Alliances

Several virtual airlines often fly under the same real code — say, an “Aeroflot” in Moscow and an “Aeroflot” in Sakhalin. The Alliances section brings them together as one airline with branches, and different carriers into a union.

Group under a real code

A group is one airline: its face is the real carrier's livery, and its companies are branches, each with its own hub. Only airlines with the same real code in their settings can join, and there can be only one group per code. Whoever forms the group first becomes the lead airline.

Alliance

An alliance unites different brands — airlines with any code. Its companies are members, not branches. An airline can be in one group and one alliance at the same time.

Who can do what

• Form a group or alliance, apply, leave — the head or an executive of the airline. Managers and pilots don't see these buttons.
• The application goes to the lead airline, optionally with a message. While it waits, you can withdraw it.
• The head or an executive of the lead airline accepts and declines applications, removes members and hands over leadership.
• An airline without a real code can't join a group: set the real airline in your settings first.

Invitations

The lead airline can invite airlines with the same real code into the group itself. The invited airline gets a notification, and a card appears on its home page: who is inviting, what joining gives, what declining means and how many routes it already shares with the group.

• Join — the airline becomes a branch right away, no second approval needed. If it has already applied to this group, the invitation approves the application; and the other way round, applying while an invitation is open means joining at once.
• Decline — the airline stays independent and keeps its real code, and keeps sharing passengers with the group on shared routes. The lead can invite it again in 14 days; the airline can apply on its own at any time.
• The lead sees on the group page who accepted, who declined and who has not answered yet, and gets a notification about each answer. An unanswered invitation can be withdrawn. Inviting and answering is for the owner or an executive.

What a group gives now

• A shared page: the livery, branch hubs on a west-to-east strip, the fleet, routes in the network and how many of them you share.
• A shared roster with the lead airline and applications — the lead sees what an applicant brings: hub, new and shared routes, aircraft.
• Shared demand on shared routes: passengers are counted for the brand as a whole and split between branches by the seats they offer.
• Each other's flights: a pilot of any branch takes the whole group's lines straight from the flight board.
• Flight numbers of your own: each branch gets its own number block, and callsigns stop colliding.
• One row in the leaderboards: the group stands in the rankings as a single airline, not as scattered branches.
• Codeshare: alliance members sell each other's flights under their own numbers and split the ticket revenue by agreement.

Branches used to fight over the departure hour on a shared route like strangers: whoever got the morning slot carried the people, while the sibling in a dead hour flew half empty. Now the route hands the brand a single share, and it is split by the seats the branches put on that route: more seats, more people — inside the brand the hour no longer matters. The brand gains and loses nothing in total; only which branch carries the passengers changes, and other airlines on the route aren't affected at all. Airlines with the same real code that haven't joined the group stay ordinary competitors: the code belongs to no one.

Each other's flights

If you are in a branch of a group, you fly for the whole group. Lines of sister branches arrive on your flight board by themselves, marked “branch”, and are taken with the usual “Book” button. You don't need to join the neighbouring airline, and inside it you stay an outsider: no fleet, no hubs, no salary, no journal — only the right to fly its flight.

• Look on the Flight board: a neighbour's flights sit there among your own, marked “branch” next to the airline. The quickest way to pick out one neighbour's flights is the Airline filter on the board or a search for its ICAO code.
• The flight stays a flight of the airline that owns the line: its aircraft, its revenue, its stats and its place in the leaderboards. Your own airline gets no credit for it.
• You get the hours, XP, rank and type ratings just like on your own flight, plus the flight profit bonus under the owning airline's policy. Salary is paid only by your own airline: it is for service, not for a flight.
• You fly an aircraft of the owning airline — one already standing at the departure airport. Only its own pilots can ferry an aircraft in for a flight or switch on the return ferry afterwards: the airline pays for both, and unlike its own pilots you cannot be removed. An aircraft assigned there to a particular person will not be given to you — the assignment is strict and makes no exception even for that airline's head.
• Only a group under a shared real code grants this. An alliance of different brands does not open each other's flights.

