Looking for advice on growing

[unsaid]

In ATB, I am based in La Guardia (LGA), I have 25 X A300s and 18 X B757s, and I am a regional airline doing routes in the US only. Now, almost all the regional routes  which have pax demand of 200 and higher are full.
I have two options ahead of me;
1. I can lease smaller airplanes and go for routes which have pax demand of 80-100. There are loads of that kind of routes.
2. I can base at a more international (?) airport and do long hauls (such as newark, it is not very crowded yet).

What do you suggest I should do? Which one would make more money. I can easily pay for a new base by the way.

[Sami]

Set up another base to some other US airport?

I'd do that if your home base is full..

[unsaid]

well I think I should rephrase,
I will open a new base eventually. But should I start leasing smaller planes and fill the 80-100 pax demand first then go open a new base? or should I open a new base immediately and not care about smaller routes?

[Curse]

You can do both.

And, by the way, Newark sounds interesting. I'm looking for a place to open a base, too.... 

[type45]

routes with demand of 80-100 are good markets I can promote
just find out the market situation, order and place the correct planes to the route, than you can have a lots of income

[schro]

just keep in mind that your margins are going to be lower with 100 seat jets compared to your 757s and A300s.  I'm not in the game so I don't know what fuel is doing, but from a commonality perspective, it might be worth running half empty 757s for now and then you don't hvae to mess with it as traffic grows throughout the game.

In MT1, I ran a combo of 757s and M90's (started with M80's for a bit) out of MSP which did quite well for me even when fuel was 1200+ - basically I'd run the M90's on routes with 120-200 demand, 757-300's on everything over that, and 757-200's on long and thin routes (hawaii, europe, etc, but for shorter pond crossings (i.e. PHL-LHR) i'd still use the 753).

That gave me room in the fleet plan for my third type to be a long haul widebody - keepin mind fleet commonality charges literally double when you add your 4th type (even for existing types), so in a fiercely competitive game, you're best to maintain no more than 3 active plane types as it will give you a competitive advantage. Of course, I tried A330/A340s and 777-200/300s in that game and nothing worked very well - inflation had made the widebodies far too expensive to be able to lease them and fly them profitably.

Just remember the smaller the plane the higher the CASM. If you really want to add another fleet type, consider what the entire trip cost would be.  A great example is between the 737-300 and 400, where they cost about the same to buy (maybe af ew million difference and a negligible amount of leasing cost difference), burn the same amount of fuel, have the same costs otherwise, but the 400 happens to carry an extra 40 pax.  So you'd basicqally make the same money flying a 70% full 734 as you would a 100% full 733.

[unsaid]

well, thanks for all the info, however, I am still confused. I don't know which plane I should get for longhaul flights, the airport I am thinking about opening a new base in (I am not saying the name this time, otherwise people just grab it  ) needs average 6000 nm to Europe and 7000 nm to Asia. If I go for a used 747-400, the lease cost is incredibly expensive. As this will be the first time I am going to fly longhaul, I don't know if I can make money while paying 2m per month for one plane's lease. On the other hand, I see people have placed like hundereds of widebody a/c orders, it makes me scared if I can handle the competition.

On the other hand, flying routes which have like 80-100 pax demand is always safer. I am not sure how much the demand on these routes will increase, (does anyone know?) but I know I will be the only one flying there.

Afterall, there is a saying in my country, "if you are going to drown, drown in a big sea". Let's see. 

[schro]

well, thanks for all the info, however, I am still confused. I don't know which plane I should get for longhaul flights, the airport I am thinking about opening a new base in (I am not saying the name this time, otherwise people just grab it  ) needs average 6000 nm to Europe and 7000 nm to Asia. If I go for a used 747-400, the lease cost is incredibly expensive. As this will be the first time I am going to fly longhaul, I don't know if I can make money while paying 2m per month for one plane's lease. On the other hand, I see people have placed like hundereds of widebody a/c orders, it makes me scared if I can handle the competition.

On the other hand, flying routes which have like 80-100 pax demand is always safer. I am not sure how much the demand on these routes will increase, (does anyone know?) but I know I will be the only one flying there.

