Help with increasing profit and LF

[overworked]

I've been playing this game since the beginning and I'm slowly making more and more money.  Currently it take me about two days (real days) to make enough money to place an order or two for new planes or leasing used ones.  In the mean time I seeing some of my competitors place order for 10+ large planes.   I'm wonder how they are making so much money in such a short time to be able to pay for these large orders.  Are they they taking out massive loans or are they generating large profits?  I know that lots of patience is required but I have to wonder how they are make so much money and how I can do the same.  Secondly, how can I increase my load factors on routes with and without competition.  In some cases, there's far more passengers than seats available on these routes and I'm running at least 2 daily flights on most of my routes.  I know that getting 100% LF is nearly impossible but on some routes I'm getting 50 to 60% with flights that operate between 6 am and 11 pm.  Does having a greater market share influence what airline passenger will fly with???

[Sanabas]

How big are your competitors' fleets compared to yours? If they're much larger, they'll be making money faster. They'll also be able to take out bigger loans.

50-60% LF on undersupplied routes with no competition might be caused by your flights being too close together, or by having HD seating on 3 hour+ flights, or it might just be because the routes and/or your airline is new, which means low company image & route image. The first two things can be fixed, the last will fix itself with time. You say they're operating between 0600 & 2300, does that include all 4 times? i.e. takeoff from home, land & takeoff at destination, land at home.

[overworked]

Well one competitor that flies in my region has about 400 aircraft compare to my 50.  That part I understand. The more planes = more routes/flights = more money.  However by end of each week (game time),  I generate around $2 million to $3 million in profit and less that when I hit the time of year where I have perform C maintenance.  I think that by now I should be making more than that.  So if I want to buy or lease a larger plane I have to wait a 3 to 4 weeks to make enough money to cover the cost.   So would it be better to take out a large loan and buy/lease several planes at once or wait till I build up sufficient funds to buy/lease a couple of planes at at time. 

After another quick look at my routes.  Most of my route without competition are around 75% or more.  Some are sitting around 65%. The competitive routes are more of an issue since they are around 40% to 60%  LF.  For most routes I have one plane flies back and forth through the day so scheduling two flights close together isn't an issues.  On one or two of those routes I have only 1 daily flight.   I'm using standard seating for all classes, CI is close to 60% and route image on most routes are 100% so I don't think this is an issue.  I notice that the competition has 3 or 4 planes on the route and each having 2 or 3 daily flights on that route.  How significant is it if one operate only 1 flight a day and another operate 4 flights a day in terms of LF???  I have some routes that have 3 or 4 competitor so there are more seats available than passengers.  Would I be better closing those types of routes and finding one with little or no competition?

[jlopez]

How do you even keep control of 50 planes? I have 7 with average LF of about 80% and profit of 23% and cant seem to be able to find more routs that will make me money on the airport im in...

[Ryanair 101]

All you need to do jlopez is fly the same routes again and again if the load factor is good like yours.Then once you are able you can open a new base very far from last to fly different routes thats what i did and it worked . All i can say the MOST IMPORTANT thing is PATIENCE I know you probably heard it before but it really does work do what i did and it will work trust  me! ,

Best regards ryanair 101.

[jlopez]

Thanks, Im working on it, I have about 10 planes now, 155,000,000 in cash and expanding slowly, my LF are still around 80%. Will try to open a new base when I meet the requirements... Slow and Steady..

[alexgv1]

Will try to open a new base when I meet the requirements.

My recommendation would be to fill out all the possible routes from your HQ before opening a base. Opening a base increases your expenses, but if you are maximising the revenue from your HQ then you should be okay.