bleeding money even though planes are profiting

[airplane_mech2]

So, My planes are all turning a nice profit but my company still is going into the hole.  Any ideas on things I can change that will stop the bleeding. I have marketing, and all the minimum requirements.  I would like to get another plane at some point.  lol.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Jps]

How much marketing do you have? It should not be more than 30% of income, and since you are bleeding, you might wish to cut on marketing.
Also, aircraft profit does not take into account your salary costs. So, if you have a huge staff, that will give the negative income.

What kind of a fleet do you have? If you have less than 10 planes, you should not have more than 1 aircraft type (eg. B737-600/700/800/900), for each type will add salary and maintenance costs a lot.

What kind of route structure do you have? Do you have long or short routes, are you flying 24/7, or are the planes grounded durind the night? Also, are there large gaps between your routes? Eg, if a B737 arrives at 10:00, it can leave already at 11:00 (with 8% prob. for delay), and by cutting these waitings, you might be able to add one more route for each day.
What is your LF and delay %?

[airplane_mech2]

How much marketing do you have? It should not be more than 30% of income, and since you are bleeding, you might wish to cut on marketing.
Also, aircraft profit does not take into account your salary costs. So, if you have a huge staff, that will give the negative income.

What kind of a fleet do you have? If you have less than 10 planes, you should not have more than 1 aircraft type (eg. B737-600/700/800/900), for each type will add salary and maintenance costs a lot.

What kind of route structure do you have? Do you have long or short routes, are you flying 24/7, or are the planes grounded durind the night? Also, are there large gaps between your routes? Eg, if a B737 arrives at 10:00, it can leave already at 11:00 (with 8% prob. for delay), and by cutting these waitings, you might be able to add one more route for each day.
What is your LF and delay %?

I have route specific ads and a general campaign.  Not a big deal it seems to me.  I fly 2 routes from Atlanta.  2 crj-200's.  1 to JFK with 3 legs a day and 1 to ORD 3 legs a day. starting at 630am and  45 min. turn time.  Planes down during the night and on wed. I cut the last flight to do a weekly check.  LF are in the upper 80's to mid 90% and delays are literally 1-2 min.  Staff is set automatically and I cut out my salary.  Each plane is bringing in 7-8000$ profit every day on each flight.  So... I don't know.  Thanks, for responding.  Much appreciated.

[Sigma]

1>  Ditch the Route-Specific campaigns.  They're complete wastes of money and do absolutely nothing at all.

2>  You say you have a General Campaign, but no specifics on what size of one.  What percent of your weekly revenue is being spent on that campaign?

3>  Your routes seem good but fly them at night if they'll fit in the schedule.  If they won't fit in there, find someplace closer and fly both planes to that new location.  Never park your planes if you can help it.  Even running 40% full on a 2am flight they'll still make you money.

4>   It's extremely hard, even impossible, to turn a net profit with just 2 CRJs flying those longer-range routes.  Quite simply you're not selling enough seats to pay for all the people you employ to operate those routes.  If you could get 4-6 turns a day you'd be alright, but 3 turns isn't going to make you any money.  Roughly $7000/day doesn't cut it because you're undoubtedly spending more money than that on overhead people (all your management, your ground personnel, your customer service, etc, etc, etc) whose costs aren't covered in that gross profit figure that you're seeing.  Once you pay your overhead to operate those routes you're losing money operating them.  You need more planes and/or more routes in order to cover your overhead costs.

[Pinky]

Hi there, I suggest you cut all marketing you do. make your planes fly 24/7 frequency is king in this game.

and try a more fuel efficient plane for the future. fuel/pax moved is high on those crj's

[Jps]

You might wish to drop the route marketing, they are pretty useless.

Also, the CRJ's don't have much pax capacity, so you are not moving a lot of pax/day. Thus, you should change your routes to as short as possible. It's better to fly 2x200NM than 1x600NM, especially with such a small plane. You can also start to fly already at 5 am, and continue all the way to 23:55 without much of an impact on LF.

Since you have a rather good LF, consider raising your prices. Some 60-70% LF is acceptable, for you usually get more money then.

[airplane_mech2]

You might wish to drop the route marketing, they are pretty useless.

Also, the CRJ's don't have much pax capacity, so you are not moving a lot of pax/day. Thus, you should change your routes to as short as possible. It's better to fly 2x200NM than 1x600NM, especially with such a small plane. You can also start to fly already at 5 am, and continue all the way to 23:55 without much of an impact on LF.

Since you have a rather good LF, consider raising your prices. Some 60-70% LF is acceptable, for you usually get more money then.

Thanks all for the tips.  I'll try making these changes and see what happens.  Much appreciated.

[schro]

I'd see if you can get at least 6 turns per day out of each of the CRJ's. That should help significantly. As it has already been said, they are very difficult planes to make money with, and they will eat your shorts flying ATL-ORD/JFK.

Within 300nm of ATL, you should have TONS of options - BHM, BNA, TYS, MEM, ASV, GSP, GSO, CLT, RDU, AGS, CHS, VPS, MCO, TLH, SAV, JAX... and thats just off the top of my head..

[airplane_mech2]

I'd see if you can get at least 6 turns per day out of each of the CRJ's. That should help significantly. As it has already been said, they are very difficult planes to make money with, and they will eat your shorts flying ATL-ORD/JFK.

Within 300nm of ATL, you should have TONS of options - BHM, BNA, TYS, MEM, ASV, GSP, GSO, CLT, RDU, AGS, CHS, VPS, MCO, TLH, SAV, JAX... and thats just off the top of my head..

I dropped all my flights and reset them up with routes to Charlotte and Nashville.  I now have 6 legs on each plane and I dropped the route specific ads.  Load factors are in the 50-70% range and all making money nicely.  Except for one.  LF is 46% but still making money.  Thanks for all the help.  I'm afraid it might be too late though.  I got bankruptcy notifications if I don't turn this crap around in 4 days, the bank is closing me.  LOL.  but at least I learned the error of my ways.  I'm gonna sign up for the full game and start again.  All your input is greatly appreciated.  FLY ON!

[schro]

The 46% one is probably taking off/landing between 12am-5am, which is a bit of a deadzone, however, if the flight is in the green, you might as well fly it.

When you sign up for the full game, don't expect to print money with CRJs :-).  Get something a bit bigger.

Keep in mind that the route "profit" that you're turning is basically a representation of the variable costs of the flight (fuel, airport fees, etc) subtracted from revenue from the flight. It does NOT include fixed costs (airport rent, staff salaries (a whopper), marketing, leasing, etc).  You should be able to see all of those expenses on the income statement - just make sure to look at a full week rather than a partial as some costs happen at only one point during the week (i.e. staff salaries mid-day tuesday and staff training mid-day Weds).

[Jps]

The 46% one is probably taking off/landing between 12am-5am, which is a bit of a deadzone, however, if the flight is in the green, you might as well fly it.

When you sign up for the full game, don't expect to print money with CRJs :-).  Get something a bit bigger.

Keep in mind that the route "profit" that you're turning is basically a representation of the variable costs of the flight (fuel, airport fees, etc) subtracted from revenue from the flight. It does NOT include fixed costs (airport rent, staff salaries (a whopper), marketing, leasing, etc).  You should be able to see all of those expenses on the income statement - just make sure to look at a full week rather than a partial as some costs happen at only one point during the week (i.e. staff salaries mid-day tuesday and staff training mid-day Weds).

While the route information does not include leasing, it is taken into account on the my aircraft page and thus in aircraft income.