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[unsaid]

I've been playing Airwaysim for almost a year now and I'd like to share my "wisdom" with newbie players. When I started the game, I asked for these kind of questions to many people but couldn't get decent answers. So here are a few basic points about success in Airwaysim that you can consider using.

These bullet points are for people who aim to be amongst 10 top players in terms of available/ revenue seat kilometers. Which, I think is the best way to understand how "big" a company is. Some people may argue that total value is the most important statistic, however, if you start a game a few years late, you virtually don't have a shot at being the most valuable company at the end.


1. When you are starting a new world, with 500 other players, try for longest and densest routes available to you. You of course have to be in a top 20 airport. For example if you are based in JFK, go for London Heathrow. If you are based in LAX, go for JFK.

2. If I am based in United States, I usually go for Airbus A300-600R or Boeing 757-300. For daily routes, for both these planes, you can do two domestic routes with a total mileage of 3000-3100, depending on wind. For LAX, this means, (1 X JFK) + (1 X short route like 1000 nm)
Although, if you have chance, go for a route that has 3400-3500 nm and do 1 route every day.

3. It of course almost always differ on availability and buying price of the plane itself, however, if you are based in USA, I think A306 and B753 are your best options. I tried A319-A320-A321 series and B738 and B739, I still think the former ones are the best.

4. The biggest disadvantage of A306 and B753 is their long turnaround time. Therefore, it is not very smart to use them in more than two routes per day.

5. If you are based in Europe, because the routes are shorter, and you would need more frequency, A320 and B739 are not so bad. However, I had a very hard time in Europe because more routes you have, more money you have to spend on advertising. My company right now spends 5% of revenue on advertising to keep it at 80, and it is 70% long haul planes and 30% B739s. I witnessed I had to spend 12% of revenue to marketing when I was based in Amsterdam Shiphol and was operating 70% A320s.

6. Long Haul types. In modern times 2, I operated like 300 777-200s and 300s and I was the biggest airline in terms of revenue passenger kilometers. However, in Modern Times 3, I am using A330-300s, as 777s are really expensive. They are both good planes, and the only reason I choose between them is price. Also, it is wise to consider A330-340 family is quite large and you can find many older planes for a cheaper price.

7. Not at the beginning of the game, but I always change seating when leasing a plane. It is almost useless to use premium seating. Use the maximum you can with standard seating.

8. I don't like short routes under 500 nm. Therefore I never use planes with less than 200 seating. It is too difficult to make a profit out of them and I don't like spending hours setting 6 routes for one plane.

9. When fuel hits around 1000 USD, I think you should be owning at least like 15% of your fleet to save on leasing costs.

10. At the start of the game, after leasing 10 or so short haul planes, try to buy one as you can use the same amount in borrowed cash. The interest of loans are always smaller than the cost of leasing a plane. After I buy my first plane, my growth becomes exponential using as much credit as I can.

11. As default, you are always paying more than you have to, to your employees and you are employing more than you have to. Even if you are going to stop growing for some period, don't fire anyone or reduce their wages. It causes a huge CI drop that makes you lose money. That money you lost because of low CI is worth like 1.5 years of high wages you pay. This is not a very certain calculation, but it is something like that.

12. If you are going to lease an older plane, check its D check time. If it is like 4 years away, go ahead, in my experience, the lower leasing cost is more important than elevated A,B and C check costs. You have to consider lowering your CI, but you are not gonna use all 20 year old planes, right? A few of them won't hurt as much.

13. General financial aspects. I was wondering how a big company was spending its money to be profitable. Some examples.

I right now have 70 X A332 and A333 and 30 X B739s. I am doing 200 mil every week revenue.
Spending
25 mil on leases,
9 mil on advertising,
5-6 mil on maintanence ( no D checks whatsoever)
26 mil on wages,
70 mil on fuel,
After everything, I am making a profit of around 14-15 mil. This would have been much higher if I owned more planes. I own 14% of my planes, I have only my original base and operating only two planes types. I started this company 10 years after starting of the game world, and never through that time fuel was lower than 750 USD.

