Nico's AWS Bed side Story.... (this should be a sticky thread)

[Nlgravity]

This period is the turning point of the game world (both in a good and bad way). I will put it in the context of a bedside story your mom used to tell you before bed:

The Piggy that made the airline out of straw:
- If you couldnt resist the urge to make your route map as "yellowy" as possible, like a giant octopus spreading accross all corners of the world, and have 5+ fleet types of fuel hungry antiques....... then this is the turning point in which you turn from "XYZ airlines orders 10 DC10" to "The bank has closed XYZ airlines".... sorry about that   

The piggy that made the airline out of wood:- If you have a "solid" airline with 1 or 2 fleet types comprised of 100% leases and 0% ownership..... you are probably still standing. But just for a few more months. But you WILL BK sooner than later.... why? because if you dont own any planes that are unlpedged as collateral, you are missing the magical "get out of C check trouble card" or "sell plane to pay bank card, do not pass go, do not collect 200". Solid airlines should be targeting these guys instead f another solid opponent.

The piggy that made the airline out of Brick: This piggy is lounging on the couch watching the news about airlines going bust with a slight grim. This piggy says "Honey, pour me another glass of Blue Label and call my broker to transfer funds to Eagle Aircraf to buy all these new planes left behind from today's tragic BK" 
When you own planes (not all, just the liquid ones) you are in a turning point: big competition turns into NO competition..... and you have plenty of used planes to target all these lonely passengers camping out at the airport terminal.

What's the point of all these stuff Im writing... you should ask? Well, next time you start a game world, become the piggy that builds the airline out of bricks. If that entails falling behind your competitor's straw airline momentarily.... then that is ok. Just as long as you have a solid balance sheet, the rest will come.

I hope you enjoy my story but most important, I hope you learned a valuable lesson. If you are smiling now thinking "this guy is awesome" you probably run a brick airline (but keep it away from SAEZ, I will turn it into straw very quickly).
And if you are thinking "this guy is a complete ass" then Im probably watching you on the news as I sip my Blue Label..

[Troxartas86]

I failed the second way at least three times in DoTM3 testing out different fleets each time but by then the EMB-120 was finally getting close to being available while all my long-haul routes had been overtaken by the surge of overextending airlines. I picked up some old comparable Aérospatiale N262's on short leases and used the profits to start ordering EMB-120s. Once those arrived a few months later, I quickly started making enough money to buy them outright.

My lofty ambitions of being a big time competitor on hold, I built up a modest African regional with zero competition. After about a year, I had pretty good cash on hand and many of the big boys started to fall down hard. Suddenly I had some big planes available cheap on the used market and those long haul routes I abandoned so long ago were wide open. I carefully and methodically re-entered the major markets and quickly got scooped up by a great alliance.

Recently the next round of mass-BKs has hit and Im constantly picking up nearly brand new planes. I even have a second hub servicing over a dozen countries. As you said, owning my little EMBs provided the collateral to get the loans that made my success possible.

Thats the best advice I can give any new player, try to own something as soon as you can. A $5million EMB-120 may not seem like much but when you have 12 of them, that's a $50 million long-term loan that quadruples the size of your airline or more importantly, gets you through a dozen multi-million dollar C-Checks!