Thought the first plane came immediately.

[6Pack]

Started an airline in MT2 and leased a 737-600.  First plane and it won't be delivered until December, another 4 months away.  Swell, just in time for the lease payments to kick in, and it will have had zero time to establish route image or nothin.  Shall I just bankrupt now? 

[Sami]

New aircraft are delivered according to the production queue (= how many other orders first, and how long it takes to build a plane ...etc) .. The delivery dates are presented to you when making the order. And also at the big blue INFO box at the top of the "New aircraft" page.

When starting a new airline and ordering an used a/c, the first is delivered instantly though to allow a faster start. But factory-new planes have no exceptions.


Also mentioned in manual's startup guide.

The first option is to lease or buy them from the used aircraft market. The second option is to buy them new directly from the manufacturer's production line which is NOT recommended for any new startup airline. We highly recommend you to get your first airplane in the "Used aircraft" market. This is because buying planes directly from the manufacturer takes a longer time until the plane is delivered (minimum of around 3-6 weeks but it may taken even up to 2-4 years if there are many other orders before you).

[6Pack]

Me and my...not reading enoughness...uh, yeah. Crap.

[Daemus]

Sounds like you should just bankrupt. Sucks that you didn't know that it wouldn't arrive instantly but just another lesson learned, right?  

I imagine that new planes aren't delivered instantly if they are a company's first plane because of one or the other of the following scenarios.

1) It bumps back production for others who have ordered the same plane, using up a factory slot at your time of order, causing other players to wait longer (could be exploited to hurt another airline because you can see what airplanes they have on order).
2) You get it instantly without using a production slot, or it uses the next free slot available (could be exploited if you bankrupt, putting the plane on the used market for a friend's airline so they can avoid waiting months or even years to get one - do that 3 times and still be able to start your 4th company to play).