Air Alliance Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Preparations
• Game Overview
• Passenger Cards
• Airports
• Flow Chart of Player Turn
• PHASE 1: Marker Actions
  • [A] Move a plane on the board by placing a marker on a Flight icon
  • List of the Flight icons
  • [B] Reserve a Passenger Card in the Baggage Claim Area
  • Refilling the Baggage Claim Area
  • Tips: Passenger Cards with the same departure or arrival
  • Trio Sets give Bonus Miles
  • Gaining 3 or more cards in one turn gives another turn
• PHASE 2: Lost Baggage
• PHASE 3: Flight Control
• PHASE 0: Alliance
  • What is an Alliance?
  • What happens in the Alliance as the game goes on
  • Forming an Alliance
• Last Turn
  • Special rules for the Last Turn
• Game End and Score Calculation
• Trio List
• Optional Rules: Kobe Rules
  • 1. Marker Actions added or modified
  • 2. "First Turn" introduced
  • 3. "Last Turn" and scoring rules modified (Official Game Manual p.12)

Components

• Game Board
• 60 Passenger Cards
• 12 Markers, in 4 colours, three of each
• 4 Boarding Passes, in 4 colours, 1 each
• 35 Planes, in 7 colours, 5 each
• 4 Support Sheets (all sheets are identical, with no colours)

Attention: this game contains small parts. Not recommended for children under age 3.

Preparations

1. Open up the Game Board and place it in the middle of the game area.

2. Shuffle the Passenger Cards and put them as the deck, face down, beside the Baggage Claim Area (see the picture on the Game Board).

3. Take 1 plane of each colour and place them together beside the Game Board. These planes will be used to mark alliances.

4. The black, white and purple planes are planes from NPAs (Non-Player Airlines) which belong to nobody. Place one of each of these on a runway at each of the specified airports (12 in total). There is a starmark for each airport that will start with an NPA plane. Place the plane on either of the runways.

   Black NPA	White NPA	Purple NPA
   M4 ARABIA	A4 SEOUL	U4 ROCKY
   M5 SAVANNAH	A5 HIMALAYA	U5 MEXICO
   M6 CASABLANCA	A6 OCEANIA	U6 BRAZIL
   E4 SCANDINAVIA	E5 DANUBE	E6 SIBERIA

This concludes the preparations. You can start the game now. Proceed with the game in accordance with the Flow Chart of Player Turn below.

Game Overview

Players are the owners of different airline companies. Get all the possible miles (victory points) by carrying a lot of passengers by operating airplanes. The game is won by the player with the most miles.

The rules are simple. You can get a Passenger Card by following the flight route on the card with your plane(s), basically. But you have to use the Flight icons on your Boarding Pass and/or Passenger Cards already gained wisely to operate your planes. Furthermore, to carry the passengers to the airports in which your company does not offer service, you need to apply a code sharing or Alliance system with an NPA (a Non-Player Airline). It is the key to success that you operate your planes efficiently and use alliances effectively.

Passenger Cards

• Airport Codes and Names. Each card shows a departure airport and an arrival airport, identified by code (for example M3 Nile Airport) and name.
• Flight route. The upper line of the card shows the departure place (the starting airport) and the lower line shows the destination (the arrival airport). To gain the Passenger Card, you need to make flight(s) with your planes or NPA planes following the flight route on the card. The route is valid for not only a direct flight from the departure to the destination, but also an indirect or transit flight.
• Miles. The mile number is the victory points of each Passenger Card. The game is won by the player carrying the most miles of passengers in total.
• Flight icons. The Flight icons on a card are used to move your planes. Resolve the action just after you place one of your markers on it.
• Boarding Pass use. The flight icons on a Passenger Card you gained are incorporated on your Boarding Pass. You will use them at your next turn. As you get them, place each Passenger Card on one of the 3 different slots of your Boarding Pass.
• Class. Passenger Cards are ECONOMY CLASS or FIRST CLASS (see the scoring rules under Last Turn and Game End).

