, lakes, peaks, lookout towers. It pays for time over interesting places, not for distance, so even a small aircraft from a grass strip can make a living on it. Half of the pay is for the flight and half for the stops your track shows you actually flew over. A tour is carried on its own — nothing is added to it — and AI crews do not fly it.
Job bundles
A bundle is several jobs to the same destination with the same kind of cargo and a similar deadline. You take all of it or none, and it pays more than the same jobs one by one — a reward for carrying the whole lot. You will not find it on the regular board; the Contracts screen shows the bundles at an airport.
Job board. What leaves this airport, where, for how much and by when — long routes and local jobs to nearby airports, small and large alike. Large airports refresh it every hour, grass strips about twice a day. The “only what the selected aircraft can carry” filter hides what you have no plane for — fuel in the tanks and takeoff weight included.
Based on the in-game help and manual (Help tab) — the numbers are the default rule values; the in-game manual shows the ones the server is using right now. Post questions and experience in this thread.