About the Game
Airport CEO is a tycoon and management game where you take the seat as a CEO of your own airport. You will build the airport’s infrastructure with everything from runways and taxiways, gates and aprons to constructing terminals with check-in, security, restaurants and shops. You will manage the business perspective of the airport by hiring employees and executives, making deals with airline companies and making sure that ends meet by keeping an eye on budget and resources.
You will have to cater to the passengers by keeping waiting time to a minimum, by having friendly and helpful staff around and by making passengers feel secure, keeping any potential incidents at bay; a happy passenger is a spending passenger. Hopefully you won’t run into any problems such as stressed out employee, equipment breakdowns or bad weather which can cause massive delays or even emergency landings. You will be held accountable when things go wrong and filthy rich when things go right.

Running an airport
Your objective is to build and manage your airport to perfection by making strategic decisions, designing the optimal airport layout and ultimately making sure that your passengers and airlines are satisfied. You will need to build the entire airport from scratch including terminal foundations with floors, walls, doors and items as well as the airport infrastructure including runways, taxiways, aprons and other airport infrastructure. Everything in Airport CEO is deeply simulated and it is your job to make sure it all runs smoothly and with a positive bank account.
Airlines
Airlines and their travelers are an essential element of Airport CEO as they consist of the main source of your airport’s income. Signing contracts with airlines bring cash-flow and passengers to your airport which in term means opportunities for receiving different service fees, as well as passenger expenditures. Airlines come in different sizes and have different requirements on your airport and the services you offer, you are responsible for not only planning the flight schedule but also for meeting and maintaining the needs. Occasionally you will need to handle emergencies and delays due to bad weather or accidents in the area, all which will put your management skills to the test.

Passengers
Passengers in Airport CEO all have their unique personalities, needs, a background story and most importantly; a flight to catch (on time). Passengers are thoroughly simulated and their decisions, behaviors and opinions about your airport are affected by several factors. Passengers in Airport CEO, just as in real life, must wait in lines, check in, pass security and then entertain themselves until their flight is ready for boarding. Arriving passengers must find their way the baggage claim, get a hold of their bags and maybe pass a customs booth before getting on their airport transfer. Whether they’ll be able to actually catch their flight is up to you: Passengers might have a hard time finding their way around the airport so you build an information desk, passengers might get irritated because of the long security queue and waiting time so you extend its capacity, passengers might complain about the lack of fun things to do in the gate area so you build a duty-free shop or exclusive brand boutiques.
Employees
Employees are those you rely on to keep your airport running. Just as passengers they are simulated individuals who have a mind of their own. Employees have a number of different roles and it is your job to make sure that your airport has the right and necessary work force at any time. From passenger service agents, janitors, ramp agents and mechanics, security officers to administrators and executives. The more you expand your airport’s capacity and services, the more versatile and skilled your employees have to be. When employees interact with passengers, they’ll have to be skilled at managing people and stress resistant in order to avoid making mistakes or give bad customer service.

Facilities and buildings
Airports are complex mega-structures with a lot of different buildings and facilities. While a small airport might not need more than a simple grass runway and a terminal, as you grow your airport you will have to expand its facilities ranging from air control towers, larger aircraft stands and taxiways to fire, weather, catering or fuel stations. As your airport grows your terminal grows with it and you will have to make sure that it is equipped with the necessary facilities that passengers are expecting. Building a terminal in Airport CEO is highly customizable where you lay out its shape and interior such floor type, walls, windows and doors. Baggage needs to be processed and transported to the same flight as its owner and its all up to you to avoid bottlenecks and by designing the ultimate airport terminal.
Being a CEO
Data, data, data! As the acting CEO of your airport you need to be able to make difficult business decisions based on current operation. In Airport CEO you’re provided with multiple sources of information from which you can draw conclusions and manage your airport. As the CEO you will not only be responsible for the architecture of the airport but also for those working in it. Tired of planning every flight? Establish an informatics department and let an automated system do it for you! Tired of assessing the monthly budget balance? Hire a CFO which can help you cut cost and set prices. Best of luck!
