When are small airlines going to be realistic?

[vectorforfood]

I want to finally be able to run an airline with 19 seat aircraft.

Is this ever going to be a reality?

[swiftus27]

They never will be under the current format. 

You can't run a small prop airline out of the carribbean even though you want to.

[GDK]

"biggeer" prop airline might be posiible. I'm doing that now.

[swiftus27]

I have now said this 101 times.

small and medium props are in this game only to supplement a larger airline.

IMHO, they should do away with them altogether and only have planes that have 70+ seats on them 

OR:

actually make them useful.

[LOT767]

I have now said this 101 times.

small and medium props are in this game only to supplement a larger airline.

IMHO, they should do away with them altogether and only have planes that have 70+ seats on them 

OR:

actually make them useful.

Don't sound like thats gonna happen, I read that V 1.3 will have the Pilatus PC-12 in it......maybe some hope for it being do-able? I would absolutly LOVE to run a commuter airline something 50 seats max.....E-120's and 145's for me

[romeozulu]

Running at least a fleet of turbo prop like ATR42 is possible but, fly them as much as possible and if possible buy them.

Leasing those airplanes cost a lot  One more tip, run your airline where taxes and salaries are low.

I used to run an airline with 15 Fokker 50 in modern times 3 and I made good profit, until I decided to lease new airplanes that killed my airline 

[seatrump]

I was doing OK with F28s and F27s and a few Metros up in the Pacific NW.  I had a lot of money so I ordered a bunch of B1900s.   Well that was the end of that.  I was losing 200k+ a week.  Tried everything, fiddled with routes, lowered salaries, raised fares, lowered fares.  Nothing doing.  My load factor was 80% plus. The huge cost of setting up routes ate my cash and then the expense of route fees and maintenance meant staying profitable was impossible....   When I was 5 million in the whole and hadn't turned a profit in more than a year I pulled the plug.

I've relocated and have a new plan.  I've leased in a couple of large airplanes and have them set up on cash cow routes.  When I have boats of cash then I'm going to use them to subsidize a small airplane operation....  Maybe the combo can be slightly profitable......

[ukatlantic]

I ran an extremely successful Regional Airline with the bulk of my fleet being ATR 42/72 and Q400's supplemented with 10 Embrear 17/95s.  It was doing so well I had bought out 1/4 of my fleet before I accidentally shut the airline down (pressed the wrong button in haste and that was that  ).  However with a regional airline it takes time and you need to fly as frequently on short hop routes as possible to make them successful; I was using the ATR 42 on short routes of around 300NM and they were making around $400k a week the ATR 72 were flying slightly longer routes but still realtively short and most of them were bringing in around $350-400k a week too, the Q400's I was using on routes up to it's max range of 1500NM most were again on shortish routes upto 1000NM and were brining in around $300-500k a week the ones I had utilised at max range still made a profit but it was very low around $80 - 150k. 

The game definately needs to be tweaked and a system where at the start you choose what type of airline you are going to be ie Long Haul International or Short Haul Regional, LCC or Full Service etc imlemented and then the game will only allow you to buy aircraft that would be realistically used for the type of airline you are.  That way if you are at say Heathrow against Mr Dominator who is running a large International but wants the regional pie too it cant happen as you have chosen your airline type at the beginning so he is stuck with Long Haul and cant get into a regional market.  I would imagine if this were to ever be implemented it would take alot of hours of research to ensure that demand is realistic dependant on the type of carrier you are, so I cant imagine it ever being implemented anytime soon if at all - but it would be good if it did happen.

[swiftus27]

If you look back in the feature request area you will see one idea I had to fix this.

Each airline would select and then research a specialty.   Airlines flying LH intl routes would be at a severe disadvantage flying SH prop routes.

[LOT767]

Maybe we could just implement somehow like the regionals do in the States say a big airline in aws wants a small fleet the player could be its own airline but fly under the big airlines name....eg. Colgan DBA Continental connection...or united express...or compass under the Delta name....that way the small airline would be getting paid through the big airline as well as making money off routes. Sorry if this makes no sense I wrote it from my phone and I think you will get the idea?

[swiftus27]

Colgan pays their new pilots 18000 per year.   I dont think that Sami modeled the salaries low enough for this game.  They have virtually no marketing staff.   It is just not the same in this game.

[[ATA] Sunbao]

The whole staff pictures is the problem comeon im just started having 2 airbus 320 series and 6 routes. 15 customer service peoples it is just hopless specially if you has smal planes with under 60 seats. 8 people in the route strategi deparments, it has 8 people atm it is more than i have routes it is so hopeless.

[Maarten Otto]

I have said it many times on the forum.

If you want to run a "baby airline", staff levels should be based on the amount of seats one can sell rather then how much metal you launch into the air.

