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Flagships: Double-Deckers & Supersonic

The A380, 747 family and Concorde in Headwinds: seats, range, lease cost and economics of the game’s biggest and fastest aircraft — and when they actually pay.

These are the trophy aircraft of Headwinds — the double-deck giants and the supersonic Concorde. Every player wants to fly them. Most players lose money the first time they try. This page is about flying them profitably.

Double-deckers live or die on one question: can the route fill 400–550 seats week after week? That only happens on the world's great trunk routes, usually between mega-hubs with strong feed on both ends. When it works, per-seat costs are excellent. When it doesn't, the weekly lease alone erases the profit of half your network.

Concorde is its own economy. Its fuel burn is extraordinary, but supersonic prestige commands a large ticket premium in-game, and on the right premium transatlantic-style pairing it can work as a halo aircraft — brand first, margin second.

How to choose

Honestly? Wait. Flagships belong in a mature network with established mega-hubs, deep cash reserves, and proven trunk routes bursting past the capacity of your largest twins. Then, and only then, they are glorious.

All 9 aircraft at a glance

Figures are the game's actual values. Fuel cost assumes the base fuel price of $1.20/litre — the live market price in your save drifts between roughly half and nearly double that, which is why fuel hedging matters.

Aircraft as a message

The aircraft on this page are not efficiency decisions. A double-decker or a supersonic is a statement about what kind of airline you intend to be, and in a world full of real people, statements land. Rival profiles show every player's fleet by type and their moves week by week, so the order is public long before the aircraft is — and a flagship order is the loudest thing you can put on that feed.

Expect a reaction. Some of it is useful to you: players who were considering a run at your premium markets often decide the fight isn't worth it against an airline visibly committing at this level. Some of it isn't: a flagship tells everyone precisely which trunk route you must be about to operate, and a rival with lead time can be in that market building loyalty before your aircraft is delivered. Deciding which of those you're inviting is the actual strategic choice here, and it is worth more thought than the seat count.

The best seats-per-gate in the game

In worlds created with gate scarcity enabled, airports have hard capacity by size — 25, 100, 250 or 500 gates — with a 60% ceiling for any airline, an 80% ceiling for any alliance, and a 20% congestion surcharge on everyone once an airport passes 90% full. New gates arrive only through sealed-bid auctions opening in week 40, or from a player willing to sell.

A gate costs what it costs regardless of what stands at it, and nothing in Headwinds converts a single gate into as much capacity as the aircraft on this page. At a saturated mega-hub where you cannot buy another slot until next year's auction and every additional gate costs a surcharge, a very large aircraft is the only remaining way to grow. That is the genuine strategic case for the category — not prestige, but capacity per unit of contested ground. It is also why these aircraft tend to appear in mature worlds rather than young ones: they answer a problem that only exists once the good airports have filled up.

Nothing fills these alone

Local demand fills a flagship on a very small number of city pairs. Everywhere else you are filling it with connections, which in Headwinds means your own bank structure plus your alliance. Player-founded alliances hold up to eight members, charge a weekly fee, and pay interline revenue on itineraries crossing member networks along with a demand boost where a partner also flies.

For a flagship operator, the alliance is load factor. Get it settled before the aircraft is ordered, because an alliance negotiated once you are already committed is negotiated from the weaker side of the table, and the members can see your delivery coming as clearly as your rivals can. A mature loyalty programme matters here too — a flagship holds premium share at premium fares only while members keep choosing you through a rival's discounting, and that patience is what wins long sieges.

A flagship at 50% load is the fastest way to destroy a healthy balance sheet in Headwinds. Before committing, be honest about whether the route can fill it against a rival who is actively trying to stop you — not whether it could fill it on an empty map.

The worst grounding in the game

Mechanical failures cost money as well as downtime, at a rate set as a share of the airframe's purchase price and scaled by an age curve that reaches roughly triple the base at twenty years and five and a half at thirty, with genuinely elderly airframes occasionally written off outright. Applied to the most expensive aircraft in the game, that is the largest single financial event most airlines will ever face — and it lands on the route carrying more of your weekly revenue than any other.

The two defences both need to exist beforehand. A jet base certified for the aircraft's family cuts the cost and the downtime, but a heavy base consumes three gates at the field it occupies — a real sacrifice of flying capacity, and a hard call at exactly the congested hubs these aircraft operate from. A reserve only covers a grounded tail if it is the same type standing by at the same hub, which for a one-flagship airline means no cover exists at any price. Operating a single aircraft of this class is a bet that nothing goes wrong for the rest of the world.

When they're actually right

Late, dense, defended. Late, because the category solves a congestion problem young worlds don't have and requires feed a young network can't supply. Dense, because only a handful of city pairs per world can fill one against opposition. Defended, because the whole investment rests on holding a market that every rival can see you depend on — which the hub strategy guide covers in terms of bank structure and territory, and the rivals & alliances guide covers in terms of the deals that keep a trunk route uncontested.

Get all three right and a flagship is the most profitable aircraft you will ever operate, and the one that puts your name at the top of the standings. Get one of them wrong and it is the most expensive mistake available in the game. The specifications below will tell you what each type can do; only your world will tell you whether it should.

Type-by-type notes