Any Tips?

[6Pack]

Greetings!

I started here not too long ago.  I have a small operation by the name of SoCal Airways, located, you guessed it, in SoCal.  For my first airline I'd figure I do things on my own and see how it came out.  I pretty much came to a standstill.  I have 4 aircraft, all Saab 2000's.  The lowest weekly income is $163,102 and the highest is $243,059.  I tried to find the lowest amount of marketing that would still increase my company image a bit while not dragging me into the red.  It's $143,717 a week.  Plus another $50,000 a week advertising my KSAN-KSFO route.  All planes fly 5 daily routes, it's the highest amount I can manage, I keep getting anti-monopoly warnings.

This being said, SoCal Airways' bank account seems to be stuck in the $300K-$600 range.  The cost to get another Saab lease is roughly another 1M.  I mean, yeah, the company is at a sweet spot where it maintains itself but my goal was to get a nice sized regional airline running with 15-20 aircraft and it seems to have lost the ability to expand.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks of the trade?  I'm not trying to start some huge, multi-base international operation, but a good sized regional one.  What am I doing wrong?  My best guess is that I'm in a bad spot for a regional airline, with not enough destinations under 300 miles.  But who knows..

Oh by the way, I even had a handicap.  With the 4 million that I started with, I got an addition 1 million with the help of Lancart Airlines, who saved me from a early mistake of buy a Piper Cheyenne.  So I'm just a little lost.

[Daemus]

From what I have been reading, advertising a route is generally just a money sink. The route should generate sufficient image increase from you just running it frequently with minimal delay time. The only time I think advertising a route might be worth the money spent is if you are in heavy competition with someone else for that route and are looking to push them from it by attracting their passengers. The money spent could then be viewed as worthwhile because of the potential gain from having a competitor leave the route to you when they see losses that are just too big and don't feel like a fighting for it. Starting out, you probably don't want to be trying to fight with more established airlines for desirable routes because if they fight back, you don't have the money to hold out longer than they do. As a newer company, advertising your company is good but you should stick to the cheaper options. Right now I pay $83k per week to run a state-wide newspaper, billboard, and radio campaign that seems to be working great and isn't killing my profits.

I looked at the airports you are flying between. Some are big busy airports where you have competition that you will be fighting against for pax. There is also a good chance that you are up against some running jets against your props. I am not 100% certain but I believe that passengers are more likely to go for a jet than a prop in this sim.

You have a fast prop plane that has good capacity and range. Take advantage of the speed and range by setting up longer routes. I don't think you have one route that is even half the nominal range of your plane. You can get more per pax if you take them farther. On top of that, you are reducing ground time. A longer run means you do less runs in a week but you also have less turnaround time. A 350 route x2 vs a 700 route saves you two turnaround times and should result in a faster average speed because you are cruising for longer, having 2 less take-offs and landings. It all will add up over time as you spend more time in the air and have lower overhead. I am not sure why you want to do 300 mile or less flights but, at least to me, it doesn't make economic sense when you have longer routes as options.

You have a plane that can use fairly small runways. Take advantage of that and go where your competitors can't with their bigger jets. Use smaller airports where you don't have to worry about so much competition and will have an easier time getting the LF% to increase just from running the route.

Remember to reset ticket prices to default every now and then. Don't forget to modify them again after the reset to default if you are doing a % difference such as 10% off to be competitive. In case it isn't clear, the reset to default on ticket prices sets them to the standard price based on the current economy. What was the normal amount to charge for a ticket last quarter might be noticeably lower than this quarter, leading to you charging the same this quarter as you did the previous one but making less because of inflation, increased gas prices, etc.

Another thing to remember is how fast time passes. Your bank account might seem like it is hanging because it has only been a day or two in-game since you last looked. Throw in expenses like B checks coming around once a month and it can make your bank account seem like it is just stagnant even though you made the money to pay for the checks. Don't just look at balance, look at the Income Statement to see what you are really making and what may have come up as a cost that won't be there next week.

[6Pack]

Good ideas, good ideas.  I'll try them out.  I was shooting for smaller airports with little or no service already, (Santa Barbara).  I was putting more emphasis on more take-offs and landings rather than putting the range to good use.

