How do people get 9 digit worth so quickly and also how best to use loans?....

[L1011fan]

how does one get their airline worth, say 500,000,000 so quickly at the outset of a game or later on either? Don't get me wrong, I've had some semi-large airlines, BUT, I think I'm using loans wrong (and over anxious to expand too, which I need to control). Can any one shed some light on how use loans to ones EXTREME advantage and what have you done to make your airline worth so much and owe nothing? And in many cases, very quickly after a game world starts.
One other thing that I have seen, how is it that an airline that owes maybe $900,000,000 still fly? Would some of you good people out there  enlighten me? I am using beyond routes to help expand, but that takes a little while. HELP!

[d2031k]

For me, loans have the greatest benefit/impact at the very start - first 6-9 months maybe.  The profit margins are massive at the start of the game and you can take out a reasonably large loan, which can be paid back easily whilst there's no or little competition.

In terms of earning quickly, a tactic often used at the start of games is loading your aircraft with a high number of business/first class seats.  CI is so low at this stage that pax will fly with whoever has the seats.  Aircraft have to be reconfigured eventually, but to get going you could use an all business/first aircraft to get money in quickly.  Some routes in Japan, for example, have 10000 pax a day with hundreds of business travellers.

Another way is to get capacity on as many routes as possible with whatever (reasonably efficient) aircraft you can find.  This way RI builds up and profits are still high due to low levels of competition.  Knowing when the used market refreshes itself really helps early on - the best aircraft disappear in seconds if you're not quick    The introduction of limiting used orders to 3 aircraft a day has slowed this method somewhat.

In the games' current format, this all leads to the massive rush for the first big orders of the best aircraft and the long production queues that develop.  Production queues are hugely better than they were a year or so ago, when one carrier could get the first 50 aircraft, but its still important to get the most economical aircraft asap.  Competition can be wiped out quickly like this and then growth surges.

If you can get a good start and a decent order in, you're usually away.  It does depend on who is based at your hub too.  If you're unlucky enough to have 1 or more big/experienced players there then growth is stunted for both of you.

I hope that helps a little.  This is not an exhaustive list of reasons why, but if you use some of the techniques even a little, then you'll always stand a good chance of being ahead of the competiton.

Dave

[Sigma]

It all starts from the very beginning...  There are a few strategies, but the below is probably the most common:

1>  Buy anything that goes long-range on the market without particular care for commonality.

2>  Convert your planes to maximize the C/F-class traffic, preferably on as few routes as possible (so pick routes with high C/F traffic).

3>  Watch the money pour in.

4>  Use that money to buy planes outright or use your high margins to get loans (or both -- ensuring you get the loan BEFORE buying the plane, as you'll get more cash this way).

5>  Use the outright-purchased planes to secure loans to purchase more planes outright.

6>  Repeat.

That's a bit of an extreme example, but a very efficient one if maximizing value is really your goal.  I, for one, don't play to maximize value at all.

On the simpler end, the #1 mistake people make -- not taking a loan BEFORE buying that first plane.  Most rush to buy that first plane then go to the bank to try to get enough cash for a 2nd; find that they can't and have to sit and wait for the cash to roll in (and it comes a lot slower thesedays with low-RI than it used to).  You can get the bank to give you a lot more money before you get that first plane than you can after you buy it.  That may mean the difference between flying with 1 plane for the first few game-months and flying with 2 planes.  And that simple factor alone can put you a long ways behind the curve since the margin with 2 planes is HUGELY different than the margin with 1 which leads to the ability to get larger loans earlier which means getting plane orders in earlier, which means getting planes delivered earlier, which means getting even more planes flying earlier.   It may seem like a really small deal, but all else being equal the guy who got 2 planes to start could have 100 planes by the time you get to 20.

[Talentz]

Yeah, which is why I've been hounding on Sami to change CI/RI to slow growth in the beginning. But basically, all that is said above is true.

I think once we close some of the loop holes, AWS will be become more strategic in nature. Least Im hoping so  



Talentz