Lack of pax???

[apacho]

So I'm new to the simulator, and I'm surprised that even though both my route and company images are increasing very rapidly, and yet, my load factors stay low around 50%, and they have been open for months now, I'm just wondering how long they take, since it would seem that the airline is gonna start to go under.  Please let me know if anyone else is having this trouble, or did and are now in the black.

Apacho
Globo Airlines

[RushmoreAir]

1)  Make sure you have the appropriate product for the route you are trying to serve.  If you are over-serving a route by 200%, you can only expect load factors of 50%.   If you are flying a high-density CRJ on ORD-JFK, your competitor will get the bulk of traffic.

2)  Make sure you use "Route Planning", not just open route.  It will show you the demand so you don't over-serve a route.

3)  What is the technical condition of your airplanes?  Anything below 85% can cause serious delays, and can lower your load factors.

[apacho]

None of my routes are over exceeding demand, i have a general marketing campaign going, all my planes are over 91% condition, and my company image, is at 20, how long do i have to wait before my planes start being filled up?  Thanks for the help!!

[RushmoreAir]

Well I can tell you that it is not normal to have load factors this low after a few months if you aren't doing 1, 2, or 3.

Also, in some cases, a CI of 20 is fine.  But if you have more than one competitor on ANY of your routes, then you'll want to have your CI at 50 or above.

So, all I can do to help is see if you are doing anything else wrong:

4) How is the competition on the flights. If competitors already supply over 200% of the demand, don't bother with the route.

5) What are the flight times?  There is the standard 0000-0500 decrease in load factor, but there is also a new feature in V1.3 that will decrease your load factors greatly if you have multiple flights leaving to the same destination within an hour of each other.

6) Is your staffing adequate?  What is your on-time percentage?

7) How old are your planes?

That is about all I can think of that would have your airplanes at that low of a load factor at this stage.

[Drax Air]

I did this Airways sim a long time ago, and although I used to run a Virtual Airport flying planes in a Virtual world, rather like any other Flying Sim, I made a right Pigs ear of my first Attempt here!

The First item to look at is Turnaround of aircraft, continued delays or any cancelations, due to short turnaround time will directly affect how many pax use your airline, Have to remember, aircraft already have some delays due to weather conditions.

Depending on size of aircraft, on short haul flights, as I only rejoined a week or two ago, I set my Bae 146 to 45min Turnaround, 50 is recommended but 45 mins is ample with only 5 mins delays.

Next thing to make sure is your route does have a fairly good demand, but dont always go by the numbers, See what Airlines are using the Airport, Sometimes the second or third largest Airport on the country list, will still have a reasonable demand with less Airlines swamping it.

Lastly, You will notice, when aircraft are delivered, they only come with the basic config of (Y) Economy Class Seats. You can config before its delivered but takes longer to get delivered.

I did my first Reconfigure of my seating, after first looking at demands at the destination airports, so Next thing to do, is to put businness class (C) seats in. Nothing fancy, standard reclining Business Seats is fine, But not many, perhaps 10% the rest Economy standards, It certainly increased my load factor to 73%, Unfortunetly reconfiguring Seating is very expensive for newbies, costing for a Bae146 174,500USD or even 200,000USD, but it is worth it, just dont take out to many loans, pay one of first, loans will destroy you very soon

lastly Decrease seat prices by 10% to get a share of the market, general marketing is needed, I find radio a good middle rate campaign. each route should also have there own campaign, I just use newspapers.  I dont bother leasing Aircraft less than about 79-90% fittness, be careful of Aircraft that sounds a bargain price, it probably needs a C check and even possibly a D Check, which will write off any gains you migh have gained from buying it cheap.

Hope this has been helpful, im no expert yet

Mike