This guide was written for the 3/23/17 Experemental Patch.

The trick is to start TINY and cram everything togeather in a small space while having enough to deal with all of the passengers. My starting terminals are usually about half the square footage of the template terminal. My current runthrough is even allowing me to accomodate a 777 as my very first flight. It is easier with the smaller gate, but completely doable if you keep a keen eye on your starting funds.

During the initial construction I only have a single staff member, one workman who builds everything from the ground up at $15 per hour. I place down everything I can, and then hire the staff to start working immediately after being plopped down. I've got it down to where I can pre-plan big objects like runway, taxiways, the first gate and fencing before I hire the staff member. With a bit more effort I could probably plan out the entire starting terminal before construction begins, so all I need to do is que up work orders in places where construction overlaps as it is completed. By the time the terminal is finished with it's initial construction, I can schedual the first few flights (somewhere between 3-5 planes per day) and hire the remaining staff just as the first busfull of passengers arrives. This means that even before I hire the rest of the staff that the planes will be bringing in a surplus of funds to then expand the initial setup.

Two things I will note is that, first, about %50 of my from scratch startups did NOT include a conveyor system because it can be prohibitively expensive at the start, especially when picking the XL gate to start with. And secondly, with a single workman doing the initial construction, I have noticed that I can got as late as Day 6 before I am prepared to schedual my first flight.

The number one thing to keep in mind is the "Airport Status" and the requirements for being "Open & Fully Operational". As a reminder, these requirements are:

*. Requires Dropoff zone

*. Requires Pickups zone

*. Requires Deliveries zone

*. Requires Restroom zone

*. Requires Ticketing zone

*. Requires Security zone

*. At least one Airport Gate must be functional

*. At least one Runway must be functional


I am going to ammend the list by including these details bellow

Restrooms, Ticketing and Security must all have their operational conditions met:

Restrooms:

*. A minimum of one Toilet

*. A minimum of one Sink

*. Enclosed space
**. This enclosed space must be a seperate room with a door for access.

Ticketing:

*. A minimum of one Ticketing Desk
**. As far as I know, Ticketing Kiosks do NOT count twards this requirement, however if the developers felt so inclined, I could see this becoming an option in the future with the idea that with such a setup, checked baggage would not be allowed.

Security Zone (listed in the order passengers will pass through):

*. ID Check Stand

*. Bag Scanner

*. Metal Detector or Body Scanner

Gates, Runways and Baggage Routing Stations must be placed in a secured area. This means that the outside portion of the airport must be fenced off, with or without a gate for staff access, and the access to any of these areas within the building must be behind a security zone, seperating it from the rest of the building, the only exception is with the use of the Security Exit, which may be placed as a one-way door to exit the secured portion of the building.

If at any point the un-interupted line is broken between the edge of the map, fencing and gates, and building walls that boarder the secured area, interior or exterior to the building, the security line will be broken and all three will become inoperable after a short time, causing any schedualed flights to be canceled, giving a message along the lines of "Airport Inoperable" due to the requirements of the gates and runways to be behind the security line to be considered useable.


It may be noticeable that I did not include the baggage claim zone, nor the garbage zone. I honestly do not know if you can get by without these, but I place them regardless. A baggage claim area does NOT require a baggage carousel. Withough a baggage circulation system in place, one of the staff members will shuttle baggage around using golf carts, and what comes off of the plane will simply be dumped out onto the open floor for the passengers to collect.

Here are some screenshots of an example "From Scratch" airport. I will note that the zones may change color between screenshots due to reloading the game in order to get the zones to show up correctly. Adding and removing zones repeatedly sometimes results in the zone names glitching, either by not being removed when I delete or alter a zone's size, or when placed doesn't show up at all.

Runway, Taxiways and XL gate qued:
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890624895

Initial building interior planning using zones for place holders:
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890624747

Interior planning completed, security zone object footprints used to define outer wall. Note that I already have the ques for the gate in place, these are free to place at any time and foundations can be built ontop of them so long as you don't try to build a wall over them.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890624828

Fence line completed, using upper right security zone as a streight edge to line up horizontal and vertical fences.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890624642

Contstruction started. Dropoff, Pickups, Deliveries and Garbage zones moved:
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890650088

Morning Day 3 of construction. Note that I am installing plopable objects as the foundation is placed. The result is that the delivery zone is almost always full during construction, meaning the worker is never idle during the building phase:
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890657964

Morning Day 7 All Required construction is complete and the first flight, a 777, is schedualed to arrive in just under 24 hours. I also have enough left over to start building the conveyor system:
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890666898

Morning Day 8, the first passengers arrive, staff for all ticketing desks, gate agents and ID check stands hired as well as one janitor. There is not enough funds to complete the conveyor system on the first day of operation.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890683890

Morning Day 14 Conveyor system completed just hours before the morning flight arrives.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890700290

End of the third week, finishing touches complete on first phase of airport. At this point it is self sustainable with a 67% raiting.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890714940

One of the things I would like to mention with this startup method is that I do not use ANY of my starting funds on research, I work with what I have unlocked from the start. It is only after I start running into problems regarding traffic on the roads, or the volume of passengers that I build the offices and begin to research things. At the begining of the game with only a single gate, there aren't enough passengers arriving to warrant the extra funds being spent on paying your officers ontop of doing the actual research. Also, with this method of building up there should NEVER be a need to take out a loan. In the current state of the game is a complete waste of money to begin with, as your payments do not contribute to paying off the loan, only the interest.