A319LR

[Antoine]

Seen as the Boeing 737 family has the long range variant , the 737-700ER with a range of 4,400NM . Shouldmy the a319LR be available for the a320 family ? It would be a fun option considering it would be able to compete with the 737-700er .
This airplaine type flys with Qatar airways and privatair

[[SC] - King Kong]

have fun flying that far

[Antoine]

Worth a shot when you have all other routes served   

[Tha_Ape]

What KK means is that such a range is almost completely useless. The game mechanics require a larger planes for long routes.
Yes, you could fly those over the Atlantic, but only on thin routes with no competition: you'll get the "too small AC" penalty, but still manageable. Over 200 demand, you'd be ripped apart by a wide body because of this penalty.
Moreover, the longer a route, the less profitable it is. Sure, longer routes means you've higher fleet use, but this doesn't really compensate.

The only context where it can be useful is very long domestic routes. And only 2 countries offer such possibilities: USA and USSR/Russia. Still, those routes need to be thin and there are few of them.
(French or Dutch overseas territories are considered different countries, and thus it's classified as LH and not dom).

[Elladan]

It's not always all about profit, sometimes it's just because it can be done...

[gazzz0x2z]

I had relative success in several game worlds with 737-700ER. Of course, you need a very tight 7-days, 7-planes schedule, plus price micromanagement, but counting staff & other things, I made small money on transatlantic routes with demand between 130 & 200. Not big one, but still positive money.

And when demand bypasses 200, well, it's time to invest in a very large aircraft. As you already had the route, you have the route image, and the tranistion is smooth, not like a very costly Very Large route opening.

Said otherwise, those routes are temporary, for 10-20 years. But not useless, not even counting the fun factor.

[Tha_Ape]

But not useless, not even counting the fun factor.

It's not always all about profit, sometimes it's just because it can be done...

For sure
I was rather trying to focus on "serious" aspects, ie not abuse it as it can be quite dangerous.

[gazzz0x2z]

For sure
I was rather trying to focus on "serious" aspects, ie not abuse it as it can be quite dangerous.

Yeah. It was with my first use of the 737-700ER that I understood that leasing new shiny planes was not a good idea. Leasing costs were demolishing my otherwise interesting profits(and it took me some time to get it - me=slowbrain). Fortunately, I had only a handful of them. We are clearly speaking about advanced techniques, only for experimented players. And even like that, many will see this a s a dangerous distraction - with a reason.

Wikipedia says 319LR goes up to 4500NM. Would be an interesting alternative to the 737-700ER. Probably as dangerous to play as the 737-ER. Small profit expected, big risks involved. But would be cool to allow the players to, errrrm, play.

[Antoine]

Don't worry I didn't mention thinking I'd make millions ! Only when I had a strong shorthaul network with the 737 family I invested in the 737-700ER . I was based out of EIDW so there were many 3000-4500 NM routes under 200 that i could put them on .

I mentioned the a319LR just because it would be fun to put this aircraft into service when using the a320 family.

[fark24]

Don't forget it is not just the long/thin aspect that kills the profitability of the ER/LR versions of the B737 & A320. It's also the 'too small aircraft' calculation in this game where a 4500nm route serviced by a large aircraft type is going to get nerfed - even if there is sufficient demand to fill the plane. Above a certain range in later game years, only very large aircraft types can fill that role without an overt penalty.

Perhaps cargo-only ER/LR types of large aircraft families may fare better as I don't believe that silly penalty is applied to them.

[gazzz0x2z]

Don't forget it is not just the long/thin aspect that kills the profitability of the ER/LR versions of the B737 & A320. It's also the 'too small aircraft' calculation in this game where a 4500nm route serviced by a large aircraft type is going to get nerfed - even if there is sufficient demand to fill the plane. Above a certain range in later game years, only very large aircraft types can fill that role without an overt penalty.

Perhaps cargo-only ER/LR types of large aircraft families may fare better as I don't believe that silly penalty is applied to them.

disagree. Year is 2034, and my best 737-733ER still makes 650k$ per week, which probably means around 300/350 k$ per week countring staff and other overhead. 85% full with various destinations(7-planes schedule).

