I am wondering why so many Alliances are structuring their membership around a specific airport. How does that work in practise?
When an airport is maxed, does that player stop with being an active member until an airport becomes available?
Who decides which member in the “waiting room” plays the airport?
Just curious.
I think it’s good to have only one airport dedicated for alliance purposes. That way, you don’t have to just go through every single playable airport to see if your/others’ planes have arrived. It just seems more convenient. Usually, the player chooses which airport they want to manage, with it usually being the airport they are most active on. If you max out an airport, it’s your choice whether you want to change to level up another airport or you can just keep playing the same one. You still get silver planes and other benefits for it, just not the XP. It makes sense to manage the airport you are most active on and that might (or might not) change through time. Keep in mind, this is only my personal experience and some alliances have a completely different system.
I think that’s a good explanation. It simplifies the process of figuring out who and where to send a plane to. For example, if want to send a plane to LEJ, it’s not “who’s most active here?” It’s “I’ll send it to our member here: @Wes ”
As @DenisMartinek pointed out, you also will know that all (or the majority of) your contracts for the alliance will be at one airport. It’s not a strict rule though, I still have some alliance contracts at LHR for example, even though I mostly play BKK.
In terms of switching airports, at IAG we have a few open airports at all times due to the number of members we have, and if you’re done with one airport, you can change, or wait for another member to leave an airport you want. Around every moth someone will switch airports.
Also, there’s always the next airport in the game. For example @Desertsundevil has taken MSY, and is now at GRU, and probably will start playing SCL when it releases.
Hope this helps!
Denis and Teddy,
Thanks for your responses. It still seems constrained to me.
We at AWA are with 20 members and everybody decides what to play. It is announced in our Forum and Discord “corners”. Contracts are “generally” offered and goes mostly to the " first responder".
Works for us.
We at 420 use the alliance primarily as a tool for connections in general, first come first served, to any airport. There’s no expectation of playing any specific airport, and it’s a lot less rigidly constrained. IAG’s structure has definitely perplexed me, but if it works for you…
It seems we are a minority in this approach 
.
Probably worth mentioning the AWACS scheme as well to help newer players develop their airports and get some reliable connections to help them along, that’s something which I’ve observed to be working quite well with the people you’ve been talking to. Not to sure if that’s something other alliances have considered tapping into or not.
Can you explain this AWACS scheme a bit more, would like to hear about it!
AWACS is the abbreviation of “All World Alliance Contracts Support”.
It is a “program” in our Alliance to support new (non-Alliance) players with starting and developing INN and BRI.
New players still at INN or BRI are invited to submit a support request . AWA members playing Airports within reach of these airports will exchange contracts (in an orderly fashion) to speed up the playing experience.