Possible to make low utilizaton work

[coopdogyo]

In real life Allegiant has been very successful flying their MD-80's as little as possible. I was wondering if it would be possible to do this in Airwaysim specifically in DOTM. I have done some math and found that at the current price of fuel it is 26000 dollars a year cheaper to operate for 8.5 hours a day a Yak-42 than to operate a DC9-30 for 8.5 hours a day when only fuel and leasing costs are considered. Since I am based in Pakistan crew costs are not a huge issue. However I was wondering if since you are flying the plane less do you not have to hire as many crews or do you have to hire the same amount of staff whether you have 1 8 hour round trip as when you have 2 8 hour round trips scheduled? The main problem I see with this is maintenance because maintenance is done by time and not cycles or flight hours you get no maintenance advantage when using lower utilization. If this was changed however it could make russian planes more attractive. So do you think this could work? I want to get some opinions before I go around trying this in game.   

[Troxartas86]

I've had some MD-80s in the past that only flew about 12 hours a day on single max range routes that still made plenty of cash. However the old adage is that a plane on the ground never makes a dime while a plane in the air is always bringing in something. You can make money without working your planes to death but you should always bring in more revenue keeping them busy.

[alexgv1]

If you are saving money by flying an aircraft less then should you really be operating it?

[coopdogyo]

The idea is that you as you operate the aircraft less the difference is fuel costs becomes less of a factor and the difference in ownership costs becomes more of a factor. This way a cheaper to own aircraft that uses more fuel can be operated for the same amount or less than a more expensive aircraft that burns less fuel if you only fly them a certain number of hours a day. The main way this would pay off is that if by operating a plane less it did not have to go through as many C or D checks.

[alexgv1]

I see where you're coming from... sometimes time related costs (maintenance, lease, staff) are higher than fuel costs.

This would be a lot more feasible if maintenance was per flying hour and not empirically at the certain age of the aircraft.

I've heard Russian planes can work if they spend more time on the ground (frequent short flights including turnaround) so maybe it can work.

Good luck 

I think route selection with any plane has to be the most important factor that would be my one bit of advice.