Gazzz's tutorials : Scheduling

[NEWLY2014]

Hi Gazzz,
I have a question, if I use 7-plane schedule, how can I manage the price easily?

[LemonButt]

Hi Gazzz,
I have a question, if I use 7-plane schedule, how can I manage the price easily?

You can go to Manage Routes > Destination View to change all prices to a single destination with one action.

[gazzz0x2z]

You can go to Manage Routes > Destination View to change all prices to a single destination with one action.

Another possibility is to go on the route screen(the one with the map), and there is the "price management" button above the demand/supply charts.

[NickSTL]

I have a question regarding how to avoid incurring unnecessary personell expenses before an acquired plane is actually delivered.

I know that you shouldn't schedule a new/leased plane just after you reserved it since you would then have to pay for pilots and flight attendants for the two weeks it usually takes from a plane showing up in your scheduling overview until it is actually delivered and operational. But when exactly is the economically optimal point to assign routes to that new plane (and thus let the system automatically hire personnel if this setting has been turned on)?

My current assumption is that personell expenses are calculated on a weekly basis. So, assuming I would receive a plane on (in-game) Sunday, August 7, I could already start scheduling the plane on Monday, August 1 and not have to pay a penalty since the salary payments would be the same. Is that correct?

Thanks.

[groundbum2]

salaries go out every day (as seen from the income screen) so optimally add the routes the day before. You can always create the routes and schedule them to the plane to check they work, then clear the schedule.

The real trick is to get your airline to such a size making such a profit that the details don't matter too much...
Simon

[sanabas]

salaries go out every day (as seen from the income screen) so optimally add the routes the day before. You can always create the routes and schedule them to the plane to check they work, then clear the schedule.

If you have automatic hiring turned on, then when you add the routes it immediately hires the staff, so scheduling and immediately clearing a plane defeats the purpose.

Staff used to be paid weekly on Tuesdays at midday, but is now done daily at midday. Most things in the game are calculated daily at either midday or midnight.

Therefore, if your aim is to pinch as many pennies as possible, the best way is to schedule the plane/hire the staff on the day you will first use it, and do so after midday so that you didn't pay the new staff on that first day.

That sort of micromanagement is generally not so useful after the very early growth phase, the restricting thing after that becomes your time rather than your airline's profit.

The #1 thing you can do to reduce staffing costs, which makes a much bigger difference than anything else, is to set salary increases to manual. Every March 1 you'll get a request for increases, and occasionally you'll get one on Aug 1 too. You can safely leave that request for ~6 weeks before morale starts to drop, then you simply agree to all requests with a single button click, and wait another 12 game months/1 RL week before doing it again. 20 years down the line your staff will be making less than someone who left auto-raise salaries on for 20 years.

[groundbum2]

the biggest way to reduce staffing costs is to swap from Large to Medium aircraft, like Ejets. Staffing is based on MTOW. I found I could switch 40 737 schedules to 40 ERJ190s and pilots reduced from like 400 to 250! Ditto cabin crew. 30% reduction I seem to remember. And of course Medium salaries are less than Large salaries.

There is a suggestion out there to base staffing on time in the air rather than MTOW but it's in a long todo list I suspect!

Simon

[NickSTL]

Thank you for your responses, that makes sense!

[Andre090904]

the biggest way to reduce staffing costs is to swap from Large to Medium aircraft, like Ejets. Staffing is based on MTOW. I found I could switch 40 737 schedules to 40 ERJ190s and pilots reduced from like 400 to 250! Ditto cabin crew. 30% reduction I seem to remember. And of course Medium salaries are less than Large salaries.

There is a suggestion out there to base staffing on time in the air rather than MTOW but it's in a long todo list I suspect!

Simon

That goes in the other direction as well. I once replaced hundreds of NAMC with MD80 and saved lots of money on staff in the end. Why? Because I could replace 3-4 NAMC with only 1 MD80 (3x the capacity, much more speed). Also, in your case, the E-jets are easily 30% smaller than a 737 (if not even more). The move to E-jets makes sense if you cannot fill your 737. If you can, however, the 737 will be the much better plane. Really depends on the situation/context in the end.

[RALLX]

Before changing to smaller aircraft, check your longer routes first to make sure that the new smaller aircraft will not cause the "too small plane" message shows up.

[Tom White]

Staffing is based on MTOW.

That is interesting. I always always choose the highest Mtow version of an aircraft type, to be able to carry max payloads to the edge of range. Might have to take a closer look at the impact of staff cost.

[Tom White]

First of all thank you for this post, it is very helpful.

Have successfully implemented 7day schedules including red-eye flights on LH or transcontinental in US. Where I struggle however is in a location in the middle of the US (Dallas for example). The flights lack 1-2 hours to schedule overnight and remain within preferred take-off and arrival times (6-23). Therefore I usually remain within those hours, without red-eyes and try to maximize the distances with 2 or 3 flights per day.

How do the more experienced guys do this? Maybe someone is willing to share some tips or point me in the right direction?

Many thx!

Tom

[dmoose42]

Honestly, it's tough to do a lot of good domestic 7 day scheduling in Midwest US airports. The one suggestion I would have, is don't be afraid to take-off/land in the 0500-600 hour or 2300-0000 hour. Sometime I even do landings at 4:55. remember even if one segment has a penalty, the other segment is usually fine.

Cheers.