How to Play Headwinds

Headwinds is a free, browser-based multiplayer airline game. You join a world shared with other real people and grow a startup carrier into a global airline — while a server clock ticks the whole world forward, online or not. This guide takes you from sign-in to a working airline.

By the Headwinds team · Last updated October 29, 2026

There's nothing to download. You sign in once, join a world, and start flying. The one thing to understand before anything else: every other airline on the map belongs to a real person. There are no computer opponents to farm — your rivals scout, adapt, form alliances, and hold grudges, and the world doesn't pause when you close the tab.

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What you're playing for

Each Headwinds world runs for a fixed span of game-years and then ends with final standings. The goal is to sit at the top of that table when the clock runs out. Standings rank every airline still flying on its average weekly net profit over the last 52 weeks — weeks it wasn't flying count as zero — and the title goes to the best average over the world's final 52 weeks. So the winner is the airline that ran the most profitable operation for a sustained year, not simply the biggest, and it has to get there without going bankrupt. Private and listed airlines are ranked alike: taking your company public on the Stocks tab is a way to raise money, not a ticket to the podium. Because there's no AI to beat, finishing first means you out-flew actual people. Weekly rankings and in-game board objectives give you shorter targets to chase on the way there, and when a world ends its champion, podium and season awards are published and go on every player's career record.

Getting into a world

Sign in

Sign in with a Google or Discord account, or with an email sign-in link — no password to invent. One account carries all your airlines, across every world you join and every device you play on, so you can start on a laptop and check in from a phone. Your email is only ever used to identify your account; other players never see it.

Pick a world and found your airline

Browse the open worlds and join one. Each world's card shows its pace, how far through its run it is, how many seats are left and which rule tags it plays under. Some are already running with rivals in flight; others haven't started yet — their clock starts with the first airline to join, or at a scheduled time shown on the card, and you can set up your airline while you wait. Private worlds need a join code or password from whoever runs them, and the Invite button gives you a world's link to send a friend. When you join, you name your airline and choose a home airport — your first hub. That choice shapes your whole early game, so it's worth a moment's thought (more on that below).

Learn the world clock

This is what makes Headwinds different from a solo tycoon game: time runs on the server, not on your turns. Every world sets its own pace, and the world list spells it out — "a game year every 2 days", for instance, is a game week roughly every hour — and the clock keeps running whether you're watching or asleep. You don't grind through weeks — you set up a network, let it run, and come back to a debrief of what happened while you were gone.

A Headwinds airline dashboard with the server clock and next-tick countdown in the header, above cash, profit, revenue, fleet, fleet age, network, load factor and yield tiles and a weekly P&L — The Dashboard of a Headwinds airline 43 game years into its world. The server clock at the top shows the game date and the countdown to the next weekly tick, which runs whether you're signed in or not. Below it: $12.5B in cash, $34.49M of weekly revenue and a 93.5% load factor, and a fleet averaging 32.7 years old that costs 537% more to maintain than new aircraft would.

Your first moves

Choose a hub with room to breathe

Before you commit, look at where rivals are already established — the join form tells you how many airlines are already based at the airport you type. A mid-size city with strong local demand and no entrenched competitor is usually a better home than the world's busiest airport, where you'd be fighting established players from your first week. Early on, empty space is worth more than prestige.

Get aircraft flying immediately

Your first two aircraft are delivered the moment you order them (the Starter Fleet perk), so you can open routes from the moment you found your airline instead of waiting on a delivery queue. Later orders arrive on the normal schedule, which is longer the bigger the aircraft; secondhand aircraft from the Used Market arrive at the next tick. In worlds tagged Production lines, each aircraft family comes off one factory line shared by every airline, so rivals' orders can push yours back; your own deliveries from a line are spaced one to five weeks apart by size, and an earlier slot costs up to 25% more. Use your first pair to prove a couple of markets, then lease more to match the missions you actually fly — small regional aircraft for short, thin routes; single-aisle jets for busy corridors. Don't lease long-range metal you'll only fly on short hops. In worlds tagged Restricted leasing, lessors only carry previous-generation single-deck aircraft, so anything newer or bigger has to be bought.

