giving up

[pbodyslim]

i dont understand this game and i have tried everything, no matter what i do its never enough money to get out of the red... and before i spend any more of my hard earn money i need someone to tell me how does this game work... i have cut my salaris i have have only three small plans and the more i make the more expenses the game says i have

[LemonButt]

Small planes are not modeled to be successful in the game unfortunately.  As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn't fly aircraft more than 10x it's seat capacity.  For example, a 30 seat EMB-120 you wouldn't want to fly more than 300nm--any further than that and you can't turn a profit due to fuel expenses (and opportunity cost on schedule space).  Thus, most people will fly 200 seaters from ATL to ORD or shorter hops to start out and earn very strong profits to kickstart their airline.

[JumboShrimp]

i dont understand this game and i have tried everything, no matter what i do its never enough money to get out of the red... and before i spend any more of my hard earn money i need someone to tell me how does this game work... i have cut my salaris i have have only three small plans and the more i make the more expenses the game says i have

If you read some of the posts here, you will get a plenty of advice on how to run a profitable airline.

First, if you are new at this game, keep salary and staffing on auto.  Later on, you may want to do it on your own, but for a new airline, it is easier to just let the system handle it for you.  Don't cut the salaries.

Small planes generally don't make very much money.  It takes more skill to run an airline with small aircraft.  The minimu size you should consider is about 60 seat planes.

There are some staffing requirements for the airline, no matter how small.  To get your above breakeven, you generally need at least 4 to 5 medium or large aircraft.

Maybe you should give it another shot with these pointers.  Check out some guides for newbs by Swiftus or Curse for additional info.

[TerryMcKenna]

Hi matie, don't get disgruntled. just jump into a world and see how you go. You will soon pick up on things.

[Kadachiman]

I have not been playing that long, my advice -

1. read a lot of posts as people put a lot of good info in there
2. try different things and don't be worried about going b/k a few times - even a lot of times :-)
3. don't treat the sim as a full-time occupation otherwise you will get bored and make silly changes
4. when you get a plan, be patient
5. when you doubt if your plan is working, be patient
6. above all else, be patient

example - I was after DC6B (as is everybody in JA#5), got concerned that none where turning up and slots where going begging so leased a DC4 on a short term lease ......a DC6B then turned up and I didn't have enough money   .... now I have an orphan in my fleet which will affect fleet type expansion for another 1.5yrs...forgot about patience.

Regards Darryl

[ukatlantic]

i dont understand this game and i have tried everything, no matter what i do its never enough money to get out of the red... and before i spend any more of my hard earn money i need someone to tell me how does this game work... i have cut my salaris i have have only three small plans and the more i make the more expenses the game says i have

Make sure to start with that your aircraft are all of the same type, dont go buying 1 of Boeing, 1 Airbus and 1 Embraer its a sure fire way to increase your commonality costs and make you lose money.  Try and stick to 1 fleet type, if that isnt possible then adding a second should be ok.

As JumboShrimp said keep staffing and salries on auto and dont cut them - your staff will resent you for it and wont work as hard as morale will have lowered.

Make sure you only do Company Marketing to boost your company image the higher your CI the more pax will want to fly with you.  Do not do Route Marketing; in my opinion it is a waste of time and doesnt help much. 

Patience Patience Patience - This is key, you need lots of this when you start off as it will take a few game weeks for pax to really want to start flying with you, you may even make losses during this initial period but stick at it and you should see your load factors increase and the money start rolling in.

Try to find routes that are unserved (may not happen at busy airports) and fill that to capacity so if there is 500 pax a day wanting to fly for A to B aim to have enough  aircraft flying that route to fulfill the entire demand - also make sure you leave enough turnaround time between flights (I like to use Less than 1% chance of delay) as this damages your CI if you have it too short.