Does every airline route have to return back to the home airport

[dagwood]

I think it is so important after playing awhile to go back and read the manual. I have always found something I did not remember when I do a read again of the manual. 

[samomuransky]

It seems to me that two separate issues are being discussed here. I understand arguments against 5th freedom and I agree with them 100%. But operating flights outside your home base doesn't necessarily mean using 5th freedom. For example, if French airline operated CDG-JFK-LYS-JFK-CDG or CDG-LYS-AMS-CDG, they would still exercise first four freedoms only (all flights would start or end in France). More complex routings, while keeping rules similar to real world, would make things easier for small regional airlines.

[wilian.souza2]

Yes! I tried to operate only small aircraft and it's impossible to be profitable that way... first there's the too small aircraft penalty which punishes you if you try to open routes over 300 NM with them, if you play the game in a modern era; second, you can't open routes below 100 NM of distance, which could help new airlines operating small; and then, the impossibility to pick up passengers in intermediate stops in domestic routes ruins the rest of your chances to make profits with small aircraft.

[Cardinal]

Yes! I tried to operate only small aircraft and it's impossible to be profitable that way... first there's the too small aircraft penalty which punishes you if you try to open routes over 300 NM with them, if you play the game in a modern era; second, you can't open routes below 100 NM of distance, which could help new airlines operating small; and then, the impossibility to pick up passengers in intermediate stops in domestic routes ruins the rest of your chances to make profits with small aircraft.

I built a Caribbean empire with the Fairchild Metro. At the end of the game, I'm only phasing them out because they're timing out and I can't get replacements because it's out of production and there are no other 19-seaters after the Metro. But the ones I am still flying are quite profitable. And they are flying WAY beyond 300NM.

[wilian.souza2]

But everything depends on the location of your headquarters and the availability of the airframes. I tried to operate small aircraft in one Begineer's world from Le Raizet, Guadeloupe, with Pilatus aircraft, in modern era, and failed. Too many distant destinations (over 700 NM), too few demand, too many too small warnings and the Pilatus were rare and expensive to lease in that world.

[knobbygb]

But everything depends on the location of your headquarters and the availability of the airframes. I tried to operate small aircraft in one Begineer's world from Le Raizet, Guadeloupe, with Pilatus aircraft, in modern era, and failed. Too many distant destinations (over 700 NM), too few demand, too many too small warnings and the Pilatus were rare and expensive to lease in that world.

Sorry but that's just a bad choice of base and aircraft types then - it's not fair to just make the blanket statement that it's not possible to make a profit with small aircraft.  I don't mean to be too harsh - I agree that it would be nice to be able to run that sort of airline.  Try somewhere with plenty of routes under about 500 miles and choose an aircraft that is either cheap or plentiful (or both!) and you stand a good chance of making a really good profit. And I mean in a real gameworld too, not just Beginners World. You should maybe practice in the Eastern US where there are 100's of totally unserved small airports to choose from and then move to a more challenging destination when you've mastered that.  If you're serious about doing that, I'd be happy to mentor you for a while.

[diskoerekto]

I think modeling of the 6th freedom (actually this need not be international, multi stop routing is not supported for local flights as well) would solve many issues.

Maybe, the costs of bases can be decreased meanwhile the staff etc costs per destination increased to prevent stuff like the craziness many years ago happening again.

In fact, I am waiting for this along with connecting pax to be introduced to restart playing the game.