This is as much as I can remember right now, I will write more when I think of more.

Please be reminded that this is NOT a guide to success. These are what I do. There are many other ways to be a successful company in AWS, and many other goals you can have.

[Zabuti]

I've been playing Airwaysim for almost a year now and I'd like to share my "wisdom" with newbie players. When I started the game, I asked for these kind of questions to many people but couldn't get decent answers. So here are a few basic points about success in Airwaysim that you can consider using.

These bullet points are for people who aim to be amongst 10 top players in terms of available/ revenue seat kilometers. Which, I think is the best way to understand how "big" a company is. Some people may argue that total value is the most important statistic, however, if you start a game a few years late, you virtually don't have a shot at being the most valuable company at the end.


1. When you are starting a new world, with 500 other players, try for longest and densest routes available to you. You of course have to be in a top 20 airport. For example if you are based in JFK, go for London Heathrow. If you are based in LAX, go for JFK.

2. If I am based in United States, I usually go for Airbus A300-600R or Boeing 757-300. For daily routes, for both these planes, you can do two domestic routes with a total mileage of 3000-3100, depending on wind. For LAX, this means, (1 X JFK) + (1 X short route like 1000 nm)
Although, if you have chance, go for a route that has 3400-3500 nm and do 1 route every day.

3. It of course almost always differ on availability and buying price of the plane itself, however, if you are based in USA, I think A306 and B753 are your best options. I tried A319-A320-A321 series and B738 and B739, I still think the former ones are the best.

4. The biggest disadvantage of A306 and B753 is their long turnaround time. Therefore, it is not very smart to use them in more than two routes per day.

5. If you are based in Europe, because the routes are shorter, and you would need more frequency, A320 and B739 are not so bad. However, I had a very hard time in Europe because more routes you have, more money you have to spend on advertising. My company right now spends 5% of revenue on advertising to keep it at 80, and it is 70% long haul planes and 30% B739s. I witnessed I had to spend 12% of revenue to marketing when I was based in Amsterdam Shiphol and was operating 70% A320s.

6. Long Haul types. In modern times 2, I operated like 300 777-200s and 300s and I was the biggest airline in terms of revenue passenger kilometers. However, in Modern Times 3, I am using A330-300s, as 777s are really expensive. They are both good planes, and the only reason I choose between them is price. Also, it is wise to consider A330-340 family is quite large and you can find many older planes for a cheaper price.

7. Not at the beginning of the game, but I always change seating when leasing a plane. It is almost useless to use premium seating. Use the maximum you can with standard seating.

8. I don't like short routes under 500 nm. Therefore I never use planes with less than 200 seating. It is too difficult to make a profit out of them and I don't like spending hours setting 6 routes for one plane.

9. When fuel hits around 1000 USD, I think you should be owning at least like 15% of your fleet to save on leasing costs.

10. At the start of the game, after leasing 10 or so short haul planes, try to buy one as you can use the same amount in borrowed cash. The interest of loans are always smaller than the cost of leasing a plane. After I buy my first plane, my growth becomes exponential using as much credit as I can.

11. As default, you are always paying more than you have to, to your employees and you are employing more than you have to. Even if you are going to stop growing for some period, don't fire anyone or reduce their wages. It causes a huge CI drop that makes you lose money. That money you lost because of low CI is worth like 1.5 years of high wages you pay. This is not a very certain calculation, but it is something like that.

12. If you are going to lease an older plane, check its D check time. If it is like 4 years away, go ahead, in my experience, the lower leasing cost is more important than elevated A,B and C check costs. You have to consider lowering your CI, but you are not gonna use all 20 year old planes, right? A few of them won't hurt as much.