[Antoine]

I definitely think there's a place for such an aircraft like the A319LR. It may be a small one compared to just slapping a 773 on a route with big demand,but I find it a good challenge to try operate such niche aircraft in the game

[fark24]

disagree. Year is 2034, and my best 737-733ER still makes 650k$ per week, which probably means around 300/350 k$ per week countring staff and other overhead. 85% full with various destinations(7-planes schedule).

That's good to hear! I tried to fly B737-700ERs about 2 years ago at max range using 7/day scheduling. I was getting weekly returns only in the low $100k range - which was probably weakly profitable or negative given maintenance, depreciation, etc. Perhaps something has changed since then.

[gazzz0x2z]

That's good to hear! I tried to fly B737-700ERs about 2 years ago at max range using 7/day scheduling. I was getting weekly returns only in the low $100k range - which was probably weakly profitable or negative given maintenance, depreciation, etc. Perhaps something has changed since then.

Did you micromanage ticket prices? On such tight lines, it's usually the difference between earning pocket money, and losing money. And you need an ideal setup : no opposition, 130 to 200 demand, full schedule. Mine are all around 20 hours airborne per day. They require perfection. You can make money with a badly-used 737 on a few crappy small range route, but on those thin lines, you can't afford the slightes mistake.

For rerefence, this bird is flying 8 times a week, from LFPG to FZAA(160 demand), VOHS(180 demand), FSIA(250 demand, too small penalty, still full plane), TJSJ(200 demand, one oponent), TNCM(200 demand), EGNM(a short destination, there was a hole in the schedule), KCLT(140 demand), MBPV(140 demand).

I'm flying 57 of those babies(one being single, all others are in 7-planes schedules), the worse ones are doing 250k$ per week(so slight losses, in fact), and average around 450k$. Which is probably around 150k$ per week of pretax profit, which is 100k$ post-tax. Or 5M$ per year. On a 24-years lifespan, that's paying the 120M$ you paid for the new airframe(and I didn't normalize for depreciation, which more or less compensates for C & D checks). As you can see, it's at the limit. I'm probably not losing money with my 700ER fleet, but its main purpose is to occupy territory, waiting for demand to raise, and fill it with very large aircraft(unless the destination is unfit for them, as FSIA).

[Antoine]

See ! That right there ^ is what I'm talking  about.  These small long range aircraft add some extra challenge into the game if you want it . That's why I'm proposing the A319LR is added .

[freshmore]

It's one of those things where working out your CASK comes in useful. Which you can work out using this.

(ASK for last 2 weeks x 1 million)/Total operational costs for the 2 weeks = CASK

The total operational costs you can take the last two full weeks or you can go into Dashboard -> Stats and find the date the stats are from a take the last two full weeks before that date.

When you've got that you can go to your marginal routes, like a B737-700ER route at long range, you can go to Manage routes and see those routes and look at the Revenue per ASK. If that's larger than your CASK you've got profit, in theory.

At this point it can also be worth working out the cost per Seat km for the aircraft individually, which is some ridiculous calculation, but RASK also really needs to be higher than that as well, something like the B737-700ER is an expensive aircraft to own so it may have a higher Cost per ASK than your average CASK, which is what the calculation above is. The worst bit of this calculation is dividing up the staff, office, alliance and marketing costs to an individual aircraft, but it can be done, the rest like route fees or fuel is covered in the Weekly Financial Estimate for an individual aircraft or easy to get the information to add to a calculation. Actually, I've now got a few things to do on my spreadsheet for this because I've realised how I can deal with some dividing up some non-aircraft costs on a per aircraft basis.

Once you've got these numbers you can do other stuff with it as well, like work out break even prices at a given load or the reverse, break even load at a given price and can play around with fuel price rises for your overall CASK. You can also do CASK on a Quarterly calculation which is useful for compared yourself to a competitor. Change it to (Total ASK for 2 weeks x 1,000,000 x 6.5)/Total Quarterly Costs. That's for a quarter being 13 weeks long, do it for both yourself and the competitor, because it's not really valid to use a 2 week calculation for yourself and compare it with a quarterly calculation for a competitor.

So yeah, one evening I decided to get my head around airline economics! I think that is pretty much right!