If you’ve ever wanted to boss people around in a pretend airport (without getting arrested), this review is for you. I spent way too many evenings herding plastic planes and shouting at my friends about baggage claims. This is my honest review of Airport, the board game that brings the chaos of travel straight to your kitchen table—hopefully without any lost luggage or passive-aggressive flight attendants. Buckle up, because I’ve played this one so you don’t have to guess if it’s worth your layover.
How It Plays
Setting up
First, spread the airport board on your table. Each player picks a color (my friend Jeff always grabs blue, even though he crashes more flights than anyone). Hand out the matching airplane tokens and player cards. Shuffle the destination and event decks, then put them nearby. Place the passenger tokens and suitcase cubes in easy reach. Everyone rolls the die to see who goes first—the person who last missed a flight gets bonus bragging rights, but, sadly, no in-game advantage.
Gameplay
Turns are simple but frantic: draw a destination, move planes, collect passengers, and dodge chaos from event cards. Event cards can be everything from bad weather (classic!) to a baggage handler strike. When you deliver passengers to their matching destination, you score points. Every round, players squabble over gates, argue about who gets to land first, and laugh when someone draws “Birds on the Runway”—which really should be renamed after my last game’s disaster. Watch out for random events, because they can ruin all your careful plans faster than you can say “delayed again.”
Winning the game
The game ends when someone runs out of suitcase cubes or the destination deck is empty. Tot up your delivered passengers and bonus cards. Whoever collected the most points gets to be the big-shot Airport Manager—until someone demands a rematch, which happens at my table about every other Tuesday.
Want to know more? Read our extensive strategy guide for Airport.
How Airport’s Game Mechanics Take Flight (Or Sometimes Crash)
Alright, time to talk about the nuts and bolts! In Airport, you and your buddies are not just shuffling cardboard—you’re living your airport management dreams. Well, sort of. As soon as we set up the board, it’s clear you have a lot to juggle: landing planes, managing gates, and trying not to lose your mind when a rival player sends a wave of delayed flights to your terminal. It’s like working the night shift at Heathrow, just with more snacks on the table.
What works great here is the action optimization. Each round, you pick from a set of available actions—some are obvious, like clearing runways, while others are sneakier, like sneaking an extra plane in or sabotaging your pal’s baggage system. This triggers some serious table talk. I mean, last time I played, Gerry almost flipped the board when I blocked his jumbo jet upgrade. That’s not teamwork, folks. That’s Airport!
But, let’s talk fairness. I don’t love that a few lucky card draws can decide if you’re the next aviation genius or just an intern lost in Terminal B. Skill matters—but luck sometimes parks its jumbo jet right on your strategy. This mix leads to some hilarious moments, but if you hate randomness, you might start looking for the emergency exit.
Player interaction is strong. You’re constantly watching each other, scheming, and occasionally groaning when someone hijacks your perfect runway plan. If you love games with lots of banter and sabotage, Airport nails it. If not, well, prepare for turbulence!
Next time, I’ll taxi us over to the dazzling world of theme and artwork—fasten your seatbelt, because this design is about to board!
Welcome Aboard: Theme and Artwork in Airport
If Airport had any more airport in it, I’d have to take off my shoes and empty my water bottle! Right from the box lid, you feel like you’re about to go somewhere slightly exotic, like Milwaukee. The theme is loud and clear. Every illustration screams ‘airport’—there’s luggage, check-in counters, stressed people with coffee, and those little signs pointing in every confusing direction. It definitely brings me back to that time I almost missed my flight because I got stuck staring at a map of terminal D.
The artwork is bright and cheerful—not exactly the bleak greys of most airports I’ve been to. Characters on cards have more personality than some actual airport staff (no shade, airport folks, but you know it’s true). The designers went out of their way to make each part of this game feel like it belongs in a vibrant, well-funded transportation hub, rather than a place where hopes go to take connecting flights.
I have to give props to the iconography. It’s clear as day. Even after a few rounds when my brain’s at baggage claim, I can still figure out what’s happening. Some of my friends commented on how the boarding pass tokens looked good enough to frame, but I decided to keep them for future game nights instead of starting a weird wall art project.
So, if you love airports but hate the long lines and lost luggage, you’ll find a lot to like in Airport’s theme and artwork. Next, I’ll open the overhead compartment and talk about that classic board game battle: strategy versus luck—let’s see if travel chaos or clever planning wins out!
Airport Strategy vs. Luck: Will Your Flight Plan Survive Turbulence?
Let me admit, I’m not a fan of games where winning feels like a dice roll at a dodgy casino. So when I first saw Airport in action, I braced myself for random disasters turning every flight into a carnival ride. But after a few rounds with my friends (including one who thinks he’s a pilot just because he once sat in the emergency exit row), I found that Airport sits in the middle of the runway between strategy and luck.
First, let’s talk strategy. You need a plan if you want your airline to soar. Decisions about which flights to schedule and how to manage your resources can make or break your game. It’s like real airport management, minus the angry customers and overpriced sandwiches. Every turn, you watch your rivals, plan your routes, and try to outsmart everyone else — especially that one friend who always tries to monopolize the international flights.
But don’t forget the luck! There are event cards that can ground flights faster than you can say “security delay.” One round, I had a masterful strategy to dominate Europe, and then an event grounded every flight to Paris. That’s the sort of thing that can make you laugh or groan, depending on your mood (and whether you like baguettes).
If you want pure skill, Airport might not quite get you there – luck can tip the scales. But it keeps you on your toes, so even the underdogs have a chance at glory. Next up, we’ll see if Airport’s replayability is as high as a transatlantic flight or as short as an airport layover!
Replayability and Game Length in Airport: Will You Board Again?
Let’s talk replayability, because if I’m going to convince my friends to play Airport again, it can’t feel like the same flight to Nowheresville every time. Luckily, Airport understands the assignment. Every round, you can choose different airlines, routes, and even try to sabotage Dave’s completely unnecessary obsession with collecting every baggage token. There’s enough variety in how you plan your connections that my friend group actually debated strategy long after the final flights landed. I even started dreaming about layovers, but that might be a personal problem.
Game length matters too, unless you actually like sitting at a table for three hours pretending to be an airport manager (no shade if you do, but my cat starts plotting my demise when dinner is late). Airport clocks in at a very comfy 45 to 75 minutes. With four players, we finished just under an hour, and that included three snack breaks, one spilled soda, and a heated debate over whether London or Frankfurt has the best baggage carousel music. The rules mean the game keeps moving, so no one felt bored, not even my friend who usually brings a book “just in case.”
Still, replay value does depend a bit on your group. If your friends, like mine, love a little friendly competition and want to refine their route management, Airport keeps giving. If you play with folks who prefer deep, hour-long plotting, they might wish for more complexity after a few runs.
So, would I recommend Airport? If you want a solid, light-to-medium game that’s actually fun each time and doesn’t overstay its welcome—absolutely! Just don’t blame me if you start humming airport jingles in your sleep.
Conclusion
So, is Airport worth a ticket to your game collection? Well, after a few rounds that almost made me want to call air traffic control for help, I can say it’s a fun, fast-paced game that shines with the right group. The theme and art are charming—even if the planes look like they were drawn by someone desperate for a holiday. It stumbles a bit with luck sometimes winning over skill, which will annoy hardcore gamers like my friend Steve (he still claims he lost because of the weather dice). But if you want a quick, lively game with laughs and a bit of risk, Airport lands safely. Just don’t expect a 10-hour brain-burner. That’s it for my review—time for me to taxi to bed!
