many small vs few large planes on a single route

[djnekkid]

Hi guys.

Im wondering one thing. What would be the "best thing" all in all?

Lets say a route has 900pax a day. Then i can either send 6 737-800's with 150 each spanning on the entire day, lets say every 3rd hour from 7am, or i can two times a day have a 777-300 fly it. Appart from higher leasecost etc, would it matter when it comes to attracktiveness and so on?

Would many smaller flights be more attractive then one or two large(r) ones? Or is the game more or less pure math? Reason im asking, my home airports slots is more or less full between 0400 and 2300... And i could send some large(r) planes to operate my smaller lines, but with a much lower frequency...

[slannoy]

The turn-arrount is quicker in the 737-800 than on the 777 and you will get better profit with the 737-800 as the cost by pax is lower. But you can put a hight capacity on it up to 180 passneger. The 737-900 can fill up to 200 and the 757-300 up to 250.

If you have a 777 keep it for Long range. It has been designed for that.

[DenisG]

Another advantage for flying the route with many small planes would be the connection possibility and the competitiveness. As you fly in with 6 737s you can connect further 6 times. My experience is that you find some very attractive routes this way. Further, flying 6 small planes is tougher to handle for competition. When they enter the route and attack you flying a B777, it is easier to get you into the red on this route. Just some thoughts.

Denis

[swiftus27]

I once had an airline in Sydney.

There is MASSIVE demand between Syd and Melbourne and Canberra.

My 744Ds had fewer pax than my 737s despite lower prices. 

Sami did say at one point that pax prefer smaller planes.

[djnekkid]

oki thanx...

The point were not that the 777 may go in red etc, it were merly what the pax prefer. More smaller planes then few big ones, most likely as the route would then have more flights. If there were a 1000nm route that had 3000/day one could probably use a few 747SD's with luck

[swiftus27]

If there are slots available, always use more smaller versus one larger.  The only reason to use a larger plane is to satiate demand when there are no slots available.

[Sigma]

In this game passengers greatly, greatly, greatly, to the point of absurdity, prefer smaller planes.  If you fly 10 737s and your competition is flying 4 747s, you will likely fill up every plane you've got even at poor times of the day while your competition runs half-empty.  Always run smaller planes where you can.  Only when your slots become limited should you start to consolidate routes with larger aircraft, just be aware that it will make you a bit more vulnerable on that route.  But then if there's no slots on one-end anyway, which is why you're doing that, it'll be a moot point as no one can compete with you.

[ICEcoldair881]

I love doing that. slots are very limited in some places in Taiwan, so I run like 17 routes everywhere and make sure that Kaohsiung Connect doesn't get any of those precious slots.  I even cut a couple of the direct routes to keep income at a peak on connecting routes through the directs cities I cut routes on. now i'm getting like 60k-25k from my MD90s and 25k-2k from my Avro RJ85s, all in a single day.