30 seater Airline

[Antoine]

How easy is it (or hard)  to make a profit with an airline operating only 30 seat EMB-120's?

Let's presume the demand is the and there is no competition

I've read on the forums of a guy who managed to pull off using 9 seater pilatus in vanuata

Does anyone have any experience of 30 seater Airlines?

[MRothschild]

I was able to run a bunch of 19-seaters one time, so 30 should be doable.   

[Antoine]

Where were you based?

[Maxair]

I ran 120s and metros out of Saint Maarten and made a lot of money. Im flying metros around Canada right now and doing well. Most are making more money then the Dash 8s i have flying denser routes.

[kscessandriver]

Anything smaller than 30 seats gets really hard to make money on with competition and fuel prices. I currently have 300+ E-120's in game world 2, and have for probably 20 years. It can be done, but the smaller markets in the US are the easier places to do it.

[gazzz0x2z]

I saw you opened a company in Vanuatu. Profit should be slow to come, but should happen. I remember this guy who had 25% of margin in the Solomon Islands, flying only Pilatus(26 of them IIRC, all owned). Of course, having no opposition at all helps a lot.

One of the difficulties will be to find the sweet spot in terms of marketing and pricing. With more marketing, you can raise your prices...but it's an additional cost to a small company with small revenues. And pricing with economic seating is tricky, Load Factor tends to fall abruptly if your price goes above a certain threshold. I remember my CRJ100 in Hamburg, 96%LF at 265$ of pricing, 60%LF at 275$ of pricing. You don't have that kind of problems with standard seating...but you carry less people overall. 24 seats instead of 30 would probably not compensate, especially as you'll stay with a low company image forever.

On most of the lines you did open, you didn't fill the whole demand - which is the thing to do. You planes will be full quicker, and thus profit will arrive quicker. I also note that you bought very old planes. It's usually not a good idea. You won't be penalized, as the game is short, but in a longer game, it's usually better to lease old, or buy new/recent. Your older planes will be good for scrap as soon as the game finishes. On the UM, I see a nearly 19years old E120, cost 4.5M$, 5.1 years before the D-Check. So, for 5 years of use, you'd pay around 3.5M$(My guess is that scrapping it would net you around 1M$). If you lease it for 5 years, you'll pay around 50k$ per month - so a grand total of 50*12*5 = 3M$. That you don't need to pay right now. Of course, when you take new for a long time, it's the reverse. The same bird brand new costs 7.6M$, would last 23.5 years, but would be leased for 96k$ per month. 1.152M$ per year. 27M$ for the whole lifetime of the bird.

Note also that the used bird costs 40k$ per month in maintenance, while the new one costs only 16k$ in maintenance. If you lease, it's not enough to justify taking new birds. If you buy, OTOH, it's even better to take a brand new bird than old ones as you did.

I also noticed that you have very few opportunities for bigger planes(Darwin, Saipan, Guam and Dunedin are the only far unopposed destinations I could find, and they do not even need the same kind of birds, Dunedin would need nothing bigger than a E175, Guam would require a big single-aisle aircraft, like a A321), so it's probably wiser to stick to a more local market with small birds. Which means E120 only, as all other small productions did vanish already.

[diskoerekto]

With a bunch of Metro planes that hold around 20 pax I had a successful company in USA and another in Turkey. Both were fun games. I am no elite player (but obsessive compulsive enough) so it is certainly doable.

[Antoine]

Thanks Gazz. I was thinking would it kill my airline if i lease 1 or 2 a318's for those longer routes you were talking about?

[gazzz0x2z]

Thanks Gazz. I was thinking would it kill my airline if i lease 1 or 2 a318's for those longer routes you were talking about?

Tough to say. Usually, though, you need 4-5 aiplanes to pay back the commonality costs, unless the situation is very favorable. As it's the end of the game, I'd say you might try it later, once you've covered everything you can with E120s.

Problem with A318-200 is that only 2 are available on the UM. The oldest one, though, has been D-checked recently, and could do the job until the end of the game. But its maintenance costs are getting heavy, and the C-Check is already at 1.5M$. OTOH, leasing costs is trinkets. The other one is costlier to lease, with more standard maintenance costs.

CS100 is also a possible choice on those routes, they are newer, so leasing costs would be higher, but their fuel consuption is unmatched in their domain. You lose 6 seats, but spare at least 20% in fuel consuption - and other costs are similar. Though the overall smaller fleet group size may be a problem on the Guam route(check if it's not too small - try to open a route with both, and see if after the fleet group choice, the page says "this plane might be too small").

B737-600 are even worse than the A318 - but available in big numbers. F120NG are also kickass, cost less in personel than large aiplanes as the CS or the A318, but are slower, and more than likely too small for the route to Guam. They have the advantage of being sold rather cheap by a player desperate to get rid of them. E195 offer the same capability, with more versatility, better speed.... but probably an even harsher "too small" penalty. Anything else is either too small, or too big.

You have an advantage, though, it's your headquarters, so you won't pay any additional penalty for increasing the size of your base - it's already at 4. In any base other than HQ, it would be instant suicide to do that. Here, if you micromanage prices, and get maximum bucks from your flights, it might work. IT's risky, but as you enter this game at its end, Maybe you can afford risks. I'd go CS100 if it's not too small for Guam. If it is, I'd be annoyed, though the A318 might earn some money there.

I just bought an A318 that I can reserve to you, for the fun of the experiment - my position in the rankings is already decided at this time of the game, so it's not a problem. I'd lease it to you for the bare minimum price. But still, check for CS100 first. If they can reach Guam without penalty, they are a better choice.

[Antoine]

The cseries is not too small!!!!!!!  Happy days
I would have to use the 100ER cause it's range is the only one big enough.

So A318's Vs c100ER??

[Antoine]

I've 8 routes for a possible longer range aircraft. All over 120 PAX demand

[gazzz0x2z]

You made a better search than I did. CS being still manufactured, it's a safer option than the A318 that will soon be out of production.

The other tough part will be to find the optimal schedule, for using those planes to their maximum. With flights during the night.

[Antoine]

I could fight the routes already being flown to Australia. That's about 5 more routes 8+5= 13 total routes

[Antoine]

maybe i can lease a couple of A380's here too 

[gazzz0x2z]

Nice Find, this route to Nouméa. In a normal game, it would be very risky, as someone settled here could really destroy you with smaller planes. But at this stage, the probability of someone settling up here is ridiculously low, and you'll make more money with 1 CS flight than with 5 E120 flights. With some luck, you're not even going to lose too much money in the beginning, very short routes are more forgiving when the RI is low.

A380, OTOH.....Nah, even with a smiley, just no.

[Antoine]

yeah i know the short route is risky BUT My CS300ER was finished flying to Guam at around 19:30 so It was either leave it lying around OR schedule something .... anything ... that short flight was the only one in a short range that had the required demand with no competition. I already had 3 EMB-120 flights on it but i switched them out for the 1 CS300ER flight

[gazzz0x2z]

When I said "operate your planes by night", it means that wis a CS, you should be able to operate a 2000NM flight by night, and another 1300NM or so by day. You skip the saturday for the weakest route, and you make far more money.

But it's not always possible, especially when you have so few opportunities. Guam being 2333NM away, you can"t go over 1050NM or so. Which leaves only destinations with opposition, like Brisbane, Coolangatta or Nadi(and I thnik it's everything). Brisbane has 280 demand and 2 daily flights already, so it's probably more meat for a CS100 than a CS300, and the 2 others even more. So Nouméa was indeed the best choice to pair with Guam and a CS300. But think about night flights, not all CS won't be that cheap..... and you will need to milk them as much as you can.