Open routes into open demand

Start with two or three routes out of your hub. The best early targets are city pairs with healthy demand that no rival is serving yet — claim them before someone else does. Every departure needs a gate slot at both ends: you start with a gate at your hub, and the Route Finder shows your free slots at each airport, with a + Gate button wherever you're short. Price each route to clear its costs with room to spare, then watch your load factor: above 80% and it's working; stuck near 40% and it's bleeding you.

Route Planner analysis of San Francisco to Honolulu in a Headwinds world, showing market demand, the leisure and business split, reference price, seasonality and a note that no competitors fly the pair — The Route Planner sizing San Francisco–Honolulu in the same world: 69,216 passengers a week one way, 85% of them leisure travellers, and a $353 reference fare. For now, no other airline flies the pair.

Let the clock run, then read the debrief

Step away and let a few game weeks pass. When you return, review what changed: which routes earned, which lost, where your cash landed, and — crucially — what your rivals did. Maybe a competitor opened against you; maybe one abandoned a market you can now take. This read-and-respond loop is the core of the game.

Respond to your rivals

When another player moves onto one of your routes, the passengers split between you based on fare, frequency, service, brand awareness and loyalty. You can defend the route by matching fares and adding flights, differentiate with more departures, or redeploy that aircraft somewhere you have the edge. Choosing well is most of the skill.

Route network map of a Headwinds airline with 26 routes, mostly spokes from San Francisco plus routes from Los Angeles — Network › Map for the same airline: 26 routes, almost all of them spokes from a San Francisco Major Hub, plus a Los Angeles focus city. Green lines are profitable routes and red ones lose money.

Numbers to watch

A handful of figures tell you where you stand — against the market and against the people in it:

Cash — your runway. It funds leases, fuel, and staff while routes mature. Keep a cushion; the clock won't wait while you scramble. Six straight weeks of negative cash, or three missed loan payments, and your airline is declared bankrupt.
Load factor — the share of seats you're selling. High load means your fares and capacity fit demand; chronic low load means too many seats, too high a fare, or a market that isn't there.
Standings & profit — your rank among the real airlines in the world, ordered by average weekly net profit over the last 52 weeks. This is the scoreboard, and it updates every week as rivals grow too; the same table sorts everyone by last week's profit, net assets, passengers, flights or fleet size.
Who's on your routes — the rival views show which players fly where. Knowing who you're up against is half of deciding what to do about them.

Tip: because the world never pauses, the strongest early habit is building a network that runs cleanly without you — then checking in to steer, not to babysit.

Because your rivals are people

Headwinds ships with an in-game messaging system and player-run alliances, and they matter as much as your route map. You can strike a truce over a contested market, carve up a region with partners, or simply talk trash across the standings. Deals aren't enforced by the game — a rival can always walk away or turn on you — which makes trust its own kind of strategy. It also means conduct matters: a short set of Fair Play Rules keeps every world fair, and a Report button handles anyone who breaks them.

Common early mistakes

Picking a fight on day one. Opening against an established rival at a crowded hub splits demand you can't afford to split yet. Grow in open space first.
Forgetting the clock. Over-expanding right before you log off can leave a fragile network running unattended for hours. Expand in steps you can check on.
Single-threading into a contested market. Betting your whole airline on one route a rival also wants is fragile. Spread across a few markets where you're strong.
Ignoring that rivals see you too. Your network, fares, and fleet are visible to other players. Assume they're scouting you the way you should be scouting them.

What comes next

Once the basics click — sign in, hub, fleet, routes, and the world loop — Headwinds opens up: connecting hubs, alliances and diplomacy, a loyalty program to lock in repeat flyers, debt to fund a well-timed expansion, and the long game of finishing a world on top. The Headwinds strategy guide goes deep on competing against real people, and the Fair Play Rules cover the ground everyone stands on.

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