after a while of considerations...

[Sami]

He did not say that. There was talk about big cities - in which competing is entirely possible as long as there are slots and you do not spend all your initial cash on the first week (like most tend to do..cash burns in the pocket...).

(And I do consider anything with >~80 planes a big airline)

[lilius]

Its perfectly fine to start a little bit afterwards. Less stressful, better airplanes. Everyone is more settled and less agressive. If the monopoly player is a bit of a fair player or a bit lazy you can enter and take room in many markets. Airlines go down and you can go at explosive rate and soar into top 20. Saying this is impossible is just helping the already big airlines to just sit on their ass and look at the millions go in without any kind of competition from start to end. So everyone who feels like giving it a try... go for it! Its not as difficult as it looks but takes patience and planning and some friendships are good to have too.. 

[Longbow]

So... I'm impressed. This thread is very useful and you all have the right quantity of game wiseness in order to give me his point of view.

The game is bringing statistics with the biggest and the most valuable airline, so automatically it's the game itself asking you to create an airline which have to be in that ladder (preferably in the top position).

Btw: I was worried about the bad impression given by the crowded airports with nearly no slots available in many worlds if you start too late, forcing the player to divert his goals into a "ok let's try the challenge of a little airline with DHCs and CJs because for the big one all the routes are filled".

Let's say also that I'm learning to play AWS and a small a/c airline is a little tough and challenging to keep going fine if you don't know which switches have to turn on... :/ remind also that I've asked for mentors and I still have no answers (and I don't want to bother other players to be my nanny).

Just keep in mind that I consider AWS a good game to spend money into, so in my opinion it's ok to try to learn how to play and dig into all the gaming possibilities

[Longbow]

Quick update: 1 mentoring message and 1 error discovered at a glance.

[Curse]

I have too many individual mentees right now. However, if you have questions and ask via this forum or send me a PM, I'm giving my best to answer.

[Sanabas]

I know you don't like the statement and this is, as I said, just true for the big airports. You made many changes that allow people to create smaller airlines, especially from Tier2 and below airports and that seems to work well. That's what I suggest to the thread opener to start with.
The huge airline he wants to have is, however, nearly not possible to build late in a game (like, joining GW#2 around 1999).


Let me give two examples:
1) I joined GW#2 in 1999 because I was asked to help out. Base was Dallas/Forth Worth with no other airline having a HQ there. However, late in the game, three well developed airlines had bases there with 100x modern aircraft, mostly A320-200, and extremely huge quarterly profits from their HQ and their other bases. The aircraft I had to compete with were nearly all owned while I flew leased old 737 classics and leased old A320-100.

KDFW had endless slots open, however, many of the destination airports were out of the slots that fit well in such a schedule. La Guardia, New York JFK or some of the smaller ones like Chicago Midway (?) to name a few. There were four unoccupied routes out of KDFW that were able to support a 737/A320 and the profits I realized in the first years were basically just because I was able to get aircraft at minimum value from the alliance. If I would have had to pay standard used market prices I probably would not have been able to go for a modern fleet type and an older one would probably not made me profits at all in the early 2000s.



2) The Dubai airline in GW#3 went BK and I joined the game in 2015. Due to the higher starting money I was able to aquire a nice amount of starting aircraft and some routes were actually uncontested. However, many airports were absolutely slot restricted or the routes were overcrowded to a level where even the A300-600R, the maybe most efficient aircraft in the whole game, did not make money even with cheaper leases. Building up a bigger airline here would have been possible - with some downsides.
- On my own I would have not been able to keep the A300 production line open. I had help from a friend with that. I intended to purchase lots of aircraft but there are no options in AWS and I of course had no money to make many direct purchases while leases are far too expensive so late into the game to make reasonable profit.
- All popular aircraft production slots were occupied for years. A350, A320 etc. were basically not available to get for a new player without waiting 5-7 years or just receiving 1-2 aircraft a year at max due to slot gaps.
- Some interesting airports were out of slots to fly to.
- Many airlines with CI 100 while just CI 90 is reachable without an insane amount of money spent.



Don't get me wrong, it's not meant as "whining", it's just meant as feedback and answer to creating a _big_ airline out of a _big_ airport starting late in the game. Building up a smaller airline (at a big airport) or a bigger airline with smaller aircraft out of a smaller airport seems to work very well even late in the game thanks to your recent changes, sami.

