General Method Description

Air runes are the lowest-level product of Runecrafting, and one of the most common among new players. They aren't particularly valuable, however, so it's hard to make money with them unless you are high level (so you get many airs per essence) and the price of rune essence is relatively low. Even then, most players who can make many airs per hour will prefer to craft more valuable runes, but I offer this method as an option for those who are interested in it.

At level 50 you can sometimes make decent money with airs, since you get 5 runes (or more) per essence and can use the small, medium and large pouches. Again, it really depends on the relative values of the runes and essence at any given time. (Note that at lower levels you actually lose money making airs which is why they are not shown as methods.) At level 70 you can usually make decent money with airs, since you get 7+ runes per essence and can use the small, medium and large pouches as well as an abyssal familiar to carry 7 extra ess. It all depends on current prices.

The process of making air runes has been subject to an evolution of sorts over the last three years. At one time they were very slow to make, because the air altar was not located near any banks or convenient teleport points. Then the Lumbridge Achievement Diary arrived, with one of its awards being the "Cabbage-port" teleport to the cabbage patch south of Falador, which was pretty close to the altar. That went by the wayside in September 2009, when Jagex relocated the air altar to a new spot between Varrock and Barbarian Village (to keep it in the "new player area"). Now the best way to make airs is to use the Cooking Guild teleport found in skills necklaces; that guild is very close to the new location of the altar. Recharging skills necklaces requires access to the Legends Guild, however, so for mid level players a slightly slower but still decent alternative is to set your Varrock teleport point to the Grand Exchange and use Varrock teletabs.

The November 2009 Runecrafting update means you now get a little more runes for each essence when between multiple rune "milestones", which is a nice bonus for airs, though it doesn't impact things too much.

As with all Runecrafting methods, once in a while you will need to make a trip to the Abyss or the Runecrafting Guild to repair your pouches, but you can still bring with ess and craft normally, so this doesn't cost you all that much. Note that if you want to "play it safe" you can actually repair pouches even if you leave them in your bank (as strange as that seems.)

Run energy is not an issue with this method thanks to the June 2009 run energy update.