Don't make this mistake

[qwert5479]

I had a great airline, was less than 6 months old and was turning profits of almost $20M a week.....then I went to the personnel office and noticed I had 50 too many of this group, 30 too many of that group, so I started firing extra employees, thinking this would be a good move to save a little money...........the very next day, my company image went from 72 down to 20, all of my employees were either at a zero or in the negatives, I lost half of my passengers suddenly, had to close down a base, lost half my fleet and even after I got the downturn to slow down and start to turn around, I'm now making about $2M a week instead of 20.  Employee ratings never recovered, they're still in the single digits in some areas, my company image is back up but still only at 30, and thats after running a $4M/month ad campaign for 2 months. 

DONT FIRE PEOPLE!  It's much, much easier to just pay the extra couple million a month and keep those deadbeats employed.  Even if you just want to trim down one department, you'll spend more in pay raises to get the morale back up than you did paying the extra employees...not to mention the image hit and everything else that goes along with it. 

[wildavidson]

All of this is true. The best way of learning from these mistakes is by making them in the first place. Means you see the effect and know not to do it in the future.

That's one of the areas to try and avoid in the game as the CI and morale hit can take a while and a lot of funds to recover from. From a quick look at your airline you may want to try and reduce your fleet types also as you are probably getting killed on commonality costs.

[gazzz0x2z]

(.../...) you may want to try and reduce your fleet types also as you are probably getting killed on commonality costs.

Quoted for truth. Commonality is a slow, deadly killer, that acts by suffocation. The more you grow, the more painful it is. And the more difficult it is to escape. If you cover a very broad range of routes, you'll have to cut off some. Even if they are, individually speaking, profitable. That's painful to do. We human beings have a strong aversion to loss, but that game forces you to keep a limited number of route profiles(which is fun & forces interesting choices). You cannot hope to cover everything, from the 20-seater to the 400-seater & everything inbetween.

[qwert5479]

Well, my airline is toast anyway.  After my mass-firing crumbled everything.  I've got two 777s in storage that are costing $5M a month just for the leases, but if I put them into service they'll cost another $5M a month.  So they just sit.  My biggest mistake was opening a new base too soon and ordering a bunch of really expensive planes before I had the established routes to use them.  So when the new base failed, I was left with a pile of A380s and 777s (which I never should have had both anyway), and when I put the aircraft into storage, it left me with extra employees, which led me to make more mistakes. 

This game is pretty hard.....even on the easy worlds.  That's what makes it fun though.  I can't wait to start a new one and try to do it "right" this time.  Of course that's the plan I had on this last airline, and it worked for a while, then I saw success and forgot to stick to the plan.

[wildavidson]

Sorry to hear about your airline but learn from your mistakes for next time. As I said its better to experience the effects of mistakes yourself as you are less likely to make them again. Good luck.

[qwert5479]

Yeah, as sad as it is to see it die, I'm super excited about the new world that starting tonight.  Knowing what NOT to do is just as important as knowing what to do. 

This game wouldn't be any fun if it were easy.