Dear groundbum2,
I would be happy to try once ultra-long-haul flight. It looks interesting adventure. I am afraid that it is not economical at all. I did not try this yet, but somehow my feeling is that it would take enormous time and investment to develop the route and then the profit on such ruote is questionable...
As a beginning player I was always trying to chase long 8000nm routes with 500 demand, such as IAD-Jakarta. It’s suicide. The foundation of most of my airlines (which always start with 737/MD90 medium haul) are routes under 1500nm which I have little competition on and around ~400-500 demand. For example, my Toronto based airline has 737 cash cows to Montreal, Calgary, and Edmonton. Basing in Ontario I have routes to Sacramento and Portland that I fill with 737s that make handsome sums of cash.
When you advance in the game, say after 20 or so narrowbody Planes, you can try long haul by acquiring 2-4 used widebodies. Since I always base in North America this usually means I go for London Gatwick first. There is a lot more demand to the British Isles than you might think. For example, last BW1 I was flying 5 777s a day to Manchester with no competition. These are the kind of routes- to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, London Stansted/Luton- that will become the backbone of a North American Airline’s long haul route network.
After the high demand (500+) longhaul routes are secured, you can try playing routes with 250-400 demand. These are tricky, as is any longhaul, because LFs will be low and you will lose massive sums of money in the beginning. Use marketing, and the LFs will quickly increase to around 50% and you’ll begin to break even. Aim for a weekly profit of $1M+ on any widebody.
ULH to Asia is probably overrated, ESPECIALLY when leasing planes. I tried to lease 3 year old 777-200LRs to fly from Toronto to Bangkok and Singapore last game- the LFs will be amazing, as will the route profits, but the $2.7-3M leasing cost will kill you. I’d only recommend doing these routes over 6000nm with owned planes. And be sure to absolutely use 7 day on Asian routes. Your experience may be different if you’re flying to Japan from North America, in which you may be able to lease at first.
As for fleet choices, reality doesn’t line up with AWS. The MD90, which was essentially a failure that made only 116 units, is still in production in 2019 in GW3, with regular orders by large airlines of 40-50 units. Again, from the surface this seems like a terrible choice since the MD90 is hilariously inefficient compared to the MAX and neo. Much like the A350 vs 767 it comes down to purchase or leasing price. The MD90 is priced at ~72M, but a MAX or neo can easily add up to twice as much. You can expand much quicker using these older, cheaper fleets and make higher profits.
The 767, while dated nowadays, is still an efficient airplane. It is simply much easier to fill a 767 than a 777 on transatlantic routes with less than 400 demand. The 767 is adept at routes such as Toronto to Dublin or Milan, where a larger plane would struggle to break even. Take a look at airlines that use the 767 nowadays- Delta is still a huge operator because it can operate “skinnier” routes such as Cincinnati to Paris, Detroit to Rome, and Salt Lake to Honolulu that a 777 or A330 can’t fill.
Hope you appreciate my advice, if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask!
rntair
Topic: Airbus A350 (Read 4816 times)