Screenshots
26 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
Thank you for playing Airport CEO! Long time no see, but it’s absolutely amazing to see that this game still to this day have hundreds if not thousands of daily CEOs building and managing small airfields to large international hubs. We're taking a short break from the development of our new title, ATMOSFAR, by bringing a very small but very important update to the default Airport CEO branch.
Today’s update is a maintenance release in response to a critical security vulnerability that was found in applications built with Unity dating back to 2017. More information about what exactly this vulnerability entails can be found here.
This release has been available on the experimental branch per the last two weeks to validate its fundamental stability and as of today we've now set it live on the default branch as well. Here’s the very short patch notes for this update:
Patch notes: Airport CEO 1.1-3
Improvement
- MERC-3161: Upgraded application to Unity 2019.4.41f in response to security vulnerability CVE-2025-59489
Thank you again for playing!
// Apog Labs
First off, thank you so much for all of the wonderful feedback on last week's major release! It's fantastic to see that the work we put into this game is still so highly appreciated to this date. As a response to that major release we are today back with Airport CEO 1.1-1, fixing some of the most widely reported issues in relation specifically to the new helicopter feature. Here's the patch notes for today's update:
Release notes - 1.1-1
Improvement
- MERC-464: Helicopter flights now differentiated using separate colors in the flight planner panel
Bug
- MERC-10: Vehicle purchase tutorial step contains image references to old UI
- MERC-299: Medium helipad panel incorrectly show option of ability to upgrade to jet bridge
- MERC-462: Medium helipads R&D project can be researched ahead of the commercial license R&D project
- MERC-470: Durability modifier is not shown when up- or downgrading medium and large stands
As mentioned before, we are continuing to monitor issues as they are reported and will most likely be back with additional stabilization updates over the coming months.
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
Long time no see but we are back with the tiniest update as of yet, Airport CEO 1.0-45, that addresses an important issue with the achievement trigger system that has affected a small number of users. This update will ensure that achievements such as the Wilhelm Röntgen properly triggers once achieved. Here's the short patch notes:
Release notes - 1.0-45
Bug
- [MERCURY-47109]: Some achievement does in very rare instances not correctly invoke when reaching the trigger value
Unrelated to Airport CEO, we as developers have some exciting news to share: https://steamcommunity.com/games/airportceo/announcements/detail/3666531626462318431
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
As you may have noticed we have over the past few days been doing some adjustments to the ATC system of Airport CEO, specifically targeting a few undesired behaviors featured mostly within very large airports. Today we're releasing the (most likely) final update in that series which takes care of some final stabilization in relation to these new updates, specifically...
Release notes - 1.0-44
Bug
- MERCURY-47103: Flights can on very large airports in rare instances be planned in the past due to a missing flight list cache clear
- MERCURY-47124: Flights on very large airports can slowly over time degrade in landing time accuracy
- MERCURY-47127: Serialized and de-serialized flights can due to an incorrect validation check on some airports bloat the flight data save file
While these balance issues primarily, as mentioned, with very large airports - ultimately airports of all sizes benefit from these improvements.
Thank you for playing and see you around the community!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
Happy Halloween! We're back with a super small update as a result of the flight planner double booking fix part of the recent -42 update. The automated flight booking system is one of the most complex and involved systems in the ACEO code base and this particular change caused some performance degradation that we are now sorting out. We'll most likely be back with another stability update in the near future, but until then here's today's patch notes:
Release notes - Version 1.0-43
Bug
- MERCURY-47061: Uncaught NullReferenceException in flight update and planning look can in very rare instances on extremelt large airports cause flight traffic to stall
- MERCURY-47044: Flight status sanity check algorithm can for very large airports with a multitude of schedule flights cause significant lag spikes of up to 15 seconds
Have a great weekend!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
Salutations from Gamescom 2022! Today we're bringing you an extremely small stability update as a threading issues has started showing its ugly face on the Windows version of the game, causing the game to not always correctly executing a quit to menu without crashing. This issue has now been mitigated as per the patch notes below...