13. General financial aspects. I was wondering how a big company was spending its money to be profitable. Some examples.

I right now have 70 X A332 and A333 and 30 X B739s. I am doing 200 mil every week revenue.
Spending
25 mil on leases,
9 mil on advertising,
5-6 mil on maintanence ( no D checks whatsoever)
26 mil on wages,
70 mil on fuel,
After everything, I am making a profit of around 14-15 mil. This would have been much higher if I owned more planes. I own 14% of my planes, I have only my original base and operating only two planes types. I started this company 10 years after starting of the game world, and never through that time fuel was lower than 750 USD.

This is as much as I can remember right now, I will write more when I think of more.

Please be reminded that this is NOT a guide to success. These are what I do. There are many other ways to be a successful company in AWS, and many other goals you can have.

Man.... you said you wanted to help newbies because nobady answers. First thing would be to look on the forum, since there are a lot of newbies questions and they always get answers pretty quickly and stronght to the point.

As for your guide, although there are some good points, I would NOT recommend to go ahead with it since it does not take into account the fact that you designed it towards N-E-W-B-I-E-S.

1. Great news for you : when you start an airline in a top-20 airport, you usually get kicked out by big airlines who know how to serve these airports and make "slot hogging". You'll be very quickly out of available slots. I would have suggested to go on a secondary airport that can serve high-volume connections to top airports (like Nagoya, going to Singapore or Tokyo). Furthermore, you benefit from very low landing fees in a crowded airport.

2. Honestly, you make more money at the beginning with a long-haul primary and short-haul secondary route. I tried them both, and a 2500nm is really better when coupled with another short-haul one (Like Paris/JFK primary and Paris/London Heathrow secondary).

3. why not... we usually argue this with better points when a question is asked on the forum (cost per travelling passenger, nb of flights you cna make per day...)

4.OK

5. Read on the forum man... it's not a worthy investment to deal with route marketing campaigns. If you designed this guide towards Newbies, please avoid making them do unnecessary expenses...

6.like point #3, can be argued. Man, you're disorganized ! why do you separate them, and why do you talk about making LH routes in #1 then talk about medium-haul aircraft in 3 and back to long in 6... ?

7. talking to newbies ? Maybe it could be interesting to tell them that High Density seating is worthy on small routes (if I remember correctly, it's "less than 1.5 hour).

8. Get out ! Short routes can be extremely profitable (your point on profit is BTW not justified), but your second reason is "I don't like to spending hours setting 6 routes for 1 plane"... man, that's called work. And usually, takes me about 10mn.

9. O_o Own 15% of the fleet ? For Newbies ? ? Well, you can be a successful airline, with jets, when you start with a fuel price of about 1000 USD. (I've done it already)

10. ok, even if can be argued by experienced players. I don't like buying a plane in first years. That's a loss of money at the beginning and competition will move faster than you are since you spend looooooong time saving.

11. Talking to newbies ? Tell them not to touch Personnel Office. It's on automatic and very useful this way to avoid newbies cutting on costs where it should not be cutting. BTW, stop giving appromations in a guide to newbies...

12. ok, I don't check these figures for the A/B/C check cost.

13. that's you company man. I won't make any comment on your figures, since they all depend on what you want to get out of this game.

Hope this helps.... But really, I mean REALLY, read the forum !

Enjoy you game

[swiftus27]

The under 500nm route statement blew me away.  You can easily dominate those segments with a Dash 8 or similar TP.  Half of Europe is under 500nm from each other. 

Owning a route is all about frequency in 1.2.  Under 200pax planes are fantastic for regional routes.  If there are 1000 pax moving from A to B and there are 2 airlines flying there.   Let's say Airline A flies 10x 100pax planes and Airline B flied 20x 50pax planes.   Airline B will get about 65% of the passengers while Airline A will get about 35%.   Small planes can quickly force out the competition, but they do have an expense of having much higher landing/baggage fees. 

The 757-2 is a great transtlantic plane.  Especially if you read how frequency is the win right now. 

I read somewhere that routes are being advertised?  I'd only, and I mean ONLY, do this if I am making disgusting money and just want to do something with it.  NEVER advertise for a route that has 100 RI. 

