Tips

[Blake8824]

I need some tips for a new starting up airline. I'm still having a little trouble turning a little profit. Like what kind of planes should a new airline lease and stuff and route wise I need help with pricing, my LF% isnt turning very high and when i get it up high it goes down again.
So if anyone would feel kind enough to help out, I'd really appreciate it

[RushmoreAir]

Hi, and welcome to AirwaySim! 

A new airline can lease any non-Russian aircraft under 20 years old, and generally do well.  Remember, for each new fleet group you add to your airline, your fixed costs go up tremendously.  The fleet group of aircraft can be seen on the My Aircraft page near the top. 

Price your routes at a 10-15% discount to start.  After a while (maybe a real-life week), you can set the prices back to default.

Your LF will be pretty low for the first few game months, as your Route Image has to build up and that takes time.

A useful guide for beginners is Swiftus' Guide, written by Swiftus, a very experienced AirwaySim member: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,9211.0.html

[castelino009]

simple words mate,

keep it simple, keep it real. Do not start too many new routes at once. Stick to one route, build the RI and load factor and then move on slowly until you get hang of things here.

Load factors as Rushmore said will be down for a good while, so dont worry. Keep your eye on marketing. Try not to fill you planes with cattle class -Ryanair style seating (especially if flying  over 4 hrs) pax wont like that.

Try to get as many aircrafts of one fleet type  eg: B737 classics (737-300/400/500) or NG's (737-600/700/800/900) same with Airbus (A318/319/320/321)

Intially you will have to heavily reduce your ticket prices , I persoanlly say more than 20-25% and then flag the routes which are not doing well and increse the rest by 2% to 3 % everytime.

Hope this help mate, Welcome to Airwaysim, good luck, all the best.

cheers
VJC

[Blake8824]

Thank y'all, I have 3 planes now and am startin to turn a decent profit!

[GDK]

In this world everything is a little easier. You don't have to cut your ticket price (or 5% cut will do). Get a plane with range around 3500nm such as A300, Tristar, DC10 and find a route of 3000nm - 3700nm with demand of around 1000 per day. Schedule that plane to fly whole day, avoid departure and arrival time between 2300-0500 hours. Use the time zone differential for that. Fly from Dubai or Abu Dhabi to EU is best.

This is the method to get the most profit with least cost. Remember, for every route that you open, it needs more staff (marketing, admin and bla bla bla...) So, fully fill up the route you are operating before opening next route.

[karn39]

In case you have a competitor on that route and still want to compete, first research their schedule, what fleet they fly on this route. Secondly, look into competitor fleet info to see the fleet age. When all info are gathered, fly the route with newer and smaller plane but more frequent than your competitor. If the route demand are not fill up yet, you will gradually gain market share and when the competitor's bigger old plane get hurt in LF, they will look for another route than competing you. In case the route demand is already filled up with your competitor. You might get share harder but you still hurt their profit. They might put more schedule on the route to chase you out. So look carefully.

[Thejug923]

Way off topic, but could someone possibly explain what fines you can get, like what they are for and how much they cost kind of thing. I can't seem to find anything on it.

Thanks,

Patrick - CEO Transworld Connection

[Sigma]

The only fines you can get are for not doing your maintenances on-time.  The fine's are sizeable, but they don't seem set in stone as I've had a fair range of different amounts.  But the real problem isn't the fine anyway, it's the huge hit you take to your CI that, depending on where you were at, can cost you tens or even hundreds of millions to get back again.  And the resulting passenger loss from the hit to your CI can be enough to drive you into bankruptcy depending on the margins you were operating at previously.

Basically, getting a maintenance fine is usually the beginning of the end because it should only come around when you don't have the money to do an Automatic maintenance (you should ALWAYS have your maintenances on Automatic so you don't have to worry about forgetting one).  And since you don't have the money you get a fine which causes your CI to fall which makes it even harder to start making money, so your next plane misses maintenance too, and so on and so forth.

[Thejug923]

But the real problem isn't the fine anyway, it's the huge hit you take to your CI that, depending on where you were at, can cost you tens or even hundreds of millions to get back again.

Shouldn't be a problem there, I don't have enough money for that kind of losses to occur... I am only 5 months old.

  Thank you for such a quick response to my question. I haven't had the problem of going into the red, limiting routes to non-flown only. I don't have the money to take losses competing until I can make money lol.

  I try to run as cost effective as possible as starting so late in the game I am too small to compete with everyone at this time. I am making plans to start running 75% stronger within the next 7 months. If there is anything I'm missing please help if able, not a big deal though, I should be able to run this on my own or something is wrong right... haha

Thank you again,

Patrick - CEO Transworld Connection