Building Your Airport6 min read
Saving, the cart & builds
One button closes the loop between designing and flying: Save & view cart. It always saves your layout first - your work is never lost - then shows exactly what the design costs before a single Aero moves.
Saving & the cart
Press Save & view cart and two things happen in order. First, your layout geometry is saved - runways, taxiways, aprons, placements, all of it. Then the cart modal opens, titled Save your airport, listing every charge your changes imply:
- Material unlocks- first use of a surface you haven't unlocked (materials).
- Paved area- the square metres of surface you've drawn beyond your free allotments.
- Area-level upgrades - if you grew the buildable circle.
- Objects- anything placed that you don't already own is bought automatically to cover the placement.
Below the line items you get a Total (estimate)and your balance shown before → after, so there's never a surprise on confirm.

Paying
The confirm button reads the situation for you: it says Save when everything is free, and Save & pay Ⓐn when it isn't. If you can't cover the total, a Not enough Aeros notice links straight to your wallet - see Earning Aeros for how to fill it.
Build & sync runs the exact same cart, with one addition: after payment your design is queued for a build (the button reads ...& build). Use plain save while you're iterating; use build when you want the result in the sim.
The two-airport split
MSFS can only flatten an airport to one height. If two of your runways sit at very different elevations, the build has to create two airports - a second ICAO appears in-sim alongside the first. The cart warns loudly when this applies and requires an explicit checkbox acknowledgment before you can pay.
The build lifecycle
Track builds on the airport cards at Your airports. The status pill moves through:
- Queued
- Waiting for a build machine. A queue badge in the portal nav shows the depth, or your position as Build #N.
- Running
- Compiling your airport package right now.
- Built
- Done - ready to sync and fly.
- Failed
- Something went wrong; the card shows a Retry button. If retries don't clear it, see Troubleshooting.
Supporters'jobs enter a priority lane that build machines claim before standard jobs; within each lane it's first-come-first-served.

After the build
When you queue a build you'll see Build queued, and a notification arrives on completion along with a Get the app to sync & fly CTA. If the companion app is installed, it picks up the fresh build automatically the next time MSFS is closed - the full pipeline is in Syncing to MSFS.
Iterate freely
Rebuilding after edits is free- you pay for what you add, never for compiling it again. Build as often as you like; many builders rebuild after every session. And once the field is something you're proud of, share it: Public airport pages.
