Using default settings, the player controls the airline "Air Bucks" with three AI competitors; all are based in the city of Miami.

The game's demand model calculates passenger demand for each route based on ticket pricing, plane speed, size of destinations, plane age, service quality (as a function of employee wages), advertising spend, aircraft reliability (as a function of maintenance spend) and other factors.

The game also simulates fuel price fluctuations based on historical inflation data, and periodically generates weather events and strikes which temporarily close particular airports.

The number and selection of computer and human players is customizable, as are the company names and logos, starting site, and difficulty.

[4] Air Bucks represents 128 airport sites: 6 in Australia; 2 in New Zealand; 8 in the South Pacific; 25 in Asia; 7 in Africa; 33 in Europe; 1 in Greenland; 1 in Bermuda; 14 in Latin America; 5 in Canada; and 26 in the United States.