Decent place to start an under 19 seat airline?

[Pilot Oatmeal]

Can anyone give me a recommendation for an airport that has the capacity to help an under 19 seat airline succeed?  I want to give it a good shot.  Hopefully in a country where there are other decent airports that have the capacity to keep an under 19 seat airline afloat.  I am talking about small airports, nothing to big, I don't want to be competing with the big boys.

Cheers guys!

[fedot12345]

Hmmm, maybe Maldives 

[gazzz0x2z]

St Mary's

(but scheduling is a nightmare, as the airport closes at 18:00)

[LotusAirways]

Pilot Oatmeal,

Depending on the model you can get 800 NM to 1000 NM out of a 19 seats plane. I suggest a level 4 airport on US's East Coast. You have plenty or airports to serve in that area. Start by flying to airports where slots are free or super cheap. Then move up. In other words, the factor to select routes at start is slot costs, NOT demand-supply.

Good luck.

PS: you will notice that after perhaps 30 airplanes your head count is amazingly high... for instance, in one game world I have 45 scheduled small planes = 1903 people, only 192 of those are pilots. That is 42 people per small airplane

[Maxair]

I had great success running metroliners and E120s out of St Maartens. When it is time to expand you have 4 or 5 airports in the Netherlands Antilles to chose from. I chose Curacao but Bonaire would also be a good choice. I enjoyed the island hopping type of operation.

[CarlBagot]

Bulgaria has 4 airports which can handle that model, also you want to look for cheap crew costs which Eastern Europe provides, in the U.S. crew costs might be prohibitive.

[kscessandriver]

I'm running a US based airline in World 1, using nothing but EMB-110s and EMB-120s. I don't make a ton of money, but I'm able to operate 5 bases across the country with almost 90 planes right now.

[Pilot Oatmeal]

Cheers guys thanks for your suggestions, any others would be really appreciated

[gazzz0x2z]

in current GW3, there is a guy successfully flying a 100% Pilatus company in Vanuatu. Not exactly what you have in mind, but I'm impressed anyways.

[Pilot Oatmeal]

in current GW3, there is a guy successfully flying a 100% Pilatus company in Vanuatu. Not exactly what you have in mind, but I'm impressed anyways.

That is pretty much exactly what I was looking for, really impressive.  Would love to see a list of the most successful small aircraft operating airlines, I have always found it difficult.  I am currently trying out an all EMB120 airline using only the -ER and 118B engines based at Key West and then I'll move up the East Coast of the USA.  It is a little bigger (the aircraft) than I originally wanted but as time moves on there are less and less of new aircraft that are under 19 seats to purchase brand new. 

[kscessandriver]

That's indeed the problem, if somebody doesn't keep ordering something like the Metroliner or E110, you end up dead, or dependent on the used market for what you can get. I'm split right now between the E110 and E120 in my game, with a 100 airplane fleet now (80% of it is E110). I don't make a ton of money, but nobody else messes around with these routes that have between 10 and 30 demand for the most part, so it's easy to get routes going. I'm going to try to stay with an all Embraer fleet and expand up to the ERJ145.

What would make running an airline like this make sense is if there was some sort of fee for departure model set up, like the real regionals have in the United States. A large airline could contract it's regional feed out to another airline and pay them to do it.

[bdnascar3]

That's indeed the problem, if somebody doesn't keep ordering something like the Metroliner or E110, you end up dead, or dependent on the used market for what you can get. .

That's where an alliance comes in handy, or you can PM a 'big' airline and maybe they'll order some for you, but the UM will be higher then ordering it yourself, cost of business.

[kscessandriver]

That's where an alliance comes in handy, or you can PM a 'big' airline and maybe they'll order some for you, but the UM will be higher then ordering it yourself, cost of business.

That's true, but at what point do they start to question not just flying those planes themselves? For instance, a good chunk of the fleet I've got now came from the used market, as people dump the planes. It's almost an easier path than buying new, even 100 planes in.

[Aoitsuki]

That's true, but at what point do they start to question not just flying those planes themselves? For instance, a good chunk of the fleet I've got now came from the used market, as people dump the planes. It's almost an easier path than buying new, even 100 planes in.

most large airline will not bother aircraft under 40 seat. also in real / long game world, npc lessor will also phase out those aircrafts due to age.

[Pilot Oatmeal]

It is a shame that new under 19 seat aircraft such as the Dornier 228NG and the EV55 Outback haven't been implemented in the game yet... sami?

[Terry P.]

If you're not on GW1 I would suggest Havana. I've been able to find many under-40 routes that will hopefully grow overtime.
If you are on GW1 don't go to Havana because I'm already there 

[Sanabas]

That is pretty much exactly what I was looking for, really impressive.  Would love to see a list of the most successful small aircraft operating airlines, I have always found it difficult.  I am currently trying out an all EMB120 airline using only the -ER and 118B engines based at Key West and then I'll move up the East Coast of the USA.  It is a little bigger (the aircraft) than I originally wanted but as time moves on there are less and less of new aircraft that are under 19 seats to purchase brand new.

It's easy, but reallllly boring.

[Andre]

I would just like to add another suggestion. Norway is also a great place for small regional airlines in the 19-50 seat market. There's a ton of 800-1000m runways around the whole country, but mostly in the western and northern parts. In the real world these airfields are currently served by Widerøe DHC-8-100/200s, but they've also flown DHC-6 Twin Otters in the past. Demand to and from these airports can be very good if you start an operation in Tromsø or Bodø. But please note that basing in Norway limits you from expanding out of the country even after the EU Open Skies treaty. Norway is a part of the Open Skies treaty in the real world, so I wish Sami would fix that.

Regarding keeping the line open, it's been improved compared to how it used to be. But get some help from another player to purchase planes and lease/sell them on to you.

[tise1983]

Yeah it would be nice to see some gulfstream models as well for the small routes, or some citations.  for sure some cessna citations...for sure

[tise1983]

nevermind the citations are kinda small, but the gulfstreams can handle 19-20 people sometimes more