Flight numbers

A flight callsign is the real code plus the digits of the number: for Aeroflot, flight 100 is AFL100 — whichever branch operates it. While branches numbered from scratch each on their own, two aircraft went on the air under one callsign, and neither ATC nor the company telex could tell them apart. The lead airline cuts the branches number blocks, and each numbers from its own.

• A block is a range, say 100–499. New lines of the branch are numbered from it, and the “suggest a number” button offers the first free one inside the block.
• A number whose callsign a sister branch already took is refused, and the refusal names who took it. A number outside your own block is accepted as long as the callsign is free — the block is an agreement, not a lock.
• Lines created earlier stay as they are: the platform does not touch them. Callsigns that already collide are listed for the lead airline on the group page and renumbered by hand.
• Blocks belong to a group under a shared real code only. An alliance of different brands has no shared callsign, so there is nothing to divide.

Codeshare inside an alliance

An agreement between two airlines of the same alliance on one line: one of them operates the flight, while the other also sells seats on it under its own number. Ticket revenue is split by the share written into the agreement, and both sides see it as a separate line in their finances. Signed and terminated in the Codeshare section on the alliance page.

• The one who will fly proposes: the line is theirs and so is the revenue. The agreement takes effect once the other airline's management accepts it.
• The partner sells the flight under ITS OWN number — it starts with the partner's code and contains digits. On the board such a flight is listed under that number, marked with who operates it.
• The callsign stays with the one who flies. On the radio, in the telex and in the flight plan the aircraft goes under the operator's callsign — the marketing number lives in sales and on the board only.
• The share is taken from the ticket revenue of the flight, from 1 to 30%. It goes out on EVERY flight of the line, whoever flew it: the partner was selling those seats all the same. The operator bears the costs.
• Either side can terminate at any time. A new agreement cannot be made without a shared alliance, but an existing one survives the alliance breaking up: both airlines see a note and decide for themselves.

The partner brings passengers

An agreement gives more than a cut of the revenue: passengers the line never had start showing up. They come from how well the MARKETING partner is known at the line's airports — a traveller buys from the carrier they know in their own city and flies on the operator's aircraft. That is what codesharing exists for in real life.

• What counts is how well the partner is known at BOTH airports of the line, averaged. Known only at the departure end — the boost comes out half of the full one.
• Being known means the airline's reputation at an airport: it is earned by flying there, by a young fleet, by flight grades and by a base, while advertising adds a limited share on top. You can see yours on the airline page.
• The boost goes to exactly the line the agreement covers. The rest of the operator's network does not change at all.
• A partner that does not fly to those airports and keeps no base there will bring nobody: the revenue share still goes out, but no passengers are added. Pick a partner by where they are known.
• These passengers are new, not taken from neighbours on the route: other airlines' flights on the same pair are untouched by the agreement.

The group in the leaderboards

A brand with two or more branches stands in the airline rankings as a single row: the real code's livery, the group's name, and the number of branches instead of a base. Its branches do not appear as separate rows — comparing Aeroflot with its own branch would be comparing an airline to a part of itself. Clicking the row opens the group's page, not an airline card.

• Volumes add up: passengers, cargo, flights, hours, profit, the fleet and its value are all shared by the group.
• The average score is not added up but weighted by the number of scored flights: a branch with a single excellent flight does not lift a group that has hundreds.
• Your own row does not disappear: your branch is highlighted inside the brand row, and on the dashboard the place is labelled 'Your brand' and counted for the group.
• The season podium and airline achievements are still counted per airline: the prize goes to a branch, not to the group.
• An airline with the same real code that has not joined the group stays a separate row. The code belongs to no one, and it is not counted towards someone else's total.
• With a single member the row stays an ordinary airline row: there is nothing to fold. Its subtitle reads "… group".
• An alliance never becomes a single row: its members are different airlines competing with each other. Each one's subtitle names its alliance.

Leaving and leadership

You can leave at any time. A lead airline with other members must hand over leadership first, or leaving is refused. When the last member leaves, the group is dissolved. If the lead airline closes, leadership passes to the longest-standing member automatically.