A guide to starting your airline

[Sanabas]

This is a beginner's guide to starting your airline, and making it profitable. It'll go over some of the basics, and some of the very common ways to cripple your airline, and how to avoid them. Building a successful airline doesn't have to be time-intensive, and it can be done at any stage of any gameworld. I am assuming you know the basics of how to acquire planes, create routes, etc. If not, they can be found at https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/General/Startup1/


Step 1: Pick an airport.

When you first join a game, the information you can see is very limited. Once you pick an airport, you are able to see a lot more detail about how busy an airport is, the state of the airlines HQed there already, etc. For this reason, if I am joining a gameworld partway through, I will usually 'waste' a bankruptcy (BK) by creating an airline, then looking around in a bit more detail to find a good HQ and do some research about planes. I'll then BK and restart in that HQ.

What you are looking for in an airport -

Big enough to have decent demand - Starting in a size 3, or even some isolated size 4 airports, is hard. The routes are small, the demand is low, making money is tough. It's a fun way to challenge yourself later, but a poor way to begin. There are well over 200 size 5 airports.

Has slots available - London, Beijing, Tokyo, these are examples of airports will fill up very quickly. If you join on day 1, turning a profit is pretty easy. But if you join 3 years in, it's practically impossible. If there are no slots for you to use, there's no way to fly your planes.

Doesn't have a huge airline HQed there - Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, these are examples of airports that probably have plenty of slots available. But they probably also have an airline with one of the biggest fleets in the game using it as their HQ. Or even 2-3 big airlines. Again, fun challenge to join and try and survive, but not a great place as a new player.

Doesn't have a curfew - This one is only a minor issue. But an airport with a curfew makes things a bit more complicated, a bit more annoying, and a little bit tougher.

There will always be good choices of HQ available, though sometimes you might need to base somewhere other than where you originally planned. The US, Asia & Europe will definitely have options for you. Size 5, but not huge airports like Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Sana'a, Nagoya, Glasgow, Marseille to name a few that might be good. South America, Oceania & Africa might be a bit tougher, as there are less options, they're more isolated, and they may all be full. But if they're not, places like Casablanca, Monastir, Caracas, Adelaide can all make good beginner-friendly HQs.

Step 2: Pick 1 or 2 fleetgroups

-You need planes that are readily available to you. If you're starting a year or two into Modern Times, there's no point picking the a320 as one of your fleetgroups. It's a great plane, but you can't get a reliable supply. Have a look at the used market. If there is a useful fleetgroup that seems easy to get, go for that one.

What makes a useful fleetgroup?

-You want either medium or large planes, 50-170 seats in most cases. Anything smaller, and it is extremely tough to make a profit. Anything bigger, they're for longhaul.

-Not too old. Old planes are very expensive to maintain, and usually use a lot more fuel. If it's 2005 in Modern Times, 15-20 year old 727s are a bad choice. If it's 1990 in DOTM, 5-10 year old 727s might be an excellent choice.

-Look at your airport. If you're based in Bahrain, there aren't many routes under 500 NM. So the ATR family of short range turboprops will be useless for you. If you're in Pittsburgh, there are plenty of routes under 500 NM, so the ATR wll be excellent.

-Compare your choices. Pay attention to fuel use, size & range. Try out the route planning using each type (you can look at route planning for any plane, even if you don't have one) to compare trip times. Look at the attached pic. The EMB-145 and ATR 72 both get released at about the same time. Both have about the same range. The EMB is faster, but the round trip times for both will be similar on routes below 500 NM (which are the routes you want to fly first). The ATR may even be faster for a round trip on routes under 200 NM. The ATR carries more passengers (pax), and uses significantly less fuel. So the ATR will be a much better choice. Small jets such as the EMB-145, CRJ100 are generally bad options. Newer, ~150 seat planes (a320, 737-400/500, 737-700, MD88, MD90) are generally good choices, but not always available.

-Look at the new plane list too. A year or two into a world, particularly MT, used planes can be very hard to find. If you use turboprops (like the ATR, Saab2000, An-140, BaE ATP, IL-114, etc) there might be a very short waitinglist for new planes, and they will be cheap enough for you to order a few once you get your first two used planes. You should always be able to find at least one family of 50-70 seat turboprops that are available to you.


So, you've picked your HQ. You've picked your 1 or 2 fleetgroups to give yourself a steady supply of planes. For the purposes of this guide, we've picked Pittsburgh, flying the Antonov AN-140 and the Bombadier Dash 8-Q400.

Now to find some routes to fly...

[Sanabas]

Turn times

You'll note in the screenshot above that the ATR has a minimum turn time of 25 minutes, and the EMB-145 has a turn time of 30 minutes. This is an important concept. What is listed is the fastest possible turnaround you can get. But if you aim for the fastest possible turnaround, you have a ~25% chance of not completing it in time, and having the next flight be delayed. For each plane, there is also a turnaround time that gives you just a 1% chance of delays. If you look at the screenshots in this post, our AN-140 (minimum turn time of 25 minutes) has a 1% delay chance at 45 minutes (or anything longer) and a 2.8% delay chance at 40 minutes.

