This page explains some of the more advanced strategies that you can use in Pocket Planes to make your airline as profitable as possible.

Payment Calculation

The payment amount that you will receive for delivering a person or cargo to a particular airport is approximately:

payment = (distance to airport in miles) * (4/3)

Distance Calculation

Since the distance to an airport is directly related to the payment that you will receive for delivering one person or cargo to that airport, you can use the above formula to determine the approximate distance from your current airport to the one that a passenger or cargo wants to go to:

(distance to airport in miles) = (payment for taking one passenger or cargo to that airport) * (3/4)

Airport Distance

To find out a potentially more accurate distance to an airport, you can check a plane's information before going to that airport to see how many miles it has flown, then check again after going to that airport and subtracting the updated miles flown by the original number.

Real World Time Conversion

A minute in the game corresponds to roughly 5.5 minutes in the real world. So, for example, a flight that takes 10 minutes in the real world is taking 55 minutes in the game world. A plane's speed is listed in miles per hour, but the "hour" that it is referring to is actually only about 10.9 minutes in the real world.

Layovers

If you take a passenger or cargo to an airport other than its destination, the payment will not change from what it was when you first picked up that passenger or cargo.

The passenger or cargo that has been taken to a different airport from the destination is in layover. Each airport has a limited capacity for holding layovers.

the payment will not change from what it was when you first picked up that passenger or cargo.