Second base - strategy

[knutm1980]

Playing beginner's world #17..so newb questions really.

When I eventually (fingers crossed) have enough cash and play time to get second base, as a strategy, wha have people had success with?

I am based at Gatwick, Heathrow is out of the question..already major airline there.

Is it a profitable action to start up a domestic/regional operation from a smaller airport?
As it is open skies, trying to do another major operation from a busier foreign airport?

My current airline is currently doing most major euro destinations and just starting long haul..so I actually quite fancy a small regional operation with smaller planes, but I see some issues regarding commonality penalties. i.e say I have a fleet of medium and large planes, would I be punished for say, opening up a base with purely small aircraft?

Searched the  forums, but found very little info on this so looking forward to any opinions.

[swiftus27]

Maintain commonality with your current fleet.  Essentially, It is most profitable to stay that way.  This is also true because your opponent may have his eye on the same place.  Efficiency is what winsrice wars.

[Monk Xion]

Maintain commonality with your current fleet.  Essentially, most profitable is to stay that way.  This is also true because your opponent may have his eye on the same place.  Efficiency is what winsrice wars.

I second this.

Get some LH routes going. If you dont, carriers will come in and start to take them.

LCY is opening in the late 80's.

If you time it right you can open a good base there with F100s or something. It is smaller tho.

Right now i'M in Vancouver and my focus is to get it all tied up before I expand 

[alfkan]

Here's my "China-experience":
After carefully saturate my rather small base #1 and made sure I did the right things by not running after all destinations within reach, only the profitable ones (i.e. demand >100 pax), then I opened my second base. I desided I could try the top one, Beijing as my base #2. Invested some 20$M in "Office rent" , rebased a few a/c's, leased quickly a couple more and started all over again untill I had earned back those 20$M or so. Offcourse, my base #2 are too big to "saturate" by one airline only, so here I had several options. Now, my first base is a domestic only hub. Base #2 serves both International and domestic routes with good pax demands. I quickly jumped over to service the international LH demands once I felt I could afford to take some losses for a while. I gradually was able to build up my base #2 to generate almost 90% of total revenue and profit as well. In this gameworld I have totally ignored if other airlines were servicing the same routes I would like to explore.

Check if it is available slots at Heathrow. If it is, go for it! If not, stick to Gatwick which is really big as well. You may try Manchester later. A good domestic + international hub - even a very good LH hub as well considering it is the country's third largest airport. Avoid the very small aircrafts. They never pay off. At least an a/c should have approx. 50 seats in gameworlds around 25 years left of the last century and further on.

Good luck!

[knutm1980]

Thanks for your feedback folks. Just to add, both Manchester and Heathrow have significant airlines based already, so not going to pick a fight, but City Airport is a good call. I've just started to get significant amounts of cash flowing, so might start placing large orders for planes soon.

I'm a commanality n*** since I last played as well, I've been tempted to branch out to expand faster but resisted. Yay me.

[Infinity]

With 37 Aircraft in Gatwick you really shouldn't be thinking of opening a second base at all right now.

[sergio]

i have got a question.
lets supose, i have bases in soviet union before 1991, in estonia, latvia and lithusania.
in 204 they enrered another union - the EU, so they can make bases all over EU.

is it on earth ( aws earth of course) possible, that i end up with bases in moscow, vladivostok, tallinn, riga, vantaa and heatrow???

economically - i think difficult, i see low demand in cabotage in ussr.
(which is not quite correct - as per remembering of soviet pilots, seasonal flights took place, from all over ussr to sochi, black sea; flights were on tu, full, sometimes people sit on the floor or on chair of stewardess, while stewardess was left on the kitchen without safety belts; tickets were sold at demping prices due to policy - "soviet citizens ha got right for work and for rest"; passengers were positined into "nakopitel" - accumulator of people, all sweationg, shouting, all were running to the airplane as mistakengly two tickets per seat could be sold, if you already st - you have more chances to stay then be kicked out of airplne; same pilot states this is a mistake of planning, that all over the world airtraffic is more luxury, it is suposed to be expencive due to fuel and expencive spare parts; a grandma from one village is not supposed to fly to another village to dring tea with her friend - at least not at the exence of the state or at least not by the airplane; same pilot remembers during his ealiy years fly An 2 and An 12 within siberia, many geologists, etc; these small planes usually smell vomit, as people vomit much in small airplanes)

[Curse]

Russia isn't in the EU, so there's no Freedom of Skies for Russian and former Soviet airlines. But you keep your bases for example in Kiev or Tallinn if the Soviet Union stops to exist.