If you join a well-established gameworld, you are almost certainly not going to be able to have the explosive growth that you can when joining on day 1. You are almost certainly going to struggle to get a decent number of new plane orders on the very popular lines. If the only airline you are capable of building is the cookie-cutter, explosive growth to get lots of DC-8/DC-10/737/a320/a330 type, then joining late means you're stuffed.

If, however, you have a bit more flexibility, are able to be a bit more patient, can cope with the non-mainstream planes, then a huge airline, your HQ to yourself, is certainly not out of reach. Especially if you take the time to find a big airline that isn't as healthy as it first appears, or you pick an airport due for an upgrade/newly built, if you do some initial research.

If you simply miss the first 24 hours, join a week or two late, it's even easier. Sure, you will be locked out of some airports. But you will not be locked out of all airports. My last huge airline, I started late, in a very large airport, with 2 competitors. Fast-forward 10-15 game years, and I had the airport to myself, slot-locked, hundreds of planes, and guaranteed to be printing money & virtually competition-free until EU skies opened up.

GW4 is 14 years in, but still 50+ years to go. No problem at all to start now, and be huge by game-end. GW1&2 have 15 & 22 years to go. Still plenty of time to start now, and keep growing all the way until the end of the game. In GW2, now 30 years old, of the top 30 airlines by fleet size, 8 of them joined once the game-world was well established (2-14 game years late), and a further 5 missed the initial 24 hours, but joined in the initial game year. That's 13 out of 30.

Missing the initial 24 hours will restrict your choices. But it is certainly doesn't prevent you from building a big airline.

[Luperco]

Hi all

Interesting discussion.

I'm playing on GW4 and is my first game so I'm not that expert.

I've started the world in the first week and, as being a beginner, I've choose to start a regional line and the real big problem I have is the lack of suitable routes to grow.

Liverpool is not a big city but the airport is level 5, the same for Bristol and Glasgow (my secondary bases). And there are no routes where is possible to send more than one Comet (80 pax). And also the route where is possible to send more than one Fokker 27 (50 pax), can be counted with one hand.

Now that I've filled with Fokkers, Herons and few Comets almost all the possible routes, I've nothing to do other than wait until is time to replace the planes.

Of course this poses other problems: the profit is good relatively to the income but absolutely, so I cannot afford an high company image as I've not much money to invest into the marketing. This mean that I cannot compete with bigger companies on many routes.
I've to leave on routes toward Turkey, for example, as there is a company with 90 CI that don't leave me enough pax to make my Comet profitable, no matter what I do with the prices. And there are no other options.

Also, in my opinion, the game don't offer many options to compete. The aircraft configuration barely influence. The flights frequency do but you need the demand and the game doesn't offer enough small aircraft to choose.

In conclusion, the game is biased towards big companies and aircrafts more than to smaller ones, in my opinion. And if for choose or necessity you are plying with a regional company, there is something to desire.

[LemonButt]

CI is largely irrelevant.  You only need a 90 CI if you are competing for first class passengers.  When it comes to economy passengers, a CI of 30 is sufficient to compete against a 90 CI airline.  My CRJ airline I referenced has a CI of 30 whereas the two big competitors I'm up against both have a CI of 100, yet I'm still able to fly with 90% load factors on the same routes as them charging 120% pricing.

There are way too many variables involved to say that if you didn't get X then it is exclusively because of Y.  You will find in the early days, EVERY airport is just like you described--not much demand and way too easy to serve.  You can also open another base if you're truly out of routes and/or slots.

[Luperco]

I don't believe that the CI is irrelevant.

In the route I'm speaking was the only difference (unless he eavily underprice the tickets). And there is no first class in 1966. Not on this routes at least.

Anyway if it is so, there are even less variations that a player can use to compete. The only possible strategy is to keep lo loose money until one  of the competitor gives up.

[Curse]

CI ist not irrelevant.

[Longbow]

I've tried a single a/c airline in gw4 and after losing a bit of money now it's growing slower.

I'm now planning to open new 4 routes for a new plane, owned; the only marketing campaign that I've running on is the general,  which is working fine with ci.

I think it's relevant but not essencial to use radio and tv everytime