How to start?

[Zusuper]

How did you start your Airport? Did you use GA First or Instant Comercial Flight and what is your Basic Layout?

[eXeZ|Gamer433]

It depends on your playstyle.
When you want maximum efficiency and less (changing) work later, you should plan your airport from the beginning to final layout, by having only one point, where your passengers are going from free zone to security zone (this also helps a lot against so many (pathfinding) bugs in this game).

I am not that fast player. I want to make one thing perfect, then starting with another. This means, I go to medium aicrafts, when small aircrafts run smoothly with maximum stands. Then, between small and medium aircrafts, I add small helicopters (which are nearly cosmetic, because, they have way too less passengers and profit).

This also means, that I use commecial flights step by step (in the beginning, I didnt know, that cleaning and catering are NOT for small aircrafts and not for helicopters).
I recommend to build always best grounds (asphalt or later, concrete). It costs more, but need less repair (runways and stands) and it upkeep costs are lower. Parking lots are also recommended very early (for short and long parking). They dont cost much, but they are bringing nice profit in early game.
And dont forget to take 5 € (or $) for toilets. Nobody is complaining about this crazy price. (You need one special staff for this.)

[rcarmod]

There is a lot of planning that takes, imo, some false starts for a player to get a feel for being efficient and their own play style. Slow growth and and visualizing for me is key. I always start with running a road across the bottom, inserting parking lot and then the terminal. Next I build the stands and then the runways, one runway at the bottom one at the top. Space in the middle for deicing, if you are in that climate. Deicing takes some planning, but earns a bit of money. There are a lot of things to do, key for me is building slowly, observing, then building efficiently. Starting I use the stands I built for the terminal as GA then slowly convert them to Commercial as I expand the terminal. etc. etc.

[gareth304]

In contrast to exez. I generally put down a small runway in one corner of the starting square. An on and off ramp at either end, join them with a 5 by 5 taxi way. Put about 10 small stands on it, that gives enough income to build a small terminal. Once I have about 5 small commercial stands I plan out a proper medium and Large plane terminal. Usually end up removing the small airfield I build at the start once the medium terminal is up and running. So i can make my final terminal as efficient as possible, for me I find the fun comes from trying to keep everything running whilst simultaneously building the final layout around and over it.