A way to implement this is to give the player a "feature" option on start up of their airline:

[ ] Classic Airline: Works as we know it right now
[ ] LCC: Very price sensitive pax with a fourth class of demand willing to pay LCC only. Part of Y class pax is willing to fly LCC, but not all. LCC will not be able to ell Business or First class tickets. Staff is paid less then Classic airline. Marketing costs reduced by 15%. Slot costs at 200%.
[ ] Baby Airline: Staff levels based on seats available, Only small and medium AC allowed with a max of 50 seats per plane. Staff paid as Classic airline, Slot costs after first 12 months 150% of market value. Banned from airports as LHR, AMS, FRA and JFK. Allowed to open up to 6 base airports. and ticket prices generally 50% above RRP allowed.
[ ] Business/private airline: Demand is per business contract. Only small AC's allowed. No airport restrictions, but slots come at a high price.

[Dave4468]

I have said it many times on the forum.

If you want to run a "baby airline", staff levels should be based on the amount of seats one can sell rather then how much metal you launch into the air.

A way to implement this is to give the player a "feature" option on start up of their airline:

[ ] Classic Airline: Works as we know it right now
[ ] LCC: Very price sensitive pax with a fourth class of demand willing to pay LCC only. Part of Y class pax is willing to fly LCC, but not all. LCC will not be able to ell Business or First class tickets. Staff is paid less then Classic airline. Marketing costs reduced by 15%. Slot costs at 200%.
[ ] Baby Airline: Staff levels based on seats available, Only small and medium AC allowed with a max of 50 seats per plane. Staff paid as Classic airline, Slot costs after first 12 months 150% of market value. Banned from airports as LHR, AMS, FRA and JFK. Allowed to open up to 6 base airports. and ticket prices generally 50% above RRP allowed.
[ ] Business/private airline: Demand is per business contract. Only small AC's allowed. No airport restrictions, but slots come at a high price.

+1. Only change I'd make is the baby airline should be allowed slightly larger aircraft, maybe up to 100 seats to allow things like the bigger E-Jets, Fokker 70/100s and the BAe 146 sized aircraft.

[alexgv1]

Very price sensitive pax with a fourth class of demand willing to pay LCC only. Part of Y class pax is willing to fly LCC, but not all.

You have to remember that LCC also opens up for another new type of passenger, those who wouldn't have flown at all but can now afford to instead of getting ground transport. So in a sense it can create more demand that wasn't there previously and doesn't necessarily compete with all the conventional demand as some will opt for service over price, as you said.

[ukatlantic]

These are all great idea's but to model it as near to RL as possible I guess alot of research needs to be done.  Saying that a LCC should pay 200% more for slots than say a classic airline, doesnt quite sound right to me, the same for a 150% slot cost for the baby airline, again if they are flying smaller aircraft why on earth would they pay more than the guy who's flying 747's - I'm sure someone who has worked in the airline industry can verify how slot costs are calculated in RL.

One thing you could include is that for the LCC they are only limited to 2 fleet type choices say 737-3/4/500 or 737/7/8/9OO or A318/19/20/21 or Q400 and E195 which would realistically model the LCC concept as well as a HD seat config only.

Not sure how you could model the baby airline - possibly limiting it to a certain size aircraft say a large aircraft with no more than 100 seats.

The possibilities are endless, and I'm sure there will be plenty more debate on this!

[alexgv1]

I'm sure someone who has worked in the airline industry can verify how slot costs are calculated in RL.

Most airport fees (landing, hangarage/parking, etc.) are dependant on aircraft MTOW. But they still vary from airport to airport.

[LostInBKK]

One thing you could include is that for the LCC they are only limited to 2 fleet type choices say 737-3/4/500 or 737/7/8/9OO or A318/19/20/21 or Q400 and E195 which would realistically model the LCC concept as well as a HD seat config only.

Just wanted to mention that Air Asia runs both Airbus and Boeing planes. OK OK only 8 Boeing 737-300. They also have both Economy and Business Class. OK both are rubbish compared to a full cost airline but we need to be careful how much you are restricting the LCC. I would guess you could change the way fleet communality work and make it prohibitive to take more than one family of craft. (Hope that last bit makes sense) 

I would also be interested to know the pricing of the aircraft for the LCC's as I would guess they buy their planes at rock bottom prices??

Cheers
LostInBKK

[Sandager]

Just wanted to mention that Air Asia runs both Airbus and Boeing planes. OK OK only 8 Boeing 737-300. They also have both Economy and Business Class. OK both are rubbish compared to a full cost airline but we need to be careful how much you are restricting the LCC. I would guess you could change the way fleet communality work and make it prohibitive to take more than one family of craft. (Hope that last bit makes sense) 

I would also be interested to know the pricing of the aircraft for the LCC's as I would guess they buy their planes at rock bottom prices??

Cheers
LostInBKK

I flew Air Asia Thailand a few years ago, sat on seat 1D and didn't notice any business class. But a pretty new A320 and excellent service.
I believe they only offer "business class" on their long haul (wide body) flights

[GDK]

AirAsia only offer high density economy class on both their B733 and A322 and both are in the max seat configuration - 737 154 seats & 320 180 seats. Malaysia AirAsia and Thailand AirAsia only fly A320, only Indonesia AirAsia fly B737.

Business class only available on AirAsia X flight but these 2 are completely different company.