IMO the pay per rotation at airports should be the same for all airports. The number of paid rotations should be the differentiator between categories.
This way everyone is incentivized to fly everywhere (even cat 1 airports), and larger airports retain the potential to earn more due to their capacity to handle higher weekly traffic.
Vote for this idea here:
Hi @Karim-CTO-SimFly Any updates on the changes to CAT 5 - 6 - 7 payouts?
When do we plan to roll out this changes?
I like this idea; I completely agree.
The category should influence the number of flights allowed, not the payment.
Furthermore, there are other adjustments that airports need. For example: SEQM is the airport in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and in SimFly it’s a Category 3 airport. SEGU is another airport, also in Ecuador, in Guayaquil, and in SimFly it’s a Category 4 airport.
SEQM has better infrastructure and more actual traffic than SEGU. The runway is longer and is being expanded.
Both airports should be Category 4 or even Category 5 if we compare them with other Category 5 airports in SimFly. But it’s a matter of properly adjusting the categories; the opinions and information that the community can provide will be very helpful.
I’m just giving one example, but there are many similar cases in SimFly.
Many airports in China that are currently in low SimFly categories are being expanded. This needs to be taken into account when updating each airport’s SimFly category. For example, ZGNN appears to be nearing Category 5 status.
I also think that changing category once the airport has been already purchased wouldn’t be a good idea, but, of course before buying an airport anybody can decide that simfly could raise the airport price 
, or why not, lower it..
Thank you @StarVen
I have also submitted this () as an AMA. Please vote for it if you have not already.
It’s also worth considering the possibility of paying the difference in value for the category, but subtracting the cost of the levels achieved. Of course, this wouldn’t make any sense in categories 5 and above; the difference would be enormous.
Hi @StarVen , a year ago i made the same question in the AMA for another airports with the same problematic. They answered me that if the airports are already been bought the variations is impossible. For airports that are still in the Bank of Simfly you can send a support ticket with the analysis and the motivation for the change of category and then they will evaluate.
I hope i was helpful, have a nice day.
Roberto once explained in the video, long long time ago. That, this could be possible and will do it for free. (I’m sorry I couldn’t find the clip since long time ago.), if there is(are) enough reason(s) to support.
Ex: some airports, CAT3, later expands its infrastructure, adding runway, terminals IRL., so what StarVen proposed was interesting, that the owner pay for the different (to be fair to both Simfly & airport owner), but should less than the original price of CAT4.
This also rewards to the CAT3 owner too (or another CAT), that he/she has a vision, study and well-planning to acquire the airport before it is developing IRL.
Hi, we will proceed with the changes this week. I’ll let you know as soon as they are implemented.
Hey @Karim-CTO-SimFly,
Just flew into a CAT 5 airport and the payout is still noticeably lower than CAT 4. Nothing seems to have changed from my end.
You mentioned updates were coming this week.
In order not to kill the economy of the game, it would have been necessary to have the same number of PAX of winning, regardless of the category of the airport.
The difference is in the number of rotations per week, the level of the airport and the quality of the pilot’s landing. I’m going to be honest, differentiating the gains because an airport costs more, is not going to promote the attractiveness of new players.
This will just favor people who can invest heavily in simfly and not more modest players.
If the CAT5 is not yet paying enough and well, there are CAT3 and 4 waiting for you and their owners will be delighted.
If we permanently favor CAT5, 6 and 7 and much more no player will go on CAT1, 2, 3 and 4. So the right balance is there. Same price for each airport and only the quality of the pilot’s landing will make the difference on the gains.
They may reduce the number of slots that exist today, but the payout value should remain the same.
e.g.: CAT 1 - 4 operations
CAT 2 - 8
CAT 3 - 16
CAT 4 - 32
CAT 5 - 64
CAT 6 - 128
If I still support an update for CAt 5 / 6 / 7 payment, I start to understand the point of Simfly management team and why they made the earnings lower on cat 5 and +.
I compared earning from my best 4, with latest cat 5 :
KIWA (Cat 4) in April : 40.48Pax/m
(about 25-30 for my other cat 4, so it’s 31.78 in average )
LEBL (Cat 5) : 79.22 since April 15th : about 90-95 Pax/m
EDDF (Cat 5) : 509.28 since January 10th : 127Pax/m
TSJS (Cat 5) : 106,65 since April 11th : 106Pax/m
So yes, cat 5 pay less per flight, but finaly the owner earn more (about x3 or x4) !
However, looking at the price difference (x11.7), the “return on investment” seems clearly less intereting.
If we start on a theory that each flight (regardless of the category) reports 0.80PAX.
So with the same remuneration, a CAT 5 will make 6.5x more gain. So it’s not the profitability of the airport that is the problem but the number of players in SIMFLY.