Release notes - 1.0-40
Bug
- MERCURY-46689: Game application can in certain instances randomly crash when an active airport is being simulated as the player quits to the main menu
We hope you've had a good summer and are looking forward to supply additional updates over the coming months!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
It's been a while since we last corresponded but today we're breaking the silence with a small quality of life update: Airport CEO 1.0-39! As you will see per the below patch notes, this update mainly solves a few extremely rare issues that have come across our backlog per your bug reports over the last half year. Since Airport CEO is, as of over a year ago, fully out of early access we're not working on any additional major features but there are still a few lingering aircraft models that are being prepared for their maiden V1 and rotate. And while they're not deployed with this update; you can rest assure that we have not forgotten them!
Here's what's changing with this update...
Release notes - Version 1.0-39
Bug
- MERCURY-46425: Extremely rare exception in person movement system can cause passengers to get stuck on the wrong floor
- MERCURY-46416: Some projects can in rare instances have a lower max assignable admins amount than the minimum assignable amount
- MERCURY-46413: Flight planner does not always load correctly after closing the fligjht planning panel while dragging a flight
- MERCURY-46406: Aircraft can in extremely rare instances get stuck outside the active world
- MERCURY-46400: Cancelling of contracts can in extremely rare cases throw an unhandled NullReferenceException
- MERCURY-46366: Administrators can in extremely rare instances not be redistributed after project completion
- MERCURY-45993: Incorrect font in departure boarding card can cause some characters to appear as missing
- MERCURY-45345: Flights can in very rare instances overlap as a result of automatic planning on extremely large airports
While it's currently quite quiet over at Apog Labs, we're still burning the midnight oil. After feeling a bit of an early access communications burnout, communiqués from us has had a bit of a break as we've put our heads down and focused on the development of a new thing. But we'll be taking a break from that break later this summer via a studio update on the Apog Labs website, detailing some of the things we've occupied ourselves with during the first half of this year.
Until then... fly safe!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
We hope you're doing well and that you're staying safe. Today, Airport CEO celebrates one year since the 1.0 release and because of that we'll be running Airport CEO and all DLCs at 50% off throughout the weekend starting 19:00 CET! We're also launching Airport CEO 1.0-37 which is a super small update that mainly fixes a rare occurrence of certain aircraft in certain instances requesting the wrong type of fuel. Here's the change log for this update...
Release notes - 1.0-37
Bug
- MERCURY-45940: Certain aircraft can in rare instances not request to expected fuel type (especially BAE 146 requesting Avgas fuel)
- MERCURY-45668: New project button can in very rare instances still be active even if all projects are completed
- MERCURY-45630: Bug report version not correctly set
We are currently mainly focusing on Project Venus, the working title of and the next Apog Labs project but there are still a few aircraft left to be implemented in Airport CEO; we have not forgotten about those! However, since we are for the moment mainly occupied with the future of the studio these are put on very low priority but will hopefully make it into the game sometime before the start of the summer.
Thanks for reading and stay safe!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
Happy new year and welcome to Airport CEO in the 2020s! We're kicking off this year with the release of Airport CEO 1.0-36, bringing about another batch of fixes and balances as well as a new GA aircraft, the Learjet 75, and also the final aircraft pack DLC as planned since the 1.0 release: Airport CEO: Beasts of the East!
Permanent solution for MacBook Pro M users
With the recent rapid release of Apple's new MacBooks containing M chips, both regular and pro, we've for the past months had a few issues with font rendering on those machines. That problem is with this update now finally permanently fixed and any new Apple M variants will run Airport CEO without any future font rendering issues.
