Best domestic aircraft

[Matt Elphick]

Hi, I am running an airline in beginners world 1. I have got a good airline and was wondering the best aircraft type for short domestic routes. Like under 300nm and under 70 pax demand. Is it worth fulfilling the routes as their are hundreds and if so what is the best aircraft type.

[[SC] - King Kong]

First of all, good question

Realise that adding a fleet type might incur extra costs at your headquarter (especially if you have more than 3 fleet types, costs go up extremely). Its therefore worth to consider if the extra costs will be made up by your extra fleet.

In terms of type, i'd say that looking at characteristics such as capacity, maintenance and fuel usage are the most important to take into account.

ATR is a good type, but mainly the larger version as its a little more efficient. The same be said about any other turbo prop that was designed for short thin routes. The Dash is faster but uses more fuel and is interesting if the distances are a little higher. The same counts for the saab.

In the millenium era, I'd go for the ATR over any other plane. If you own them, they can be very profitable, even when operated with competition. Theyre efficient, fast, have good capacity and cheap to operate.

Don't fly them farther than 500 nm tho, they will lose their effectiveness.

[Matt Elphick]

Thanks, What about ERJ's or CRJ's as they seem cheaper on the used market at the moment having just looked?

What is it about props that are so good?

One other question to add is what about routes with 50/55 passengers at a distance of 900 or 1000nm. Are these routes worth it? and if so with what aircraft as the ATR have too smaller a range.

[gazzz0x2z]

snip

RJs have several advantages over props : they fly more per day, can go to longer ranges(though don't overexpand, you'll never make good money on a 2000NM route, 50 demand). But they drink more fuel than their prop couterparts. Beware, though, the drinking part has to be mitigated by speed. Let's compare a CRJ700 to an ATR72-500. The CRJ flies at 420 ktas, drinking 1460 kg per hour. This makes 3.47 kg per NM. The ATR72 will drink 600 kg per hour, at 275 ktas - that's 2.19 kg per NM. It's even better on very short flights, where take-off and landing have more impact than on longer flights.

So, depending wether the fuel costs 160$ per ton, or 1600$ the right choice won't be the same.

For those very long routes with small demand, RJs are better than props. Because you can fly 2 of them per day, without even flying by night. Anything smaller than a 737 needs at least 2 flights per day not to lose money, and preferably 3 flights per day, to make good money. So for this ranges, props suffer much more from their lower speed. A CRJ100-ER can cover 2 daily flights on a 1000NM range, and make some money on it. But it' won't be impressive. Still, it makes a small profit, even counting the personal costs. Don't hope for ending up billionaire, though..... The advantage is that opposition on those lines is nearly unheard of, so you can just adjust prices once a year, and forget them the rest of the time.

Not recommanded for beginning a company. The shorter the route, the quicker the profit arrives. Once you are established, though, it can be a nice complement, if you have no better potential routes. And if you can afford a new fleet type.

And I repeat King Kong's great advice : limit your fleet types.

[kberry]

If you're looking for something in the 70 seat range I'd strongly recommend the Dash 8 Q400. It can carry about the same pax load as an AT72, flies nearly as fast and has the roughly the same range (or better depending on the variant) as an RJ while using considerably less fuel. The only downside is (as others have stated earlier) it adds another fleet type... but if you're running a US Domestic or European short/medium haul airline you can easily get away with B737s/A320s (one or the other) as a primary with Q400s doing the shorter lower density routes and still have room to add a longer-haul fleet type later on. FWIW in one of the previous BWs I had a US based airline with a fleet of 250 Q400s, 300ish B737s and 100 or so B767 variants (mostly B764 as I recall) and managed to finish in the top 3.

[Maarten Otto]

I often run with a brunch 30 Seat Embraer 120's.  Competition is non existent hence I dare ask 200% of the RRP. Yes, $500K per week with a 30 seater is possible although tough.

[HugoThePilot]

For the beginners world such routes are essential. But remember this : If your aircraft has a say 50pax load dont assign it to routes with less than 65 pax per day. Always leave a 15-20 pax margin as these routes are with low demand. Same thing with the routes around 100-120 pax get an aircraft with like 75-80 pax. In my opinion if your Looking for a turboprop go for the Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 or the NextGen version otherwise maybe something like an ATR-72-600. If you are looking for a jet aircraft the best without a doubt is the Embraer E170STD or if in the future the Mitsubishi MRJ90 or 70
Just remember the trick. It's alright to have over demand on routes that are like 500 or 800 but never on flights with less than 150. Hope that helps and happy to help anytime

HugoThePilot
Ceo : Vole Plus

[Springbal]

I often run with a brunch 30 Seat Embraer 120's.  Competition is non existent hence I dare ask 200% of the RRP. Yes, $500K per week with a 30 seater is possible although tough.

I realy should raise my prices