is ATB2 harder than NA Challenge?

[ekaneti]

My NA Challenge airline is humming along. I have 20 or so 737s, a handful of YS11s and DH6s. Im making well over $1m per week.

In ATB 2, Im struggling along. I have 5 737-200s, 1 757 and 3 BEC1900s. All routes are profitable with the 757 making $90,000 per day and the 737s making close to 50,000 per day. Yet Im making $400,000 per week at best. The 737s and 757s use PW engines. Now I have C checks coming up

So what do you think Im doing wrong in ATB2?

In ATB my flights run empty unless I steeply cut fares, while in NA Challenge I just use default fares and my flights ramp up quickly. When I raise fares in ATB2, loads fall off dramatically. In NA challenge, PAX dont seem that price sensitive.

[d2031k]

I found NAC impossibly hard.  I had to quit completely as I couldn't get 1 airline to make a profit.  ATB#2 seems to be pretty much the same to me, aside from the slow build-up of route image.  I actually prefer this, as airlines can't just dump an aircraft on a route giving you no time to react. 

I think smaller aircraft are harder to make a profit in ATB#2.  With the route demand being lower in NAC a 19-seater would work fine, but in ATB#2 small aircraft just don't work because of the staffing levels and the salary these staff demand.  I would suggest that maybe it is your B1900s that are holding you back.

Cheers,

Dave

[ekaneti]

I was spending over 500,000 per month on salaries simply due to 3 B1900s. That is absurd. I had 20 people in the Economic department and when I got rid of the three B1900s, I only needed 10. That is absurd. I'd like to run a regional airline and while I can see the need obviously for more crew, customer service, tech. That should be it. 19 seaters dont need cabin crew, or additional middle mgmt or more route planners. Sami needs to fix this "bug" cuz the game is biased to large aircraft airlines

[d2031k]

I'm not sure how the staffing levels are worked out for the smaller aircraft, but the very first time I played the game I wanted to create a regional airline out of Manchester with all Jetstreams.  Even with perfect fleet commonality they lost money every day.  Maybe this will improve one day.

Even the smaller jets like CRJs and ERJ-145s are hard to make a profit with unless you can buy them outright - this was my downfall in ATB#1.  I'll always stay clear of things with less than 70 seats nowadays.

Anyway, hopefully you should start seeing some improvement in your results now

[Sigma]

Sami's already stated that he's going to work on some means of handling 'regional' airlines.

The issue now with them is overhead.  Every route and every flight requires "X" amount of overhead, namely in the form of salaries but the number of routes you have effects things like how much it costs to market any single route (the bigger you are, the bigger the campaign needs to be to advertise that route) and many other forms of indirect costs.  These costs are the same whether you're flying a plane for 25 people on a route or a plane with 250 people flying to a destination with 50 pax or 500 -- it is flights and routes that affect most indirect overhead costs.  You have to hire the same number of ground personnel, the same number of ticket agents, the same economists, the same HR, etc, etc, etc.  Clearly, one has the distinct advantage here.

The problem can be addressed, it's just something that sami needs to get the time to do, and he's said he'll be looking at it soon.

Now, for the OP, I'd say the commonality cost of that 757 is probably what is hurting you the most.  With just 1 of them you're not likely to make enough to offset its Maintenance costs or the increased costs your other fleets incur as a penalty for an additional type.  Remember, the "profits" you see on the My Aircraft page are only gross profit.  That's simply Tickets minus Leasing minus Fuel minus Direct Labor.  What you get at the end of the week is net profit.  That's what's left after all your indirect costs are subtracted -- that would be your Maintenance, all your personnel that aren't Pilots/Crew, Marketing, etc.  So if any of those indirect costs are too high, it doesn't matter if every plane shows a big profit -- it'll all get eaten up by your overhead costs.