Release notes - 1.0-36
New feature
MERCURY-45330: New aircraft: Learjet 75
MERCURY-45329: GA aircraft can now be set to use "correct" (as realistically defined by the player) fuel type if enabled in gameplay settings
Improvement
- MERCURY-45343: Tweaked negotiation points for an improved negotiation experience
Bug
- MERCURY-45608: Passenger interaction time at a boarding desk doesn't always properly reflect the staff's skill and desk's condition
- MERCURY-45606: Updated baggage claim room requirements to include at least three (3) baggage belts
- MERCURY-45508: Non-public transit structures can in rare instances be considered for airport transit calculations cause ghost cars to endlessly attempt parking at staff parking lots
- MERCURY-45466: Aircraft can in rare instances pushback despite being grounded due to severe weather incident
- MERCURY-45435: Certain franchise contracts cannot always be properly signed immediately via the room panel
- MERCURY-45379: Boarding start time can in some instances with extremely large flights start before that flight's time of arrival
- MERCURY-45374: Birds do not always spawn on expected coordinates on larger maps
- MERCURY-45366: Extremely rare baggage stack overflow exception when baggage belt claim areas do not contain proper carousels can cause application crash
- MERCURY-45363: Passengers waiting for check-in do not always claim seats in their flight's check-in counter terminal
- MERCURY-45344: Negotiation point aquisition not properly explained in contract panel
- MERCURY-45333: Selection overlay not always correctly aligned with object
- MERCURY-45331: Vehicles can in extremely rare instances become invisible when assigning them to a different depot
- MERCURY-45326: Chez Clara restaurant does not always reveal description
- MERCURY-45324: Queue points can in very rare instances cause an unoccupied section between existing queue points when loading airport
- MERCURY-45322: Remote stand without a terminal will not spawn a warning notification, causing re-fueling and other services to fail
- MERCURY-45315: Some MacBook devices not using Intel chips can in extremely rare instances not correctly render UI labels
- MERCURY-45081: Trashcans cannot always be relocated
Thanks for joining us in 2022 and we hope you'll have yet another flourishing CEO career year! See you soon.
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
We hope you had a good weekend. Last week we had another Steam sale event which means loads of new airport CEOs starting their career. As a result of this we've made sure to watch the backlog carefully during this past week and that's why we're back today yet again with another small stabilization update.
MacBook M1 Pro chip support
This update includes support for the latest MacBooks running the M1 Pro chip and will ensure that the game runs normally, however not natively, as Rosetta is still required for the game to launch.
New object selection highlighting system
We've implemented a small UX improvement coming in the shape of an object selection highlighting system, this means that objects that you can click and interact with are now highlighted when your mouse is within their selection area.
Release notes - 1.0-33
Improvement
- MERCURY-44982: Minor UI paneling improvements
- MERCURY-44912: Added selection box for objects to more easily identify them as intractable
Bug
- MERCURY-44994: Elevator is not always clickable
- MERCURY-44992: Completed flights can in certain instances be removed from the flight planner before the day is over
- MERCURY-44976: Selection overlay prioritize the room over items inside room
- MERCURY-44969: Hover tool tip description in settings panel can in certain instances appear out of view
- MERCURY-44958: Hiding the UI using F4 can break the UI toggling in certain panel instances
- MERCURY-44949: Right click settings not available on some items despite appearing selected
- MERCURY-44948: Object selection visuals only appear on ground floor related objects
- MERCURY-44947: Elevator menu not selectable despite showing selection overlay
- MERCURY-44926: Some objects displays selected overlay incorrect relative to actual object grid
- MERCURY-44925: Multiple selection overlays are de-selected if hovered over
- MERCURY-44924: Mesh setting warning spam in log can cause performance degradation
- MERCURY-44922: Text elements not rendering on MacBook M1 pro chips
- MERCURY-44919: Steam achievement sync invalidates The Collector-achievement on load
- MERCURY-44915: Incorrect aircraft references are in very rare instances serialized on hangars causing them to become unavailable
- MERCURY-44913: Room overlay doesn't scale properly with non-uniform sizes
- MERCURY-44911: Incorrect aspect ratio for image preview in color picker panel
- MERCURY-44910: Incident cool-down not working properly causing excessive incident load on higher difficulty setting
- MERCURY-44907: Vehicle path finding can in certain cases fail when vehicles enter or exit airport through specific road checkpoint configuration
- MERCURY-44890: Parking lot can in rare cases display occupied slots despite no vehicles present
- MERCURY-42134: Flights do not properly clear after extremely extended gameplay sessions causing gamedata .json to swell in size
That's all for now, enjoy your days at the office and see you later - fly safe!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
It's been a few weeks since we last spoke and a lot has happened since but we're back once again with another minor quality-of-life update of Airport CEO! This time it's time for 1.0-30 which again primarily addresses a few fringe case bugs along with some other very minor improvements but most importantly it addresses the bugged bug reporting system and brings that back to full functionality. But first...
