I give up. 5 aircraft, all with good loads, all making profits, yet bankrupt.

[mxg910]

Would anyone with some good insight please tell me why my airline continues to hemorrhage money? I have 5 planes, and I use every reasonable amount of time on all of them, and all flights make money - yet I can't even come close to making a profit. What should I do?

[Sigma]

What 5 planes?

What kind of daily route demand routes are you putting them on and how far are they going?

What are you spending in Marketing? (this is the killer for many-a startup)

And if you know how to post screenshots, one of your Income Statement (monthly) and one of your Scheduling overview (the gantt chart thing so I can see routes/utilzation) would be helpful.

[mxg910]

Hi, @Sigma, thanks for the reply. Here's the info:

1 B737-300
3 DHC-5E
1 DHC-7

The Jet is bringing in the most cash, the DHCs are running short flights and are also all making $. I even resulted to a night owl flight with the 737 to try and make more money, it's sad.

I only spent $ on local Newspaper for marketing - should I not spend any at all? In desperation, after I was already losing $, I tried one route mkting campaign. Sorry about the multiple images/replies, I am currently on a notebook and could only take small screen captures. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.



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[mxg910]

Here's the Scheduling

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[Monk Xion]

Well... where are you based out of? I would have personally not gotten the props at all and sticked with the jets only... but thats me.

Once you tell me where you are based I can help you out more

[mxg910]

Based at Sea/Tac. I thought props would be a reliable way to build the airline...it's obvious jets bring in more ca$h.

[Monk Xion]

What game are you in?

[mxg910]

in Beginner's World #11 - Airline name is "Western Sky"

[Monk Xion]

in Beginner's World #11 - Airline name is "Western Sky"

I found you.

I think your best option is to restart you airline in a different airport. SeaTac has a ton of competition....

Try Portland, OR (PDX). Theres some domestic and Asia traffic to be serviced there.

And when you start, either lease B727-200s, B737s, MD-80s under 12 years old. Open a route with high demand... like to Chicago, New York, Atlanta, LA, etc.

Put a country wide, permanent marketing campaign on. Newspaper and Billboards ONLY.

From there, expand slowly but agressively.

This is my suggestion... you dont have to follow it

[mxg910]

Hey Monk, thanks. Yes, PDX was going to be my re-start location. I think Western Sky has seen its last sunset.

[Sigma]

Okay.  Restarting is definitely your best bet.  But that withstanding, to keep you from making the same mistakes again....

1>  If you're going to fly small planes, try to get more seats than the DHC-5.  Something in the 60-75 range would be preferable.  Anything less and margins become very thin and it's difficult to get over that initial hump of covering your startup overhead costs.

2>  Flying a prop or small jet isn't necessarily a bad idea.  Flying 2 fleets of them to start probably isn't the best.  There's no reason to waste a fleet that's pretty much the same as another you've already got.  Keep yourself to 2 fleets to start.  There's not much penalty for the 3rd fleet regardless, but it's just a good idea to minimize your fleets if at all possible and if you do want a third, make sure it's fulfilling a need your existing two can't do.

3>  Fly night-time flights.  Your 733 looks great, but at least 2 of your DHCs look like they can fit another flight in there.  Even with the lower load factors at night you're almost certainly going to continue to turn a profit.  On a small plane it's a must.  You need every single turn you can get.  That 2am flight can increase your ticket revenues over the week by at least 10% without increasing your costs (except fuel/fees, all your employee costs are the same no matter how many times you fly) mean the difference between a very profitable plane and a money-losing one.  Additionally the higher frequency you get with the extra flight can actually mean passengers prefer you even more so you not only get the additional night-time revenue but you get higher LF during the day too.

4> Your maintenance seems quite high and an exceptionally large percentage of your revenues.... are the DHC's really old? Or did you buy planes that had C-Checks due or something?

5>  Your marketing expense seemed alright at about 10% of your revenues.  What that percentage should be varies widely based on the scope of operation (more destinations means more money, so smaller airlines with lots of small destinations can pay a VERY large percentage to marketing, international players on huge routes a much smaller percentage).  But 10% is a decent number to start with (low if anything) and shouldn't be enough to suffocate your company.

[Sanabas]

1>  If you're going to fly small planes, try to get more seats than the DHC-5.  Something in the 60-75 range would be preferable.  Anything less and margins become very thin and it's difficult to get over that initial hump of covering your startup overhead costs.

2>  Flying a prop or small jet isn't necessarily a bad idea.  Flying 2 fleets of them to start probably isn't the best.  There's no reason to waste a fleet that's pretty much the same as another you've already got.  Keep yourself to 2 fleets to start.  There's not much penalty for the 3rd fleet regardless, but it's just a good idea to minimize your fleets if at all possible and if you do want a third, make sure it's fulfilling a need your existing two can't do.

I started in beginner world with 48 seat ATR 300s and 75/100 seat BAC 475/500s, and did fine with them. I'm now up to nearly 30 ATR 42/72 and 21 BACs, and now have bigger planes on order.