Airports

In this game, you gain victory points by moving your airplanes from airport to airport according to the requirements on the Passenger Cards.

There are four areas: A, E, U and M. The airport code is the area letter followed by a number. On numbers 1, 2 and 3 all planes can land. On numbers 4, 5 and 6 only certain planes may land.

There are three types of airports on the Game Board. When a plane leaves an airport, any other planes on the same airport will be moved in the following way:

• Y-shaped airports (A1, E1, M1, U1): all planes can land, up to 3 planes per airport. The plane in the intersection cannot leave until one of the runways is free. As soon as one of the 01 runways is open, move the plane on 02 (if any) to 01, the freed runway. Only after that can a new plane land there.
• Reverse Y-shaped airports (A2, A3, E2, E3, M2, M3, U2, U3): all planes can land, up to 3 planes per airport. The planes on runway 02 and 03 cannot leave until the plane on runway 01 has left. When the 01 plane leaves, the plane on 02 moves to 01, and the plane on 03 moves to 02. Only after that can a new plane land there.
• V-shaped airports (A4, A5, A6, E4, E5, E6, M4, M5, M6, U4, U5, U6): only certain colours can land on these, and only up to 2 planes. Both runways are independent, so either plane can leave at any time. Only after that can a new plane land there.

Source note: the printed list of V-shaped airports reads "M4, M6, M6"; the third entry is printed as M6 twice and is transcribed here as M5, following the airport layout of the Preparations table.

Flow Chart of Player Turn

The game goes clockwise from the start player. At your turn, resolve PHASE 1 to PHASE 3 continuously. If you met the conditions for an Alliance, you can resolve from PHASE 0 first.

• PHASE 0 (Alliance, optional). If all 3 Code Sharing icons on your Boarding Pass are of one same colour (black, purple or white), you can form an Alliance with that NPA. This is not mandatory. If you don't want to form an Alliance, just go to PHASE 1.
• PHASE 1. Gather all 3 of your markers into your hand. Use your 3 markers to move your plane(s) to gain Passenger Cards on the Baggage Claim Area, or reserve a card there. The key to gaining more Passenger Cards is finding more efficient flight routes to operate your planes.
• PHASE 2 (Lost Baggage). The leftmost unreserved Passenger Card on the Baggage Claim Area is discarded as lost baggage.
• PHASE 3 (Flight Control). Place the Passenger Card(s) you gained on your Boarding Pass to form your new Boarding Pass for the next turn. If the 3 Code Sharing icons on your Boarding Pass are of one same colour (black, purple or white), you can form an Alliance at the beginning of your next turn.

When the player reaches the end of PHASE 3, the turn moves to the next player (unless you gained an extra turn; see below).

PHASE 1: Marker Actions

At the start of this phase, gather all 3 of your markers (including any marker on a card you reserved) into your hand. There are 2 types of marker usage: [A] Move or [B] Reserve. Use your 3 markers freely within the limits of the rules.

[A] Move a plane on the board by placing a marker on a Flight icon

You can move your plane by placing a marker on a Flight icon. If you take a flight through the route (from departure to arrival) designated on a Passenger Card in the Baggage Claim Area, using your own or NPA plane(s), you can gain that Passenger Card. Resolve the action just after you place the marker.

• Just after the game started or after an Alliance was formed: place your markers on the Flight icons of the Boarding Pass. You can place just 1 marker on each Passenger Card or each slot of the Boarding Pass. If you place a marker on one Flight icon of a card, you cannot use the other 2 Flight icons on that same card.
• When the game is in progress (other than the situations above): as the game proceeds, Passenger Cards you gained pile up on the Boarding Pass. Place your markers on the Flight icons of the uppermost 3 Passenger Cards.

