Avalanche Press, 1998, 2-4 players (or up to 8 players with the expansion), ages 12 and up. In the game of Airlines, players attempt to build an airline empire (measured in "seats") by placing gates at different airports and then putting various kinds of planes on the gates. Each plane has a seat value, so more planes equals more seats which equals winning. Game play is very simple. Each turn you draw a card and then play it (or, sometimes, hold it). You might draw an airport, or a gate, or a plane. or some kind of event that may affect you or the other players. On the plus side, the game is pretty easy to figure out and dive into playing without spending a lot of time going through the rules. But on the negative side, it's just not very interesting. I mean, when I started playing a game called "Airlines", I thought I'd be flying planes around, juggling flight crews, and baggage, and meals and expenses and whatnot. As it turns out, all you really do is put your planes on the board and then count up the seats. Picture playing a war game where you put your armies and tanks and planes and stuff on the board and then never go into combat with them. Ho hum! Overall, I wouldn't necessarily rate this a bad game, but it's certainly not compelling enough to warrant a second try.
The "Airlines 2" expansion simply adds more of the same to the original game (more cards allowing for more players). Big deal.
And on a final note, a big thumb's down to the idiot who approved those impossible-to-read scoresheets. Yeesh!