Afterall, there is a saying in my country, "if you are going to drown, drown in a big sea". Let's see. 

Long haul flights tend to be a different beast from what I can tell. I joined MT1 around the midway point as my first foray into the game, and I've been playing JetAge since day 1.  Jet Age doesn't have a plane that will do more than 6000nm one way (realistically 5000nm), so tehre's not as many long haul options in it.  In MT1, since I joined around 2000, fuel prices were biginning to pickup and I didn't have the strongest base (MSP).  I really couldn't make money with anything bigger than a 757 for a couple reasons.

1. Lease rates - once inflation kicks in and lifts the value and the valuation based on a plane's demand kicks in, it almost makes the capital costs oppressive.  2 million per month for a 744 isn't bad compared to the 3 million I was paying for a 77W.

2. Fuel costs - in MT1, fuel costs were running 800-1400.  For a long haul flight, that would easily chew up 50% of the revenue generated before other variable costs and paying the lease.  I would break even or make 100k per week on the 77W's with fuel below 1,000 and anything over that would bleed money.

So what can be successful? I'm not sure. One of the keys is having a very strong domestic network that can print money, which would help eat the losses as you got your footing for long haul stuff. Another key would be to buy the planes rather than leasing, though that can lead to a very slow growth rate.  Acquiring the planes as early as possible in the game before the values get out of control would also help it out.

6000-7000 to asia is tough - that limits you to 77E, 77L, 77W, A340 and 744s to do nonstop... Alternatively, you may want to consider flying 752's with a fuel stop, since ABCBA routings aren't allowed in that game. That would get you out about 7500 miles, have a low cost of capital, decent fuel burn AND pax would chose your plane over an "extra large" size one based onthe game engine...

[unsaid]

Well Schro, thanks a lot for all the advice. I think the best way for me to go would be flying 757-300s on abcba fueling stops to asia and europe. I have orders for like 15 of them and 15 of A300-600R already, my base la guardia is full on demand, and from my second base honolulu, it is a waste of time to fly to west coast cities such as san fransisco or l.a. because it takes like 15 hours to do so, go back and forth, and the only thing after is to fly to kahui or something which is already fulfilled.
I don't have much money to order new 747-400s or 777s or MD11s, I need to grab a few of them on the used market, I don't know which one I should go with.

In this game, ATB, I learned to importance of commonality, in a few months after starting, I had 4 types, and I just got rid of the two other types other than 757s and A300/310s and now I am making some sort of money. I don't want to make the same mistake again by getting more than one type of longhaul plane. Or should I go for more than 1 type as I would make money?

[schro]

I dont' see how flying planes to destinations (i.e. the left coast) is a waste of time if you have unmet demand (or even just light competition).  In general, the airfare you get does not scale linearly with the distance flown, so a flight to LHR wont' necessarily be anymore profitable than one to LAX from HNL.

You could schedule the left coast flights as fill ins - lets say you have a 753 that does 3x weekly flights to asia, and on its A check day, it can spend 15 hours flying to the left coast and it'll all fit together from a scheduling perspective.  You could also look at pairing a 15 hour routing with a 30 hour routing and alternating to fill up a plane's schedule...

As for fleet commonality, limit yourself to a total of 3 fleet types.  Since you've already got a bunch of A300s and 757s, I'd say not to pick up more than 1 long haul fleet type. Lets say right now fleet types cost 1 million/month in commonality. When you hit 4 types, each fleet type will cost you 2 million/month - its designed to make plane hogs early in the game do fleet planning instead of buying anything that will fly.

I think your long haul fleet type is tough to advise you on without seeing your average demand levels and stage lengths for your flights. It also depends on what fuel is at and where you think its going, but I've had alliance members struggle wwith all 3 that you're looking at. Some alliance members did quite well with the 767s, but even the 200's dont' quite have the legs that you're looking for (and aren't that great from a CASM basis).

Also, just because there's competition on a route doesnt' mean you can't enter it and fly it profitably. It all depends on your price, CI, RI, plane size, and all the other usual variables that determine loads. I'm not afraid to enter a route that only has 1x demand loaded with seats. If its 2x demand, I only do it to spite the other carrier(s) and expect to lose money.