How Network Planning Works and How to Learn with Board Games
If you’ve ever looked at a flight map and wondered, “Why do airlines fly there?”, you’re asking the core question behind Network Planning—one of the most critical and complex aspects of running an airline. While real-world airlines use data analytics, demand forecasting, competitive intelligence, and regulatory strategies to make these decisions, Papaeya’s Full Service Airline Manager board game brilliantly distills this into a fun, competitive simulation where players act as airline strategists. Here’s how the game helps players understand and experiment with network planning in a tangible way.
🎯 What Is Network Planning in Airlines?
At its heart, network planning is the business of deciding where to fly, when, and how often, while balancing three key pillars:
- Demand: Where do people want to go?
- Cost: How much will it cost to operate flights?
- Competition: Who else is flying there, and at what price?
Airlines must build networks that maximize profitability, not just passenger volume. A well-designed network lets an airline funnel traffic through key hubs, offer competitive connections, and optimize aircraft usage. Done poorly, it leads to empty seats and wasted resources.
🎲 How the Game Models Network Planning
In Full Service Airline Manager, network planning is the foundation of each season. Before the revenue battles begin, each player must position their airplanes across a set of airports connected by routes on a map. Here’s where the magic—and strategy—starts.
✈️ Aircraft Deployment
Players begin with two airplanes, each yielding three “Airplane blocks”, a clever abstraction of time and range (each block represents ~4 hours of usable aircraft time per day). You must decide where to place those blocks across short or long routes (which use 1 or 2 blocks, respectively).
- Short routes (1 block): Offer flexibility and multiple destinations.
- Long routes (2 blocks): Fewer routes, but potentially higher yields.
Every decision must factor in how routes connect. Blocks must form connected paths, which simulate real-world route planning where aircraft operate on round trips, not one-way hops.
🌍 Market Selection and Seasonality
Markets (Origin & Destination pairs) are revealed randomly each season, mimicking real-world seasonal demand fluctuations and unpredictability. Players don’t know ahead of time which routes will be in demand, forcing them to build networks with optionality—a concept that airline planners live by.
Want a stronger shot at winning more traffic? Build a hub-and-spoke model where your flights all radiate from a central hub. This increases your reach and connection potential, helping you serve more O&Ds with fewer resources—just like real carriers do.
🛫 Competitive Dynamics
Multiple airlines can fly the same route. So, should you go head-to-head on a high-demand market or try to monopolize a smaller one where no one else is flying? The game forces you to think about competitive positioning in every move, mimicking real airline network strategy.
🧠 Applying Real Airline Strategy Through Gameplay
The most fascinating part of the game is how it teaches players to think like airline strategists:
1. Capacity Management
Each Airplane block can carry only up to 5 passengers. Big demand in a Market? Consider placing multiple flights on the same route. But beware: every additional flight means more operating cost at season’s end. It’s a classic trade-off: more opportunity, more risk.
2. Flexibility and Risk Management
Some Markets only materialize in Winter. Should you overbuild in Summer and scale back later? Or leave capacity openfor Winter shifts? The game encourages a phased planning approach—adjusting to what’s known and preparing for the unknown.
3. Strategic Network Repositioning
Between seasons, you can reposition your aircraft, but once a season starts, your network is locked in. Real airlines face a similar constraint with seasonal slot coordination and published schedules. The pressure to make the right calls up front feels very real.
👾 How Papaeya’s Game Teaches These Concepts Practically
Papaeya’s Full Service Airline Manager isn’t just a game; it’s a sandbox for learning:
- No turns: All players act simultaneously, reflecting the real-time pace of commercial aviation competition.
- Tactical iteration: Each season is a closed loop, but long-term planning wins the game. You learn to evolve strategy year-over-year.
- Optional modules like Slot Constraints or Code Shares: These mirror real-world complexity like airport slot limits and alliances.
The result? A deeply engaging simulation that teaches the cause-and-effect logic behind real-world airline network design.
🏁 Final Approach: Why It Matters
Whether you're a student of aviation, a strategy game enthusiast, or just curious about how airlines make money flying you around the world, Papaeya’s board game gives you a hands-on way to learn.
Network planning is where the airline strategy starts. Everything else—pricing, revenue management, profitability—flows from those initial network choices. In Papaeya’s Full Service Airline Manager, those decisions are in your hands.
So next time you're playing and puzzling over whether to add that new MAD-CDG route or double down on BER as your European hub, remember: you’re not just playing a game—you’re stepping into the role of a real airline executive.