We're now Apog Labs
As of October 15th 2021, our company’s legal entity name has changed to Apoapsis Game Laboratories AB but we will be known as Apog Labs. Other than this change, nothing will change in regards to how we develop, maintain and support our past and future products.
You can read more about the name change here.
Release notes - 1.0-30
Improvement
- MERCURY-44868: Mesh render setting adjusted for reduced overdraw and slightly improved performance
- MERCURY-44867: Minimum passenger ratio slightly increased
Bug
- MERCURY-44901: Persons can in extremely rare instances not render correctly due to faulty mesh setting
- MERCURY-44898: Very large saves can cause certain sound effects to fail playing when invoked
- MERCURY-44874: Some sliders can snap back to initial value when released
- MERCURY-44866: Text overflow in road settings panel for certain languages can cause performance degradation
- MERCURY-44855: Fuel truck can in extremely rare road configuration cases turn around at service road checkpoint
- MERCURY-44853: Stair truck option is missing from road node settings panel
- MERCURY-44835
: "The collector" achievement considers aircraft that are not in a non-modded airline fleet- MERCURY-44824: Year change observers not correctly invoked causing some year dependent features to not execute
- MERCURY-44807: Flight frequency can in rare instances be labeled as "once" despite being daily
- MERCURY-44736: Fixed a few minor incorrect region settings for cities in the airport database
- MERCURY-44658 :Lines on passport checkpoint item can be rendered above other objects
- MERCURY-44649: Fixed Aircraft Vickers VC10 incorrect rear wing layer setting
As you can see, there's not only been changes made to the game but also to the bugs themselves. They are now labeled as "MERCURY" instead of "ACEO" as we've named our games in the order of planets in our solar system. We'll see how many we get to.
Anyway, that's it for now. We're currently focusing mostly on the development of the next Apog Labs game but there are some minor things cooking for Airport CEO as well! But until then, have a spooky Halloween and...
Fly safe!
Update 10/29/2021
We have received reports about the newest MacBook Pro with the M1X (pro) chips not parsing text in Airport CEO correctly. This bug has been fixed on the experimental branch of Airport CEO and will be available as part of a default release later this coming week.
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apog Labs
We hope you're doing well on those hot summer tarmacs. Today we're releasing version 1.0-27 with just two minor but still important new features. In a response to some feedback we've been reading across the different ACEO platforms, conveyor belts can now be built on the lower floors without the need of having acquired the multi-floor permit first. This is in response to some valid criticism on the challenges of starting out constructing that first conveyor belt system and we couldn't agree more as this change will now make that starting phase a bit more frictionless. We've also implemented the ability to change the color of the mouse pointer as that default yellow can be a bit difficult to interact with for some users.
Release notes - 1.0-27
New feature
- ACEO-44257 Mouse pointer color can now be changed
Improvement
- ACEO-44239 Underground baggage belts can now be built without having acquired the multiple-floor permit
Fly safe!
// Alexander, Fredrik & Olof - Apoapsis Studios
Current Release
Not available
System Requirements
How to Install
Airport CEO.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
1.9 GB
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