I was advertising the KSAN-KSFO route for a month because I thought it had potential, but the passengers weren't going for it.  Now those seats are get getting filled 60% up from the 25% percent range.  Hopefully it will stick or go up.

I am eager to start in a new game world where I don't hit the ground running up against already well established airlines.  This is good practice though, get all the real dumb mistakes out now I suppose.

Thanks for the input!

[JumboShrimp]

Good ideas, good ideas.  I'll try them out.  I was shooting for smaller airports with little or no service already, (Santa Barbara).  I was putting more emphasis on more take-offs and landings rather than putting the range to good use.

That's a good strategy.  Go for short range routes that are 60 pax or higher with no competition.  As you add aircraft, increase your range.

I was advertising the KSAN-KSFO route for a month because I thought it had potential, but the passengers weren't going for it.  Now those seats are get getting filled 60% up from the 25% percent range.  Hopefully it will stick or go up.

As Daemus said, don't waste your money advertising Route (RI).  Just fly the contested route with 1x daily flight until it on its own builds your Route Image to 100%.  Than you can add frequency, but generally, try to exhaust the uncontested routes before challenging an incumbent.

Also, don't over do it on CI.  I would not go over 25% of your weekly profits into Company Image marketing.  Remember, you want to add planes, and you will have to start paying lease payments after 4 months, and also, some of your aircraft will need to go into C and D checks.  So build up some cash cushion so that an unexpected expense does not doom your airline.

Few things to pay attention to:
- keep your aircraft flying as much as you can
- avoid delays by good scheduling.  Delays work against money spent on CI
- Stick to as few fleet types as you can
- don't be tempted by opening additional bases until you have exhausted the airport of your HQ and built up some cash reserve / company value
- study fleet types.  Spend a lot of time on Compare Aircraft page.  There is a lot to learn there for your current and future games

[Sigma]

You have a fast prop plane that has good capacity and range. Take advantage of the speed and range by setting up longer routes. I don't think you have one route that is even half the nominal range of your plane. You can get more per pax if you take them farther. On top of that, you are reducing ground time. A longer run means you do less runs in a week but you also have less turnaround time. A 350 route x2 vs a 700 route saves you two turnaround times and should result in a faster average speed because you are cruising for longer, having 2 less take-offs and landings. It all will add up over time as you spend more time in the air and have lower overhead. I am not sure why you want to do 300 mile or less flights but, at least to me, it doesn't make economic sense when you have longer routes as options.

You've got a hell of a lot of superb advice in your post, Daemus, except this one point here.

What you've said would be true if a 700-mile route paid twice what a 350-mile route does.  But it doesn't.  Not even close.

For example, a 215-mile route in the AC game right now has a standard Y price of $145/seat.  A 634-mile route, fully three times the distance, only has a standard price of $160.  

So a 634-mile route that takes me 5:40 only nets me 10% more revenues than a 215-mile route that takes 3:35 (all based on F100 numbers).  So for just a measly 10% extra revenue, I burn 250% more fuel, take extra pilot and other resource utilization, and can only turn the plane 4 times vs 6 times (on the same route).  The added revenue doesn't even cover the extra fuel I burn to cover the added distance let alone everything else.

3 guesses which route makes WAY more money than the other.

[Daemus]

Thanks for the info Sigma. Sorry for steering you in the wrong direction on that 6Pack. I will have to do some research on pricing and work on fine-tuning my route choices as I didn't realize there was such a small difference in revenue.

[swiftus27]

Keep at it!

Sigma does have a great point.   

A 50nm flight is only a few percent less in price than a 500nm flight.

For Saabs and CRJs to work you need them taking off and landing alot.  5-6 routes per day is where I try to keep them.  After you saturate your local market, move to the 250-400nm range.  I prefer to put standard seating on SAABs because of two reasons.  The first is because if someone puts the same plane on that route, they probably didnt use standard seating (giving me an LF boost due to seating).  The second is that I can fly them on 300-400nm range flights without penalty. 

Just make sure you dont put slow TPs on longer routes ESPECIALLY with HD seating.