Passenger Cards that you gain during this turn are not placed on your Boarding Pass immediately. Set them aside; they will be placed later during PHASE 3 (Flight Control).

List of the Flight icons

To move your own plane

• Special landing permit (one icon in each player colour: red, yellow, green, blue). If you place a marker on this Flight icon, you can land 1 of your planes from another airport onto the specified airport. Each player is designated 1 special airport.
• Area Landing Permit. If you place a marker on this Flight icon, you can land 1 of your planes from another airport onto a designated airport on this icon. Each Area Landing Permit icon is labelled with the area(s) it lands in and the numbered airports it may land on (1, 2, 3): ALL, AM, EM, AE, AU, MU, EU, A, U, M and E (each with "1-2-3"). For example, an icon showing A can land on A1, A2 or A3; an icon showing ALL can land on any airport in the 1, 2, 3 positions.

To move your, other players', or NPA (Non-Player Airline) planes

• Priority Takeoff (shown with a takeoff-plane symbol and the word PRIORITY). If you place a marker on this Flight icon, choose 1 airport and switch the places of any 2 planes on that airport: your own, other players', or any combination.

To move an NPA plane

Different rules apply depending on whether the NPA belongs to an Alliance or not. As for NPAs belonging to an Alliance, the Alliance rule is applied (see the Alliance section below).

If the colour of the NPA you want to move does not belong to any Alliance:

• Code Sharing. If you place a marker on this Flight icon, you can land a corresponding colour NPA plane from an airport onto another airport where that NPA plane can land. The Code Sharing icons are in black, purple and white. If 2 colours show, you choose 1 of them.

If the colour of the NPA you want to move belongs to the same Alliance as you:

• Alliance. Whichever colour you place the marker on, you can land an NPA plane that belongs to the same Alliance as you from an airport onto another airport where that NPA plane can land. You can move the NPA plane belonging to the same Alliance as you.

You cannot use an NPA that does not belong to your Alliance.

The airports NPA planes can land at are only those with the plane silhouette in the same colour as the NPA, or the airports with the "ALL" silhouette.

[B] Reserve a Passenger Card in the Baggage Claim Area

You can reserve a Passenger Card by placing 1 marker on a card in the Baggage Claim Area.

• You cannot reserve a card already reserved by someone.
• Each player can only reserve 1 card per turn.
• No other player can gain the card that another player has reserved.
• A reserved card will not disappear in PHASE 2 (Lost Baggage), and will remain in the Baggage Claim Area until that player's next turn.
• The player marker remains on the card during all other players' turns. You retake it at the start of your next turn.

Refilling the Baggage Claim Area

Passenger Cards in the Baggage Claim Area always have to be refilled. As soon as someone gains a Passenger Card and an empty space forms, shift the Passenger Cards to the left, and draw another card and place it in the rightmost space until there are 6 cards in the line again. It does not matter whether you reveal a new card each time you gain one or reveal them all at one time.

If the deck runs out, the last turn rule will be applied from the next player. When the current player's turn is finished, proceed to the "Last Turn" rule below.

Tips: Passenger Cards with the same departure or arrival

The flight route on each Passenger Card is valid for not only a direct flight from the starting airport (departure) to the destination (arrival), but also an indirect or transit flight. When some cards have the same starting airport (departure) or destination (arrival), it is a good chance to get the Passenger Cards in bulk, if you cover all those flight routes. For example, if you fly with one plane, or make a transit in relay such as Polynesia → Cannes → Tokyo, you can gain all 3 Passenger Cards.

Trio Sets give Bonus Miles

There are cards that reward you with extra miles if you collect all 3 cards of a set. These are called "Trio Sets". See the Trio List under Game End and Score Calculation.

