Airlines Manager vs Airport City Manager Simulator
Airlines Manager offers a more detailed and realistic airline simulation experience, while Airport City Manager Simulator focuses more on city building with aviation elements.
Airlines Manager provides a deeper, more realistic airline management simulation, despite issues with its interface and ads. Airport City Manager Simulator combines airport and city building, but users report slow progress and high costs.
Head to head
you prefer a more in-depth and realistic airline management simulation, are willing to navigate a complex interface, and appreciate features like custom liveries R5R50.
you enjoy a game that combines airport management with city building elements, find the aviation theme relaxing, and are prepared for a slower progression without significant in-app purchases .
Evidence note: Both apps are free with in-app purchases. The negative reviews for both are heavily skewed towards monetization issues (ads, paywalls, slow progression without spending), which is common for free-to-play games. Airlines Manager's issues with ads and paywalls are present but less severe than Airport City Manager Simulator, which faces strong criticism for being 'pay to win' and having disproportionately high costs.
Frequently asked
Do these games have a free tier?
Can you fly planes in these games?
What reviewers actually said
Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.
- [R5] Airlines Manager Fun game, some suggestions: I love this game, as it actually simulates the details like emergencies and realistic supply/demand. I have some suggestions though. -More Soviet/ Russian aircraft, like how if you are trying to make a Soviet state based airline like Bek air for example it’d be nice to have some more russian airplanes -Detailed emergencies, like showing if the gear or engines failed or
- [R6] Airlines Manager Not great, not terrible.: Missing some airports such as those in the US Virgin Islands. Some of the airport categories are completely unrealistic when compared to what actually flies to those airports.
- [R23] Airlines Manager Awesome Game but what I would like to see in the future: I would like to see a different flight path not just straight flight to and from make it a flight path. I would also like to see a satellite view so I can see where they are flying over exactly. and if you could add flight delays or cancellations due to a lack of maintenance. and if you could just add some more private jets and prop engines
- [R50] Airlines Manager Artists dream: I wasn’t going to make a review since I rarely do anyways but after finding out that you can make your own liveries and apply them to your aircraft changes my mind. Since I’m a simple minded person who likes to create this mechanic was perfect for me and allowed for me to create liveries for aircraft designated to Germany for free by the way!
- [R1] Airlines Manager Absolutely terrible: I have played other manager games and this is by far the worst. Complex interface, poor tutorials.. pass it by
- [R4] Airlines Manager Nope: Can’t log in securely and they want your email address. Not happening! Uninstalled!
- [R7] Airlines Manager Keeps starting over: I have made a account 3 times and it just keeps starting me over not even letting me sigh in Over all good game
- [R17] Airlines Manager Read this!: Ok overall, I quite like this game. It’s fun, pretty fast-paced, and not impossible to accomplish anything in like some other tycoon games. I also really appreciate that it’s not P2W (Pay to win). But, BUT, some of the menus are VERY confusing. You can figure them out by tapping around for a while, but it would be awesome if there was a tutorial or something for every menu, because tha
- [R9] Airlines Manager Needs no ads option: Fun game nut way too many ads to really do anything. You can buy an AM Gold membership, which is nice, but how about for a few dollars more per month tomhave no ads? Then you could really sit down and enjoy the game. Gets old really quick having to watch an ad every time you try to do something.
- [R16] Airlines Manager Paywalls on features that shouldn’t have them, and removing features that shouldn’t be removed: So, as if removing airlines painter and all non cloud saved liveries wasn’t bad enough, you make the new built-in painter worse in every aspect. You have to pay for more slots, which you didn’t have to do before in the painter app, and plus the new painter is horrible to use and adapt to for users who w
- [R18] Airlines Manager Too many ads: It’s needs to have less ads but overall it’s a good management simulator
- [R21] Airlines Manager Fun but aggravating: The game has been fun but recently the ads have lacked an “X” button. So you’re just stuck on the ad in a doom loop and you have to close the game with no reward. It’s become so prevalent that I’m considering quitting the game.
- [R2] Airlines Manager Bugs: Every once in a while I’ll check in and just have zero profit made on a route I’ve had since the start or my demand amount glitches and has it as if I have no planes on the route it’s prevents me from knowing if anything is being ran properly and really ruins the experience.
- [R10] Airlines Manager Error with no help: In the middle of a limited time event there is an error preventing me from collecting rewards. On top of this there is no way to get help. This after paying lots of money on content.
- [R13] Airlines Manager Scam: Game is a scam. You spend money and then are forced to start over and you lose the coins and the money you spent.
- [R8] Airlines Manager Very good: Aight first I’m not a bot. I just like this game. It’s very good, only thing is it takes a lot of waiting. Like type of game you log in half an hour in evening and half hour in morning and that’s it. But very fun
- [R28] Airlines Manager Eh. Fun for a little bit then waiting a lot: Looked fun and I had fun for the first few days but you get to a point where you just sit and wait and you lose interest in the game over the period of a few days. Can’t do much except wait until I get more money or spend money in the game. No thanks.
- [R33] Airlines Manager The game is ok I guess: Ok so for some reason my last airline was really good like 27.920 place in ranking but with my new airline it says 38.666 so I’m asking how and why am I stuck in those spots and also this game is slow but addictive but the thing that really ticks me off is route prices like really is impossible for me to get a new route when I was saving money that’s why I restarted once so
- [R42] Airlines Manager My experience after 4 years: Welll…it’s been a long time since I’ve played,but it is very hard to just get a few aircraft,hubs,routes…yeah.
- [R36] Airlines Manager Not a terrible game: It’s not a terrible game. Seems like you can progress without having to pay but it looks like there is a subscription service that would make it easier. They used to have a free daily reward in the shop that you didn’t have to watch an ad for but with the recent update it seems to have gone away. Now everything is behind an ad or pay to play. Maybe I’m missing it but I haven’t
- [R43] Airlines Manager Ad based game: Insane amount of ads
- [R51] Airlines Manager Good game: This is a good game, but not very fun. You will spend more time watching ads versus actual time playing the game! I’ve had it a couple weeks, but tired of having to watch ads instead of enjoying the game play. Uninstalling the game and in search of something more interesting to spend my free time doing.
- [R12] Airlines Manager Uhh🫥🫥😐🫤: Can you fly the airplanes?please answer me.
- [R80] Airport City Manager Simulator One of the best games I’ve ever had but: One of the best games I’ve ever had but I thought you could fly planes and land
- [R20] Airlines Manager Waiting for 10 years still without Chinese: Chinese!please Chinese!thanks a lot! We need Chinese from China fans
- [R37] Airlines Manager No Chinese: No Chinese language option. · translated
- [R39] Airlines Manager Por favor: Es un buen juego y tiene muchos fans en China. ¿Se puede añadir el idioma chino? Estoy tan cansado de jugar esto en un idioma extranjero
- [R44] Airlines Manager Please Add Chinese Language Support: I really enjoy playing Airlines Manager: Plane Tycoon, but I find it difficult to fully enjoy the game because there is no Chinese language support. Many players in China would love to play this game if a Simplified Chinese version were available. Please consider adding Chinese language support in future updates. It would make the game more accessible and enj
Synthesized from 120 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store