You want to use a 1% turn time as much as possible. All my schedules use 1% turn times all day long, apart from the occasional turn that is 5 minutes shorter on one flight per plane.

You MUST pay attention to turn times at both ends. Not doing this is one of the most common mistakes made by newer players. Look at the screenies. My flight to Milwaukee lands at 2345. If I put that on my schedule, and hover my mouse over it, I'll see 'earliest next dep 0010'. Making my next flight depart at 0010 is a mistake. I need to use my normal 45 minute turn time, not the shortest possible 25 minute one. Therefore my next flight to Philadelphia should depart at 0030.

Round trip times:

You could just find a few routes, and schedule them, and just leave a gap of a couple of hours at the end of the day/overnight. But to get the most revenue, you want to fly your planes as much as possible. If they're in the air, even at night, they're usually making you money. If they're on the ground, they're not. So if you put a little bit of time into planning early on, you can then create very efficient, profitable schedules quickly & easily.
To do this, you need to work out round trip times.
- The flight to Philadelphia departs at 0030, and after we add a 45 minute turn to the end of the flight, the next one is able to depart at 0510. Therefore the round trip time is 4 hours, 40 minutes.
- The flight to Milwaukee departs at 1845, and if I used a 45 minute turn in the middle, the next flight would be able to depart at 0035. Therefore the round trip time is 5:50.

If you can find flights so that the total round trip time is 24:00, then you can put them into a perfect 24 hour schedule, and have no wasted time at all. The easiest way to do this is to plan in advance, and list the round trip times of routes you want to fly. Some people make spreadsheets, I prefer to use notepad. I will go to the route planning page, and type in a range of 0-100 NM. Look at the airports, and for anything over about 40 seats demand (since I'm flying a 52 seater) I'll note the demand, and the round trip time. From Pittsburgh in 2008, there are 3 airports that qualify. Then do the same for 100-200 NM, 200-300, etc. The attached screenie shows the planning for everything under 300 NM.

To make a schedule, I'll simply pick 3 or so airports to fly to that need more flights. Bigger routes are better to start with, as they're esier to fill from day 1. Then I'll look at how much time I have left, and pick 1-2 routes that fill that perfectly. If my first plane flies to Midway, Philly, LaGuardia, that's a total time of 535 + 440 + 510 = 15:25. So there are 8:35 still to fill. Detroit + Baltimore = 8:35, so there's the schedule for my first plane.

I'll put the Philly flight overnight, and only fly it 6 days a week to leave space for A-check. Then my 2nd plane, I'll make sure to fly to Philly during the day, and put a night flight to LaGuardia. Night flights do still make money, and can even be full. But they need to be somewhere you also fly during the day, If your only flight on a 50 seat route is during the night, you'll always struggle to get more than about 30 seats sold.

So, I've now scheduled my first two planes, and ordered 3 more from the used market. Schedule those the same way, and continue to order more planes, both new & used. Make sure I don't spend all my money on planes, as I have to pay for slots once I order them, and they get expensive. Last thing I want is to run out of money and not be able to buy slots to fly my planes with.

[Sanabas]

Again, different people use different methods to do their planning. I use notepad, and I simply use a - to indicate a flight somewhere. So -- indicates 2 flights, ----------------indicates the route is full. More or less. Important thing is it makes sense to me, and I can make sense of my own notes. However you do your own planning, it needs to make sense to you.

18 months after starting, I had 11 million in cash, 33 million in unsecured loans, and owned 5 of my AN-140s, worth over 55 million.
I was up to 48 planes across my 2 groups. Here's how my planning notes looked, and my schedules & financial situation.

That's what you want your schedules looking like. Big gaps = less revenue, so less profit. The more efficient your airline is, the easier it is to make money. If you've picked a good HQ and fleetgroup, and schedule efficiently, you WILL be profitable.

[Sanabas]

So, on to some of the other important concepts.

Staffing

Go to your airline settings, and click on the staff tab. Uncheck the box that says 'automatically raise staff salaries'. This will save you money. You will occasionally get a message saying that staff are requesting a raise. When that happens, go to the personnel tab, and click 'set all wages to recommended levels'. You have at least 24 RL hours before staff start getting grumpy that you haven't responded. If you're not sure you'll be able to log in once every 24 hours, then leave the box checked.

The other check box is 'automatically hire new staff as needed.' If you uncheck this, you will also save money. However, you will need to pay close attention, as every time you schedule a new plane, you will need to hire new staff immediately. If you forget to do so, even for 30 minutes, you can do more damage to your airline than the money you save. See the attached screenie for what can happen. Lots of cancelled flights, which means a big loss in revenue, and company image dropped from 21 to 12, which also means less passengers and less money.

If you're new, and plan to log in at least once a day, even just to spend 5 minutes checking things, I recommend unchecking 'auto raise salaries', but leaving 'auto hire staff' checked.

The CEO salary is irrelevant. Feel free to set it to zero to save a little money, or set it as high as you can to pay your virtual self as much as possible.