Gaining 3 or more cards in one turn gives another turn

If you manage to get 3 or 4 Passenger Cards during the same turn, you get another turn when this one is finished. This does not mean you just repeat your action PHASE. You will still perform PHASE 2 and PHASE 3, and you will then restart from PHASE 1 (or PHASE 0). This one-time-only extra turn starts after PHASE 3. Even if you get 3 or 4 Passenger Cards during the extra turn, the next player's turn starts as soon as you finish PHASE 3.

Place all 3 markers. When you have placed them all, proceed to PHASE 2 below.

PHASE 2: Lost Baggage

As lost baggage, discard the leftmost Passenger Card (the oldest card) other than a reserved card in the Baggage Claim Area. Then shift the remaining Passenger Cards in sequence, and open up a new Passenger Card in the empty space.

If there are empty spaces in the Baggage Claim Area, fill them up first and then do the following:

1. The leftmost non-reserved card (one with no marker on it) in the Baggage Claim Area is a discard. Keep discards aside from the Baggage Claim Area. They are re-used in the Last Turn (see the Last Turn section below).
2. Shift all Passenger Cards one space left, and then fill the 6th space from the deck.

The leftmost card is discarded. The leftmost card that has no marker on it will be a discard. The leftmost card(s) that has a marker cannot be discarded.

When you finish this PHASE, proceed to PHASE 3.

PHASE 3: Flight Control

Place gained Passenger Cards on the Boarding Pass.

1. At first, remove all of your markers other than those for reservation to the off-board area.
2. Turn around the Passenger Card(s) you gained, bottom to top, and place them onto your Boarding Pass, or on top of other Passenger Card(s) from previous turns. Of the 3 available slots, you can place them wherever you want, but the card(s) you gained this turn cannot be stacked on top of each other. (Only if you gained 4 Passenger Cards this turn is there an exception: place 3 of them first, one on each slot, and then place the remaining card you gained covering 1 of the first 3.)
3. This will be your next Boarding Pass.

You will get different results depending on which cards you cover up. As the turn goes on, you will already have Passenger Cards on the Boarding Pass; you can place fresh ones on top of the Passenger Cards from previous turns. As the game goes on, the Passenger Cards continue to pile up.

Unless you gained an extra turn by getting 3 or more Passenger Cards in PHASE 1, this concludes your turn. Start the new turn of the next player.

PHASE 0: Alliance

You can form an Alliance before PHASE 1 only when you have 3 Code Sharing icons of the same colour on your Boarding Pass. If not, or if you don't want to form an Alliance, proceed to PHASE 1 as normal.

You can form an Alliance with a specific colour NPA (Non-Player Airline).

What is an Alliance?

An Alliance is the rule that you can use each NPA's planes exclusively (or nearly so). If you belong to the same Alliance with a specific colour NPA, you can use the NPA planes of that colour freely, without relation to the colour of the Code Sharing icons that you have in PHASE 1 (Marker Action). On the other hand, if you have not formed an Alliance but other player(s) have, you cannot use those NPA planes, even if you have Code Sharing icons of that colour.

The manual's illustrated example shows one player who belongs to the same Alliance with an NPA: these players can use whichever colour the marker is placed on, while a player who is not in that Alliance cannot use that NPA's planes. Where the example's NPA does not belong to any Alliance, every player can use it by placing markers on the purple Code Sharing icons.

If you form an Alliance once, it is valid continually from that turn. However, if someone completes Code Sharing icons of the same colour, the situation of alliances will change at any time.

What happens in the Alliance as the game goes on

The manual shows this illustrated sequence: as the game goes on, a player gains the Code Sharing icons that complete the Alliance, and the NPA enters that player's Alliance (the Atlantis Alliance in the example). Then only that player can use that NPA's planes. At the same time, the other players cannot use those NPA planes anymore, even if they have the Code Sharing icon of that colour. In the second illustrated case, another player gains Code Sharing icons and becomes a member of the same Alliance with the NPA, so both players can use the NPA's planes; the players outside the Alliance cannot use them anymore, even if they have the Code Sharing mark.

