Kingdom Airways Bankrupt?

[48days]

Does anyone have any ideas on how this managed to happen?  The largest airline in BW1 suddenly goes bankrupt with a previous quarter profit of 4.3B.  I'd love to know how things can go wrong for an airline that successful.

I know people quit playing often but this doesn't seem to be the case as 92 new aircraft were ordered less than a month of in game time ago.

Did they make a fatal miscalculation with such a large aircraft order?

The deals for 42 777s and 50 Embraers would have been worth about 7.7B, not an unbelievable amount of cash to have on hand given their profit history.  The bankruptcy was also too soon after the order to have run out of cash for delivery payments for aircraft not 100% prepaid.

[Not Real]

Well, sometimes I'm curious too what happens with the companies which declare bankruptcy being so successful, the players could explain it sometimes. ;-)

Hoping they were just boring of it's base and they want to start again. If not now - within few weeks than when the new game starts.

[dagwood]

This was one of the most unusual cases I have ever seen. So big so quick. The only thing I could think is where could he have flown 42 777's profitably at this point in the game. The Emb's I understand, because if you do not order them you won't be able to get them and the are money makers.

[48days]

The thing that gets me is that Kingdom went bankrupt before even receiving the first aircraft, so it's not like lack of profitable routes to fly the aircraft caused a slow downfall.  I think Kingdom was flying around 250 aircraft at the end as well.

[Not Real]

Next one - DUS Airlines... With 89 aircrafts! 

[Not Real]

Well, the answer is just one: their credits were gone and they were not logged in, so the system closed their companies down...

[48days]

I don't think that was the case with Kingdom though.  The news update says either closed down or bankrupt when an airline ends.  I've noticed the companies that it says were closed down are mostly 1 week old, when they would need a credit to continue playing.  However, bankrupt airlines are anywhere from a few days to weeks old.  And you often see an update from the same user starting a new airline shortly after.  When Kingdom went under the news update said they had gone bankrupt.

[48days]

So there's been a ton of other large airlines bankrupt lately.  Sam, Tabby, and now Infinite.  I still really want to know what gets these large airlines.  Is there a way that the owner quits playing but the game shows a bankrupt message instead of a closed down message?  Or is there something that can kill a major airline in a sudden manner?

[dagwood]

I also wish there was a way to tell if the airline closed or went bankrupt. Although if you think it through, the airline might not be bankrupt, but the owner sees it coming and closes the airline. A better solution would be to publish the balance sheet of the airline when it closes or goes into BK.
I think that there was a group of closings the last few days because of the world news-event in the USA. It was two weeks long and many airlines were not able to afford the cut in the LF for a few weeks. I saw over a 10% drop on many of my LFs. If you have a bunch of planes on order, no cash, and maxed out in loans to purchase the planes, then you are in big trouble when you have a major event and it lasts a long time.
Always remember, as the game goes on, there will always be one or two major events that will cause a major drop in the FL's for a sustained amount of time. The longer the game, the more cash reserve you will need to sustain such an event.

[48days]

Possible, but I still don't think that event is the answer.  Sam was based in the UK, and went under before the event.  Tabby was based in Japan, and Infinite was France.  I don't think the impact on any routes they flew to the US would have been a hard enough hit.  I fly a ton of Canada-US routes, and while US traffic probably only accounts for about 15% of my business, I didn't see a significant drop in profits, though I know the US domestic market is very competitive.

[echo]

So there's been a ton of other large airlines bankrupt lately.  Sam, Tabby, and now Infinite.  I still really want to know what gets these large airlines.  Is there a way that the owner quits playing but the game shows a bankrupt message instead of a closed down message?  Or is there something that can kill a major airline in a sudden manner?

Maybe I can provide a data point here. I am the owner of Tabby and closed down because I had real life issues preventing me from logging in to my airline for a while. It was too overwhelming to have dozens of unscheduled aircraft, so I decided to just close down.

Since my long haul routes were pretty much exhausted I was stuck with trying to find hundreds of short hauls for my ERJs.

Anticlimactic?

[dagwood]

Hi echo,

Thanks for the info and hope everything is OK. You are a good player and obviously an airline we watch to see how you progress. Also, thank you for not being one of those guys that dumps a 777 on a route with a demand of that a CRJ would be too much for. There are several of them in this game and they are very annoying.

hope to see you in the game again soon.

[echo]

That's very nice of you to say, dagwood. Thanks. I remember seeing you on the high scores when I joined my first beginner world, wondering how anyone could have such a successful airline.

See you around.

[48days]

Thanks for the info echo.  I can't imagine finding time to run an airline as big as Tabby was.  I'm only at 169 aircraft and 400K pax/week, and that's enough to deal with, especially now that I've ordered a batch of Q400s.  Hope things go well for you.

Seems likely this is what has happened to some of the other big airlines as well.  Just made me wonder as the in game news feed always shows bankrupt as opposed to owner quit his job.

[748i]

Does anyone have any ideas on how this managed to happen?  The largest airline in BW1 suddenly goes bankrupt with a previous quarter profit of 4.3B.  I'd love to know how things can go wrong for an airline that successful.

I know people quit playing often but this doesn't seem to be the case as 92 new aircraft were ordered less than a month of in game time ago.

Did they make a fatal miscalculation with such a large aircraft order?

The deals for 42 777s and 50 Embraers would have been worth about 7.7B, not an unbelievable amount of cash to have on hand given their profit history.  The bankruptcy was also too soon after the order to have run out of cash for delivery payments for aircraft not 100% prepaid.

Hi This was my airline! Was just checking forums and saw this post!

I run a business (in real life) and had massive amounts of work to do before the Aussie summer, so thought i'd give those valuable LHR slot to someone else who needed them!! I was making truck loads of cash so nothing crazy bad happened financially

I bought all those 77W's, and Embraers at a 40 or 60% down payment in a big chunk with about a 25% discounts, and had the cash flow for all payments regularly coming in. Those  777's when BOUGHT fly profitably anywhere, and i ordered them for SIN, HKG, LAX, SYD, MEL, BNE, and some USA routes and made a great money, leasing new 77W's in small batches is WAAAAYY expensive, so if you can buy them you should do it

Love this game, will be in it again in the next game world hopefully!

All the best!

Neil

[dagwood]

Hi Neil,

Thank you for the info. Again, your airline is one we watch because you are such a good player and we wonder what happens with airlines that are going strongly. It would be easy to see this if they kept your stats page available. 
I wonder if Sami would consider keeping the stats pages available to view of the retired airlines?

[48days]

Thanks Neil.  The success of Kingdom was some amazing work.

My airline can't really afford to buy new 777s, but I have made good money from all the used 737s available in BW1...