Sorry, I'd comment more but I am late for work.

[slither360]

No, he meant that General advertising campaigns cost more if you have more routes. And he's absolutely right.

[Sigma]

Well, your last statement is absolutely correct, that's definitely not a guide to success.  At least not in general terms.

Not that one couldn't succeed with it.  And it very well may be the best way to reach the top of the obscure "revenue seat kilometers" statistic, for whatever that's worth.  But there's a number of things in there that are flat-out wrong, misleading, or perhaps correct but for the wrong reason stated.

When I started the game, I asked for these kind of questions to many people but couldn't get decent answers.

Maybe in a private alliance forum or something.  But I went and checked your previous questions from back when you started, simply because I was curious since I do my best to answer every question I see to the best of my ability, and every question that was posed on a public forum appeared to be answered by numerous people providing a relative wealth of knowledge.  Maybe you didn't get the answered you liked or wanted to hear, but they were all correct and "decent" answers.

1. When you are starting a new world, with 500 other players, try for longest and densest routes available to you. You of course have to be in a top 20 airport. For example if you are based in JFK, go for London Heathrow. If you are based in LAX, go for JFK.

This is far more wrong than right...

There are 2 ways to make a lot of money in AWS:

1>  the densest SHORTEST route is usually the easiest and quickest way to boost revenues
2>  the longest, densest route is usually the easiest way to increase margins

But where your statement is more wrong than right, is when you completely neglect to mention slot concerns.  Which you absolutely cannot ignore on a suggestion to join a world in a Top 20 airport, since slot concerns are the game there.

Sure, go ahead and start at Heathrow and fly the longest-routes you can.  And then watch in about 6 game-months when you can't fly anywhere else because all the slots are taken up and you only managed to control about 5% of them because you were too busy grabbing the long-haul.

You then get stomped out of business for your slots.

If you're going to play the Top 20 airport game, you've got to play the short-haul, exponential growth game.  Get as many planes into the air on the densest, most-profitable routes you can get so you can get more planes into the air and get more slots.

2. If I am based in United States, I usually go for Airbus A300-600R or Boeing 757-300. For daily routes, for both these planes, you can do two domestic routes with a total mileage of 3000-3100, depending on wind. For LAX, this means, (1 X JFK) + (1 X short route like 1000 nm)
Although, if you have chance, go for a route that has 3400-3500 nm and do 1 route every day.

No one uses the A306 more than I do.  Seriously.  I usually control 80+% of the entire market of them and it's usually other people in my Alliance who fly the remainder.  That take a certain kind of strategy to operate (see below).  That said, you should ALWAYS try to do 2 routes instead of 1.  It will always be significantly more profitable in AWS to do 2 rather than 1 route.  Period.  More flights == more money.

3. It of course almost always differ on availability and buying price of the plane itself, however, if you are based in USA, I think A306 and B753 are your best options. I tried A319-A320-A321 series and B738 and B739, I still think the former ones are the best.

Sure.  As long as you mention the 3 really huge caveats here:

1>  You must fly really, really dense routes particularly with the A306.  No one loves the A306 more than me, but they have a specific route to operate on.
2>  Those planes are MUCH more expensive than the 737/A320 families -- by like a factor of 2 or 3 times the price and suck down crazy fuel comparatively.
3>  You lose frequency.  And since that's the #1 means of competition, you leave yourself very vulnerable to competition if you rely on large aircraft.  So not a particularly newbie-friendly business model.  They require operation on very dense, medium-range, protected routes in AWS to really be successful.  They are one of the most profitable aircraft in the game on routes like DFW-ATL, but if the guy in ATL decides he wants to use F100s you are screwed.  You have a lot of very expensive, very empty planes at that point.

4. The biggest disadvantage of A306 and B753 is their long turnaround time. Therefore, it is not very smart to use them in more than two routes per day.

Absolutely incorrect.

You will ALWAYS make more money with more routes in AWS.  If you can spin that sucker 4 times per day, DO IT.  You'll be printing money.  