Forming an Alliance

Before starting PHASE 1, announce "I am going to form an Alliance" and do steps ① and ② below. You can form the Alliance when you have 3 Code Sharing icons of the same colour NPA on your Boarding Pass. (Example in the manual: you can form an Alliance with the NPA of one colour, or with either of two NPA colours, or with both.)

① Place the newly allied NPA plane in the same Alliance Area of yours. The Game Board has an Alliance Area on each side. An Alliance may be formed in any of 3 ways, (A), (B) or (C) below. All NPAs in the same Alliance Area count as part of that Alliance. For marking alliances, use the planes that were set aside for alliances, or 1 of the planes already in an Alliance Area. Do not use the planes that are placed on airports.

• (A) A player enters into an Alliance with the NPA. Any planes in an Alliance Area where there are no more NPA planes are removed from the Alliance Area, because they serve no purpose. Place them together beside the Game Board.
• (B) The NPA enters into your Alliance. Each Alliance Area has spaces for up to 4 planes. If you cannot place your plane and your new NPA's plane in the Alliance Area, you are not allowed to form that Alliance.
• (C) Both the player and the NPA enter any of the alliances.

② When an Alliance has been formed, remove all Passenger Cards from your Boarding Pass. Turn them back. The removed Passenger Cards still work as Victory Points at the end of the game, so keep them beside you, turned down.

The Alliance is valid from this very moment. The formed Alliance is valid continuously unless the situation in the Alliance changes.

This concludes forming an Alliance. Proceed to PHASE 1. In the next PHASE 1, you will play with no Passenger Cards on the Boarding Pass, just as at the start of the game.

Last Turn

If the deck runs out during someone's turn, the active player shuffles the discards to form a new deck. The Last Turn will start from the next player after the player who shuffled the discards.

The game is over when the players have taken one round of the Last Turn. The player who depletes the deck will be the last player. The player who triggered the game end is the final player.

• Gaining more than 3 Passenger Cards in 1 turn is still valid during the Last Turn; the player will get another turn as normal. You cannot count this as 1 round. All the players have to play the Last Turn.
• If the deck runs out during the Last Turn, shuffle the discards at that moment and make a new deck. The Last Turn has already started, so the game will end when the rest of the players have finished playing this Last Turn.

Special rules for the Last Turn

During the Last Turn, 2 rules are changed:

• At the start of a player's turn, the player may, if he or she wishes, discard all 6 Passenger Cards in the Baggage Claim Area and refill all 6 spaces with cards, only once. However, cards where players have placed markers for reservation before the final round started will not be discarded.
• Placing markers to reserve passengers is no longer allowed.

Game End and Score Calculation

When the Last Turn has ended, add up the miles of all Passenger Cards you gained. The game is won by the player with the most miles.

Scores are counted in the following way:

1. Total all the miles of the Passenger Cards you have.
2. Each Trio Set is worth 30,000 bonus miles (see the Trio List below).

Total each player's points and determine the winner, the runner-up, and the third place.

Note (Kobe Rules, optional): the optional scoring change in the Kobe Rules section below adds further miles for ECONOMY CLASS cards. The base rules above do not include it.

Trio List

Each Trio Set has the same suitcase sticker. Each trio's three cards show the following (Japanese names omitted; English names given as printed):

Trio	Cards
Enthusiast Trio	Board Gamer, Board Gamer, Anime Otaku
Scholar Trio	Folklorist, Archaeologist, Professor
Actor Trio	Hollywood Star, Kung Fu Star, Korean Star
Cocktail Trio	Beer Brewer, Bartender, Hotelier
Ball Game Trio	Tennis Player, Soccer Player, Volleyball Player
Spy Trio	Secret Agent, Secret Agent, Secret Agent (MI6, KGB, CIA)
Primitive Man Trio	Neanderthal, Yeti, Bigfoot

The trio cards have a sunset as background.