Fuel Management

Fuel Hedging - This is more of an advanced concept, and it's safe to ignore it if you want to. It lets you lock your fuel prices for a period of time. If you like the current fuel price, hedging 100% for 12 months may save you money if fuel spikes. May cost you money too if fuel drops, but you'll still be paying a reasonable price.

Hedging 10% of your fuel for 12 months, and doing so roughly every 5 weeks, makes it easier to plan ahead. Even if fuel doubles in price practically overnight, you'll only have your fuel price steadily increase over 12 months, and know it's coming. Which can make planning ahead easier.

Fuel Contracts - These let you save some money, if you pick a good one. You're also free to ignore this though.

To work out if it's a good deal:

Go to your income statement, and look at your weekly fuel bill. It's 6 million for the one I'm looking at.

Multiply by 2.15. 6 mill x 2.15 = 12.9 mill.

Multiply that by the discount offered, that gives you your monthly saving. See the screenie for the 3 available offers.

12.9 mill x 5.9% = 761k

12.9 mill x 5.2% = 671k

12.9 mill x 6.8% = 877k

So the first two are good deals, the third is not. I'd take the first one, even though the current saving is slightly less. That's because it's much longer (the price of deals gets bigger as your airline grows), and because if the airline triples in size to a 20 million weekly fuel bill, it becomes the biggest saving. A smallish, still growing airline tripling in size over 4+ years is very feasible.

[Sanabas]

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[Sanabas]

Hopefully a dozen is enough...

[Maarten Otto]

Skip the scheduling please...

It has absolutely no use departing at 01:30 and landing before 05:00

[stevecree]

I try to fly west to east in the evening and try and get all departures / arrivals before 0000 and after 0500, but if the a/c is grounded between 0000-0500 then I do short hops as that does not lose money, infact the flights make money, but no where near the LF achieved during daylight hours. So I am sorry but I disagree a little with your comment that these flights are of no use, they are not ideal for sure, but some profit is better than no profit in my book.

[Maarten Otto]

Perhaps between the two biggest American airport that strategy works, but don't try the same in Europe.

[brique]

Depends on your airport and region, but I run a few red-eyes with 'bad' timings that fill the schedules and turn a coin or three. Of course, if the route justifies a solo daytime flight, then obviously go for that, but if its mopping up a bit of demand on a 2nd or 3rd flight and allows you to use less-in-demand slots when its tight for them (as at my HQ).. then it makes good sense...

as here:

C4205  POM - MAG   2335-0055*   Y: 97.3%    89.2%   34.86¢   31.08¢    E120    P2-SHK   $ 6 306
C4206  MAG - POM   0350-0525     Y: 83.3%

extra 35-40k a week earnings for an E120... not to be sniffed at.

edit : looking at that one, time to jack the prices on the outward leg too... more profit

[madflava13]

When you look at fuel contracts, why do you multiply your weekly fuel bill by 2.15?

[schro]

When you look at fuel contracts, why do you multiply your weekly fuel bill by 2.15?

Fuel contracts are monthly, and only supply at your HQ, not at the outstation. He's figuring on average 4.3 weeks are in a month, divided by 2 (aka half your fuel use, representing outstation use) and that should be the metric to use when shopping...

[brique]

Fuel contracts are monthly, and only supply at your HQ, not at the outstation. He's figuring on average 4.3 weeks are in a month, divided by 2 (aka half your fuel use, representing outstation use) and that should be the metric to use when shopping...

thanks for the explanation, I was curious about the 2.15 as well.... didn't occur to me to think 'monthly' in this case.

[Sanabas]

Skip the scheduling please...

It has absolutely no use departing at 01:30 and landing before 05:00

Perhaps between the two biggest American airport that strategy works, but don't try the same in Europe.

It absolutely does have use, and will work in Europe, and everywhere else. The screenies I've used are from Pittsburgh, because that's where the airline I happened to have a lot of screenies for was based. But it works the same way from Amsterdam, from Rome, from Lisbon, from Moscow, and will work in any airport. If you have routes that allow you to fly redeyes (as I did in Moscow, as I would have in Pittsburgh if I was flying 320/737 instead of just turboprops), then it's a great idea to fly them first. But you will run out of redeyes before you run out of other routes, and it is almost always better to have your plane in the air than on the ground, no matter what time of day it is. One of my test airlines was flying old BACs from Portugal, and some of the flights were middle of the night on smaller routes. Let me see find the thread and see if it has anything useful...

When you look at fuel contracts, why do you multiply your weekly fuel bill by 2.15?

What Schro said. Monthly fuel bills on your income statement aren't a great place to look, because some months have 4 weeks, some have 5, and you're likely growing as well. But week to week fuel bill should give you a consistent number much quicker. 52/12 = 4.3, so monthly fuel bill is 4.3 times the weekly fuel bill. Halve that to get your fuel bill at HQ, which is the only place the fuel contract applies.

Been busy recently, will add the accounting system, avoiding tax, 7 day schedules, etc in the next couple of weeks. Anything else people want to see covered, anything else beginners find confusing, please ask and I'll see what I can do.