Yes you have ground time, yes a 737/A320 can stay in the air a bit longer and get increased utilization, but when you're moving 100% more passengers, spending 8hrs versus 4hrs a day on the ground doesn't matter because you couldn't do anything with that extra 4hrs anyway.  

5. If you are based in Europe, because the routes are shorter, and you would need more frequency, A320 and B739 are not so bad. However, I had a very hard time in Europe because more routes you have, more money you have to spend on advertising. My company right now spends 5% of revenue on advertising to keep it at 80, and it is 70% long haul planes and 30% B739s. I witnessed I had to spend 12% of revenue to marketing when I was based in Amsterdam Shiphol and was operating 70% A320s.

This is true, but it's not because its Europe and it's not because of frequency.  It's because of the number of routes.  And that's controlled by the density of your routes.  You can choose to run out of a not-so-dense place in the US just the same as you can in Europe.  In fact, I ran one of my lowest marketing-cost airlines in Europe simply because of the huge number of dense routes to choose from and the relative inexpense of operating on them due to lack of distance meaning I made more revenues to cover the same costs I would have had in the US -- so more profits.  More turns equals more money.  Very simple.

7. Not at the beginning of the game, but I always change seating when leasing a plane. It is almost useless to use premium seating. Use the maximum you can with standard seating.

This is mostly true.  But it's worth mentioning that it only applies to long-haul service, because only those planes come with a default seating higher than Standard.  And when flying ultra-long-haul the seating does become important again and Premium does make a difference, just like it does in the 3-hr range between HD and Standard seating.

8. I don't like short routes under 500 nm. Therefore I never use planes with less than 200 seating. It is too difficult to make a profit out of them and I don't like spending hours setting 6 routes for one plane.

And if you're trying for your "Available Seat Kilometers" stat, that's probably a good idea.  Certainly if you're flying 777s and 739s which aren't really cost-effective at short flights when cheaper planes can do that.  But, to reiterate for the upteenth time, dense, short routes make the most cash.  No, not when you're flying a 777 probably not.  That's a pretty expensive plane to lease and fuel and put on a 500nm flight.  But if you're going to make a statement like that in a newb guide, it needs to be understood that you're talking about from the perspective of an operator of long-haul aircraft only.

9. When fuel hits around 1000 USD, I think you should be owning at least like 15% of your fleet to save on leasing costs.

Regardless of what fuel costs, you should always own as much of your fleet as possible.  Period.  The only exception is if one is in a growth mode and needs rapid expansion via leases to stifle inbound competition.

I haven't a clue where one would pick a particular number like 15% or why.  Even so, it would entirely depend on the business model being ran, that's for certain.

11. As default, you are always paying more than you have to, to your employees and you are employing more than you have to. Even if you are going to stop growing for some period, don't fire anyone or reduce their wages. It causes a huge CI drop that makes you lose money. That money you lost because of low CI is worth like 1.5 years of high wages you pay. This is not a very certain calculation, but it is something like that.

That number doesn't mean diddily-squat.  Literally.  And was completely pulled out of thin-air.  What you lose because of low-CI depends on what your CI was, what your competition's CI is, what your CI fell to as a result of your changes, and what you pay in wages.

Regardless, suffice to say that touching your Personnel screen is a bad idea for a newb.  Put it on Automatic and leave it there.

12. If you are going to lease an older plane, check its D check time. If it is like 4 years away, go ahead, in my experience, the lower leasing cost is more important than elevated A,B and C check costs. You have to consider lowering your CI, but you are not gonna use all 20 year old planes, right? A few of them won't hurt as much.

You absolutely do not lower your CI operating older planes.  I've operated fleets of 25+ year-old planes with absolutely zero-impact to CI.  I can't exactly tell what you're recommending here anyways aside from checking a D-Check date -- and, yes, always make sure your D-Checks are a ways off.  You really should check the C-Checks too though, as an unexpected C-Check on an older plane can incredibly stifle growth for a newb.