Optional Rules: Kobe Rules

Official optional rule additions and changes issued by the publisher (dated 21/2/2016). All rules described here are optional.

Thankfully, Air Alliance has been played by many gamers, and as a result, there arose several ideas which weren't conceived during the development stage. To add more fun to the game, the publisher proposes additional rules and modifications, which are commonly called "Kobe Rules". All rules described here are optional.

1. Marker Actions added or modified

(1) Additional usage of NPAs which belong to opponents' Alliance. By placing two of your markers on a Code Sharing icon of an opponents' Alliance, you may use an NPA of that colour once.

(2) Additional option: Flush your boarding pass. By spending one of your markers, you may remove all Passenger Cards from your Boarding Pass. (After removal, you take your remaining actions with your Boarding Pass initialized.)

(3) Modified reserved passengers handling (Official Game Manual p.8). When you reserve a passenger, move the Passenger Card off the board along with the marker on it. Then shift the remaining Passenger Cards to the left to fill in the gap left by the removed card, and draw a new Passenger Card and place it on the rightmost space. In other words, the Baggage Claim Area must always have six Passenger Cards without any markers on them. If you didn't gain the reserved Passenger Card in your next turn, it remains off the board without any marker on it. Unless another player reserves it through waiting for cancellation (explained below), it is discarded at PHASE 2 along with the leftmost non-reserved Passenger Card.

(4) Additional option: Waiting for Cancellation. You may place one marker on the "Air Alliance" logo, indicating you are waiting for cancellation. You may use the waiting-for-cancellation marker during another player's turn. When any other player finishes PHASE 1, you may place the marker on a Passenger Card without any marker on it in the Baggage Claim Area or off the board, indicating you reserve that passenger. If two or more players want to reserve the same passenger, precedence is taken by the farthest player among them in turn order starting from the current player.

• As always, retrieve all your markers at the beginning of your PHASE 1, including your waiting-for-cancellation marker.
• In your turn, you may only either reserve or wait for cancellation once. You may not perform both actions in the same turn.

(5) No longer required to spend all markers. You no longer have to spend all of your markers during your PHASE 1.

(6) Extra marker instead of extra turn (Official Game Manual p.8). You no longer take an extra turn after gaining three passengers in a turn. Instead, you may spend an extra marker after placing Passenger Cards on your Boarding Pass.

2. "First Turn" introduced

Each player's First Turn is played differently from a regular turn.

• At the beginning of any player's First Turn, that player may discard all six cards in the Baggage Claim Area and spread new six cards there from the deck.
• At the beginning of any player's First Turn, that player may take Priority Takeoff actions. The number of these actions allowed depends on player order (1st: 0, 2nd: 1, 3rd: 2, 4th: 3). These actions don't count toward marker actions.
• During any player's First Turn, no player may reserve a Passenger Card. (Players may place a marker on waiting-for-cancellation, but may not reserve a Passenger Card until all First Turns are finished.)

3. "Last Turn" and scoring rules modified (Official Game Manual p.12)

• From whichever player the Last Turn started, the game ends when the last player in player order finishes the Last Turn. Thus, each player plays the same number of turns in a game.
• The manual's seating diagram shows which players take a Last Turn, depending on where the deck runs out. The printed conditions are: the seat labelled "takes the final Last Turn in any game, and then the game is finished"; a player "takes a Last Turn only if the deck depletes during 4th player's turn" (the 4th seat); a player "takes a Last Turn only if the deck depletes during 4th, 1st or 2nd player's turn"; and a player "takes a Last Turn only if the deck depletes during 4th or 1st player's turn". The seat each condition belongs to is shown pictorially in the manual and is not recoverable from the text layer alone.
• When you have finished your Last Turn, or when it turns out that you won't have a Last Turn, you must immediately remove all of your planes from the board.
• When you calculate score (miles), you gain an additional 10,000 miles for every five ECONOMY CLASS Passenger Cards.