This afternoon, I counted the number of players in flight and the number of registered players. The ratio represented 3.5% of active player (I don’t count double or triple accounts), it’s ridiculous.
So there is a problem in the attraction for Simfly and I have my ideas of why.
Unfortunately I have to disagree.
My Cat 4 airport already generates 100+ PAX/month
and I just upgraded to LVL2, so it will grow even more:
March = 106.11 PAX
April = 108.10 PAX
May (1–8, partial as LVL2) = 40.43 PAX
(And LVL3 is coming fast at this rate . THANK YOU ALL, by the way! 
Now here’s something else for the issue, and I don’t think it’s been addressed yet:
So even if we equalize the per-operation payout and limit by slots, the math still doesn’t work in favor of CAT5. The upgrade path is much slower and costly, and the per-level reward is identical.
There has to be some incentive for committing that kind of capital to a CAT5 airport. And I don’t mean that CAT 5 needs to generate substantially more than a CAT4. Could even be the same as a CAT4 upgraded to a certain level.
And on one point I agree 100%: SimFly needs to attract more players.
I think one of the biggest issues currently affecting SimFly growth is the way airport payouts and the premium system are structured.
At the moment, many CAT 1 and CAT 2 airports are barely used unless the owner personally flies there. Even many CAT 3, 4 and 5 airports remain inactive if they are not premium. The result is that traffic becomes concentrated around a relatively small group of premium airports, often owned and used by the same players repeatedly.
This creates a kind of closed circle that unintentionally leaves many other players outside of the economy and progression loop.
Today, why should a new player buy a CAT 4 airport if it is not premium? Most players would prefer flying to a premium CAT 3 airport for better PAX returns. But since CAT 4 and above pay more, even many CAT 3 airports are skipped. The result is a huge number of airports sitting unused.
There are players who own many airports, but this does not necessarily help the ecosystem grow if traffic keeps circulating between the same assets and the same users.
For example, I can see this directly with my CAT 3 airport at LIRZ. It usually does not receive visits unless I first fly to someone else’s airport, and often there is not even a return visit. This is not about my own airport specifically — it reflects the current overall situation.
Another important point is the gameplay balance itself.
At the moment, longer flights with autopilot often generate better rewards than shorter flights where the pilot is actually actively flying and managing procedures. In many airliners, after takeoff you engage autopilot and sometimes even autoland handles the landing. Meanwhile, pilots who truly enjoy flying manually, performing procedures, handling approaches, navigation and shorter operations are often less rewarded.
This feels backwards for a flight simulation environment.
There is also another issue that should probably be considered seriously: the active player base is still relatively small. If there are around 150 active users, and among them there are also multiple secondary accounts flying mainly between their own airports, the ecosystem risks becoming even more closed and stagnant over time.
The project probably needs adjustments focused on attracting new players, not only keeping current users satisfied — myself included.
Realistically, among the top active users, there may not even be 100 premium subscriptions right now. Maybe around 70–80. Financially, that does not seem like a very strong long-term ecosystem by itself, especially considering future plans involving marketplace percentages and PAX economy transactions.
I genuinely think SimFly has an excellent core idea and a lot of potential. The concept is very good. But perhaps some aspects of the economy and progression system were underestimated or not fully anticipated during development.
Personally, I believe the system would attract more players if:
airport payouts were more balanced across categories,
each airport level allowed more operational rotations,
the premium dependency was reduced,
shorter and more active flights were rewarded more fairly,
and the ecosystem encouraged broader traffic distribution instead of concentration.
The old mission system also helped create movement and activity across the network, and removing it reduced one of the incentives for variety and exploration.
Right now it feels like a relatively small group of premium users circulates between the same airports repeatedly, while many other players lose motivation because they do not see realistic opportunities to grow inside the current structure.
This is not meant as destructive criticism — I enjoy SimFly and would genuinely like to see it succeed and grow long term — but I think these are important points worth discussing for the future health of the community and economy.
Greetings, friends!
The wonders we have in SimFly depend on the people who use it.
For everything to make sense and for any changes or updates to work properly, thousands of active users are needed; SimFly needs to be promoted on a large scale.
The foundation of success lies in people who love flight simulation, or even if they don’t fly, people who want to be active in SimFly, generating passive income. Multiple accounts don’t really help much; they might benefit one individual, but they don’t help the program much. Thousands of active users are needed, and that’s what will give SimFly a lot of life.
SimFly’s communication through videos is also essential; this has declined significantly and should be addressed.
Simfly is definitly more on creating a flying community than anything else. I met some wonderful people tru the ecosystem.
Just a reminder to everyone…please try to mantain ON TOPIC … and dont go off topic on a post that is there to make a discussion on a specific topic.
We will release it tomorrow together with all the other deployments, including the new mission.