Airbus A350

[sasha2003_new]

another part of playing AWS well, is to NOT chase every route possible. There's always the routes which are fat and juicy and unserved and gagging for shiny metal, your shiny metal, to be dropping in each day to pick up the grateful crowds. But usually you don't want these routes driving your fleet decisions by getting highly expensive metal. It's usually best to compromise and get a decent fleet that can serve 90% of your destinations, and forget the 10% that are just a few 100s of NMs beyond your reach. Mediocre wins on fleet choices, not vanity destinations. It's why most big players don't do ULH, or at least not until they've built their airline and add some ULH out or boredom and yes vanity!

S

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...

[Zobelle]

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...

It's overrated. Trust me.

[rntair]

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

[sasha2003_new]

It's overrated. Trust me.

I believe this, it conforms to my feelings...

[sasha2003_new]

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

Your view is interesting. In my humble opinion it just means that AWS does not implement what really happens, i.e. too small amount of crashes probably and AWS implements strategic of keeping airplanes, if there are active orders. Aircraft manufactures would stop production of old generations, after the new one has been revealed and put into the production, disregarding the orders queue.

It is probably means that AWS just relies on kind of "good will" of players...

[Tha_Ape]

Your view is interesting. In my humble opinion it just means that AWS does not implement what really happens, i.e. too small amount of crashes probably and AWS implements strategic of keeping airplanes, if there are active orders. Aircraft manufactures would stop production of old generations, after the new one has been revealed and put into the production, disregarding the orders queue.

It is probably means that AWS just relies on kind of "good will" of players...

Effectively, AWS doesn't implement "what really happens". It simply can't, for various reasons.

About the crashes, it has been discussed a lot, and still is (even though it's quite calm lately). The decision not to implement them relies on the fact that it's a game. Yes, a simulator, but also a game. Let's say we play poker and suddenly I change your full house with a pair, what would you say? Same position here. I personally believe crashes could be implemented in the game, but their precise effects and triggers needs to be be discussed without passion.

And prod line now close. Certainly not like irl, but at least they close, no matter what the players do.

In order to make the game playable, one has to make concessions to the reality:
- demand is much higher than irl because you need to feed the players. With RL demand, a GW's capacity would be 20-30%
- you can't replicate the real unpopularity of said model because maybe the flaws were industrials, and not in the design. Thus is said a/c is efficient, it will be played
And so on and so forth...

And actually, I really like the possibility to diverge slightly from reality. Because I don't want to replicate reality, I want to build my own. Repeating reality would just be boring as hell.

[Mort]

Because I don't want to replicate reality, I want to build my own. Repeating reality would just be boring as hell.

This, a thousand times this.

[gazzz0x2z]

(.../...)
And actually, I really like the possibility to diverge slightly from reality. Because I don't want to replicate reality, I want to build my own. Repeating reality would just be boring as hell.

Spamming USofA with 700+ Antonov 148s was a huge pleasure, I have to say. Impossible in the real world(Antonov sadly experiences a lot of production problems those days).

[knobbygb]

And prod line now close. Certainly not like irl, but at least they close, no matter what the players do.

Really? Even if there are continuing orders? I must have missed that change but I'm happy to be corrected.

The three-fleet "rule" is also a big reason older fleets continue to be ordered for longer. Towards the end of the game it simply doesn't make sense to move to newer types that are not compatible. The CS300 is a prime example.  MD-90 has become a lot more popular in this game since it became common with the B717.  It's now possible to run a mixed fleet on MD-90/717 from the early 90s until the end of the game. This wouldn't happen in reality. Real-world operators of these types would either go all A320/737 or a mix of the two or add CS300s as well. Can you image if somebody said to Delta Airlines "Sorry, you can only have three distinct fleet types"? This rule is really ruining to game for me at the moment - it's becoming boring and I'm considering leaving all the long game words after about 2020 - the last 15 years are a waste of time. I don't even believe it has the desired effect of protecting the smaller airlines either.  Anyway, that's somewhat off-topic and an argument for another place.

[gazzz0x2z]

(.../...). I don't even believe it has the desired effect of protecting the smaller airlines either.

It protects airlines with smaller airframes, not smaller airlines. Below 1000NM, with A148s or MRJs, I'm gonna shred your 717s into sheesh-kebab. But on longer lines, you're gonna make so much money that you won't even notice I do exist. Even though I'm costing you a lot of money on SH.

But nope, smaller airlines leasing brand new A320s are dead from day one, whatever the commonality rules. If your point is that players with less game awareness don't have more survival chances with the comm system, I totally agree with you. I just want to point out that it's not the point of that rule. The point is that it does force you to make interesting choices. In current GW3, I fully bypassed larges. I'm spamming MAD with S2000s, and my market share is growing at a snail pace. But that's a choice I had to make, I could not just have every plane the industry flies. It would have been too easy. It's more interesting when it's hard, and when you have to make painful choices.

[Tha_Ape]

IIRC, it closes 25 years after real life closure. So you can still play the MD-90 till game end. Production ended in 2000, that makes 2025. So for your expansion in 2025-2035, you sure have to make calculations beforehand, but otherwise everything's fine.

Some models might be impacted (I mean seriously impacted), but probably not many (mostly models that weren't successful IRL and had an early closure of prod line, but are very popular in the game).

[deovrat]

I'm gonna shred your 717s into sheesh-kebab.

Seekh Kebab.. not being pedantic, its just one of my favourite dishes

[rntair]

IIRC, it closes 25 years after real life closure. So you can still play the MD-90 till game end. Production ended in 2000, that makes 2025. So for your expansion in 2025-2035, you sure have to make calculations beforehand, but otherwise everything's fine.

Some models might be impacted (I mean seriously impacted), but probably not many (mostly models that weren't successful IRL and had an early closure of prod line, but are very popular in the game).

So the production line will close in 2025 regardless, even if one keeps ordering new airframes?

[Mort]

So the production line will close in 2025 regardless, even if one keeps ordering new airframes?

I guess it functions similarly to trying to order planes as the end of a game world approaches. It will give you an error if you try to order too many before the cut-off. I've noticed for game ends though, the compression on orders can be quite extreme, with some people receiving multiple frames from the same production line in a single day!!