Adding a 2nd plane when total supply already exceeds demand?

[smiller]

Never thought about this before and I'm sure very basic, just not to me.     

For example.....if you have a route with 500 Total Route Demand and the route already shows 600 or 700 Total Supply and you have only 100 My Supply does adding another plane (or two or whatever) make sense?

[gazzz0x2z]

Engineer's answer : it depends.

It depends on many parameters. First of them, how is the opposition? If you have against youy 2 300-seaters plus your own 100-seater, then it's much safer than if there are 12 50-seaters belonging to several companies. Frequency matters. Demand is roughly divided between each flight (with plenty of other parameters, it's not that direct,but you get the idea). So hte first thing to look at is the actual number of flights. 700 demand, 3 flights from opposition, I've got a 100 seater, I should be able to fill 4 of them. No matter the size of opposition's flights. 500 demand, 9 opposing flights, I'll get barely 50 seats.

Second of them, don't you have anything better to do elsewhere? You might do small profit here, but maybe there is a small route there forgotten by everyone where your profit potential is higher?

Finally, does it make sense in your schedule? I mean, if I'm about to close a 7-7 schedule, I just need a 800NM destinations, and I don't have any other destination within this range, I'll be fare more tolerant to a low potential route than when I'm beginning to create it (which is when I'm looking for big cash makers first).

There are also other parameters. How does your airplane behave half-full (i.e. do you make OK profit with 50 seats?) ? Is the destinations far? and maybe even others.

[smiller]

Some really good info here, especially looking at the size and amount of planes you are up against on a route. Very helpful! Thanks much for your reply.

[sanabas]

Fly all the things. Adding a flight in the situation described in the OP absolutely makes sense. It's just that other routes might make more sense and be higher priorities.

[smiller]

Fly all the things. Adding a flight in the situation described in the OP absolutely makes sense. It's just that other routes might make more sense and be higher priorities.

Check. Thanks for this clarification. After I thought about things it did have me wondering how to compete in most new airports.