The Economy7 min read
How the economy works
Everything in Project Airports is priced in Aeros (Ⓐ), a single soft currency. You earn it by flying and being part of the world; you spend it on land, surfaces, and objects. The design anchor is simple: Ⓐ1,000 is worth roughly one US dollar of progress, and dedicated free play earns about that much per day.
Aeros
Every account has one wallet. Every earn and every spend is a line in an append-only ledger you can read on the wallet page- there are no hidden adjustments. The balance can never go below zero: if a purchase doesn't fit, it's rejected with exactly how much you're short, never an overdraft.
Where Aeros come from
| Source | Pays | Daily limit |
|---|---|---|
| Idle income (companion app open) | Ⓐ1 / minute | 120 / day |
| Active flight (see Earning Aeros) | Ⓐ1 / minute × 1.0–4.0 multiplier | up to 1,440 min / day |
| Landing at a published airport | Ⓐ25–150 per landing | 5 / airport, 10 total / day |
| Visitors landing at YOUR airport | Ⓐ15–40 per visit | 20 paid visits / day |
| Companion app variety bonus | Ⓐ1 / minute | 60 / day |
| Onboarding milestones | Ⓐ100–1,500 each (Ⓐ4,600 total) | one-time |
| Signup founding bonus | Ⓐ10,000 | one-time |
| Supporter kit ($25+) | Ⓐ25,000 | one-time |
Full mechanics, multipliers and the landing formula: Earning Aeros.
Where Aeros go
| Spend | Price |
|---|---|
| Your first land claim | Free |
| More land claims | Ⓐ25,000× how many you've bought (2nd 25k, 3rd 50k…) |
| Buildable-area levels (details) | L2 Ⓐ15,000 · L3 Ⓐ40,000 (L4/L5 coming soon) |
| Surface materials (details) | Unlock fee Ⓐ1,000–25,000 + a few Ⓐ-cents per m² paved |
| Objects & decor (pricing model) | Size-based; a small hut ~Ⓐ100s, big hangars Ⓐ1,000s, world landmarks up to Ⓐ100k+ |
| Vegetation paint | Per 1,000 m² painted, by biome |
| Two-elevation airport split | Ⓐ100,000 one-time |
Caps & fairness
Grind income (idle, flight, landings, visits, variety) shares one daily cap: Ⓐ1,000 per day for free accounts, Ⓐ2,500for Supporters. One-time grants and refunds don't count against it. The cap clamps rather than errors - you keep whatever fits, and the meter resets daily.
Anti-cheese, in plain terms
Landing income requires a real flight: a session at least a minute old, believable touchdown physics, and position telemetry that puts your aircraft near the runway. Time-based income is clamped to real wall-clock time, so parallel sims or clock tricks don't stack. You'll likely never notice any of this - it exists so the leaderboard flyers are real ones.
Refunds
Two different refunds are easy to mix up: unused purchased material area refunds at 25% from the builder; releasing a whole claim refunds 40% of that airport's material spend (never the land price - land is the one thing meant to feel scarce). Unplaced objects return to your account pool at full value instead of being lost.
Your wallet
The wallet pageshows your balance, today's idle/active earnings, your income-tier multiplier, the objects you own (owned / placed / spare), and the recent ledger. The yellow balance pill in the portal header goes there from anywhere.