Demand ingame for Soviet Union is really much to low, however, this was discussed several times.

[exchlbg]

For EU freedom your HOME Base must be within EU, not a secondary base. Only possible combination would be first basing in the Baltics during USSR times and expand from there first to USSR, then into EU, but traffic in the Baltics in socialist times is to small for a home base, so no use to try that.

[Sami]

The thing that you can HQ in Moscow, open bases in Baltic states while they were in CCCP, and keep the bases after the breakup is simply so because it is the simplest solution for players and for the game (= no forceful closures of the base airports or such). If that is misused somehow (ie. commonly preplanned strategy etc) then it will be removed.

For EU freedom your HOME Base must be within EU, not a secondary base.

All the base airports must be within EU area, if we are talking of the intra-EU air traffic liberation.

[Troxartas86]

As far as base size, I have had success sending just six planes out to Vladivostok for my 4th base in Russia. In Jet Age two of my four bases in Czechoslovakia are solely for 15-seat turboprops and also quite profitable. In Modern Times I have a secondary base on a tiny Pacific island with no international demand, just five planes island hopping. Just research what kind of flights will be available and whether or not you can get appropriate aircraft. Size isn't a big deal just be conscious of the four base limit as you scout locations.

[Curse]

Many people intend to make profit on a base. That doesn't work with only six small aircraft out of a low demand place.


Also many people tend to open up bases way too early - long before their home airport is maxed out and mostly it will never be.

[brique]

As I understand it, the main cost of a base is the massive hike in staff numbers back at HQ, along with the 15% commonality penalty for based aircraft.

So, if you are HQ-ed in a low-wage economy and running smaller aircraft, those extra costs are not as ruinous as in the USA, Japan or UK.

So, location can bring down the bar when deciding when/if to open a base.

[Curse]

You also need more staff for same aircraft at bases. It seems to be about 15% more. (at least that's what it took me to staff up a single DC-10 in Beginner's World, so newest engine)

Small aircraft barely break even out of the main airport, it might be impossible to cover up additional staff costs at base, 15% higher commonality, 15% more staff on base and this with five aircraft island hopping out of a small airport.

[brique]

Under the old engine, maybe : but the new pricing model  does make smaller aircraft much more useful and profitable than used to be the case. And if you have to have almost 1884 employees for 28 aircraft, its better to be paying them PNG/Tahiti wages than US ones...

[FlyTO]

Under the old engine, maybe : but the new pricing model  does make smaller aircraft much more useful and profitable than used to be the case. And if you have to have almost 1884 employees for 28 aircraft, its better to be paying them PNG/Tahiti wages than US ones...

Congratulations on your airline and excellent work using small and medium sized aircrafts; and soon reaching one billion in airline value, impressive!

[brique]

Thanks

Operational fleet is all E120 : 28 now spread over two bases : the rest of the aircraft (30+) are the white-tail fleet which is now making a nice regular contribution to earnings and which also makes up a big chunk of the CV. But yep, 30-seaters running mainly domestic routes earned the $ to buy them.

No big secret to it, at default ticket prices, small aircraft are marginal, any sudden rise in costs, poor route choice or uncontrolled overhead spending will hurt bad : which is the basis of the 'they dont work' view : but once you get adding serious +% to prices, which now we can, it mostly goes to the bottom line so has a massive effect on your profitability : but I wouldn't want to try it in N.America : costs are way too high, labour, slots, etc, you get crippled before you get a chance to grow.

[sergio]

understood, thank you.

[Curse]

EMB 120 were always been able to support a small and well lead airline. I expected something even smaller, but maybe it's because in my current gameworld top sellers are build by Cessna and Piper, so I got used to see them everywhere.

[brique]

eek, not Pipers... I'm not that brave

But I'm planning to go the 19-seater route in the next game world I start : I did a small experimental Fairbrat outfit in DoTM#4 (so under old engine) : which did make a profit but not enough to really power expansion : it just kinda trickled along, paying its way and slowly buying in the fleet, bit at a time. The big issue for small-plane outfits is keeping the production lines open, which is an ongoing bugbear for the E120's in MT#7, but we've managed to keep them building so far...