3>  Fly night-time flights.  Your 733 looks great, but at least 2 of your DHCs look like they can fit another flight in there.  Even with the lower load factors at night you're almost certainly going to continue to turn a profit.  On a small plane it's a must.  You need every single turn you can get.  That 2am flight can increase your ticket revenues over the week by at least 10% without increasing your costs (except fuel/fees, all your employee costs are the same no matter how many times you fly) mean the difference between a very profitable plane and a money-losing one.  Additionally the higher frequency you get with the extra flight can actually mean passengers prefer you even more so you not only get the additional night-time revenue but you get higher LF during the day too.

Just a minor pedant: The night flight will increase staff costs because it means 1 more pilot per plane, true? Still means more profit overall though, on my very first ATR the midnight-5am flight is making me ~25k a week profit out of 185k total for the plane, and the extra pilot costs less than 1k a week.

[Sigma]

I started in beginner world with 48 seat ATR 300s and 75/100 seat BAC 475/500s, and did fine with them. I'm now up to nearly 30 ATR 42/72 and 21 BACs, and now have bigger planes on order.

Never said it wasn't possible.  I've created airlines with planes under 40 seats and ran the largest airlines in a game operating almost nothing but more than 200 x F75/100s  But the more seats in a plane the easier the start.  It's always a good idea to remove that variable of difficultly for a new player if you can.

Just a minor pedant: The night flight will increase staff costs because it means 1 more pilot per plane, true? Still means more profit overall though, on my very first ATR the midnight-5am flight is making me ~25k a week profit out of 185k total for the plane, and the extra pilot costs less than 1k a week.

No, your plane requires the same number of pilots whether you fly a single 1hr flight per day or 8 trips totalling 24 hours.  All your fixed pilots and cabin crew that plane will ever need are hired immediately on the very first scheduling you make.  There's some formula that sami uses to  determine how many are hired based on the type of flights a model of aircraft is likely to be utilized on, whether or not you utilize it that way or not.  Only the overhead employees change based on new routes and additional frequencies.

[Sanabas]

Never said it wasn't possible.  I've created airlines with planes under 40 seats and ran the largest airlines in a game operating almost nothing but more than 200 x F75/100s  But the more seats in a plane the easier the start.  It's always a good idea to remove that variable of difficultly for a new player if you can.

I'm a new player too.  I think mine survived because I stuck to just two fleets, and because I kept them in the air as much as possible.

I've definitely noticed that starting with the small planes made life harder though, compared to those who started with 100+ seat stuff. My other problem was picking a fleet that I can't expand with new planes.

No, your plane requires the same number of pilots whether you fly a single 1hr flight per day or 8 trips totalling 24 hours.  All your fixed pilots and cabin crew that plane will ever need are hired immediately on the very first scheduling you make.  There's some formula that sami uses to  determine how many are hired based on the type of flights a model of aircraft is likely to be utilized on, whether or not you utilize it that way or not.  Only the overhead employees change based on new routes and additional frequencies.

No worries, thanks for that. I looked right at the start, and saw 5 pilots for 5 routes/day, but didn't test it route by route. Even more reason to keep them in the air then.

[ICEcoldair881]

here's a good example guys: look at Southwest Airlines.....EasyJet etc. now try to be them in Airwaysim; that's how you survive.

Cheers,
ICEcold

[bad_kelpie]

This game is hugely frustrating. Every time I start playing Airway Sim I remember why I stopped the prior times.

It seems that there are excuses for allowing parts of the game to be unrealistic, but there are also excuses for why it is as tough to master as it is.

Until there are accurate models from which to play, the game will basically suck.

I find it interesting how one can be the sole carrier in a city with a population of millions and still not be able to hack it on a 50-seater advertising country-wide.

Frankly, not starting the game early is not much of an excuse in this regard.

I think developers should not be patting themselves on the back too much.... and should be doing exactly as we are doing in the game.... lower the price while creating a better business model.

[ICEcoldair881]

I've started late in games and become very successful....as a matter of fact I HATE starting at the beginning of games simply because of the lack of aircraft. later on in the game is a challenge because you will have those competitors that will try to keep their position at the top but I've almost always done really well after a while. It just takes practise is all mate.

Cheers,
ICEcold

[bad_kelpie]

I guess me spending the last 24 years working for the planet's largest airline has done nothing for me.   

[mxg910]

Well, the good news is that I restarted in PDX, and bought only jets, no props. Magically I am making a profit. I wonder how Horizon Air makes a profit with so much prop service. Something smells fishy.

[Sigma]

It's got nothing to do with Jets vs Props.  It has to do with how you use them.  If anything, there's actually more costs in operating a fleet of small jets in terms of maintenance and fuel costs per passenger.  You're either operating larger planes which allows you to cover your overhead better or you're flying with better utilization of your aircraft.  The game does have issues with modeling the operations of smaller, particularly <50-seat aircraft, because of how it figures costs to operate a route, but it's not a bias because they're props but rather simply smaller aircraft.

And remember, small prop airlines in reality usually make tiny profits.  Horizon only makes a 1-5% profit even when it's lucky enough to make a profit at all.  And even that is because most prop airlines rely on larger partner airlines with which to share overhead costs.