Skip to Content

How to play Pocket Planes: FAQ, Walkthrough and Beginner’s Guide

Welcome to the beginner’s guide and FAQ for the wildly popular Pocket Planes, a brand new iOS and Android game from the makers of Tiny Tower! Whether you are just starting out with the game, or you have some questions about how one or two things work, read on and you’re sure to find what you’re looking for.

Getting Started

The game’s premise is pretty basic, at least at first glance. Your goal is to load up one aircraft with passengers and/or cargo, and fly it from one airport to the next. To do this, when the aircraft is grounded and is on your screen, go to the row of 3 buttons in the lower left hand corner, and click the one on the far left. This will take you to a menu where you can see what available jobs you have for that aircraft. By default, the game will show you available jobs and hide the ones that you can’t do with that aircraft, but you can click the “All” button, to see all of them, the box button to see all cargo jobs, and the button that looks like a person to see all passenger jobs.

Next to the load-and-fly button in that button bar are the button that looks like the tower, and button that looks like an aircraft with a magnifying glass. The former lets you modify, advertise, upgrade or close your airport, and the latter lets modify, paint or shutter your aircraft, or change the pilot’s clothes.

When you are watching an aircraft as it flies, coins will fly by. Tap on these coins to collect them. The small coin is worth just 1 coin, but the large coin, which is also a common one, is worth 10 coins, potentially making a plane trip a LOT more profitable. The giant coin appears about 2-4 times per minute. Every so often, a free Bux will appear. Make doubly sure to grab that.

The Airport Information Screen

On the airport info screen, you can see all of the details on a particular airport, such as the population of the city it’s in and the airport size, all the way up to available layover slots and passengers or cargo. The “info” button gives you information about the city itself, while the “close” button lets you shut down an airport for good. The “airport upgrade” button lets you upgrade an airport to increase the amount of layover spaces, passengers and cargo that the airport offers. The “advertise” button allows you to “advertise” the airport, significantly increase the amount of people and shipments that fly in and out of the airport.

Click here to continue forward to part 2 of the Pocket Planes walkthrough, or click here to skip ahead to part 3.