Very small aircraft airline

[sanabas]

The marketing is the first level, all media except television.

So yeah, you are spending far too much on marketing, and that's why you're not profitable. You want the minimum campaign possible, first level, and first option only. CI will still stabilise at 30, which is plenty for that sort of airline.

With 5 planes and those averages, you're making ~0-35k/week, and spending 125k on marketing. Reverse those numbers, and things look a lot better.

I did not adjust ticket price and salary as well, they are at base level.

Won't matter at the start, but you should have manual salary increases selected. Overall revenue is what, ~800k/week then? Change ticket prices from default to default + 5%, and that's another ~40k/week. Drop marketing spend from 125k to ~20k, and now you're making easy 100k+ profit, ~15% of revenue. That's a decent margin.

[RALLX]

I don't think so. You have missed out what I stated. The assumption here is that the plane has 100% PLF and is flying 5 routes a day. With the C208 being very slow, there are only so many very short routes to schedule 5 routes in a day. When the plane is flying 4 routes a day, the ticket revenue dropped to about $91k. So even with no marketing at all, the plane is losing money.

[Sami]

4x leased C208s in operation from EDDM in The Speed World: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Info/Airline/View/207/344/

Route Images are still less than 50pts and now making a (tiny) profit.

(Staff costs for such a small airline could use some adjustments)

[RALLX]

Yes, please  Maybe tweak the formula for the staff count ? I have 7 planes flying to 21 airports, yet the company needs 5 high level management, 9 middle level management, 16 economics and finance, 51 customer service staff, wow...

[Todorojoz]

I can't speak for the rest of the staffing, but customer service seems fine if you have 21 different destinations. Considering you'd need 1 or 2 at each airport, that's easily 42 people right there, 9 at your base. Or 1 person at each destination, but you may need a call center for flight booking and cancelations, complaints etc. 51 kind of makes sense to me. Now how much of that though would and airline in this case just pay a 3rd party for instead? Probably most of it and it would save a lot of money doing so. But thats not really an option here.

[RALLX]

Well... it might be 21 routes but there are only 3754 passengers per week in total. So that means it is 1 customer service staff for every 74 passengers in a week or 15 passengers in a day or 2 passenger in a working hour. Kind of a very slack staff, I must say. Maybe I'm just a slave driver 

[knobbygb]

Well... it might be 21 routes but there are only 3754 passengers per week in total. So that means it is 1 customer service staff for every 74 passengers in a week or 15 passengers in a day or 2 passenger in a working hour. Kind of a very slack staff, I must say. Maybe I'm just a slave driver 

For outstaions with one flight per day, that's probably about right.

Where I live (a smallish Greek island) we usually get two flights per day in the winter - morning and evening. Considering a single flight, the airport terminal opens for around 2.5hrs and then closes again (check in times are short but there;s paperwork etc. even after the flight departs). There are usually two airline staff (well, employed by the handling agent really) doing check-in/customer service/office stuff, two ramp guys and a bus driver. ATC, security and emergency services as well, of course, but we're not considering them here. So that's 5 people for 2.5hrs = 12.5 hrs per flight or 87.5 hours per week. That's about 2.3 full-time-equivalents (although they actually employ 8 or 9 people part-time).  The flights typically vary between 20 and 65 pax (and I've been on them when there were just three of us on a Q400) and lets say the average is about 40. 40 divided by 2.3 means approx. 1 fte staff per 17 pax. per day in real life, which isn't far off.

Now the OP is flying MUCH smaller aircraft and the game won't handle part-time staff properly where there is just one or two people required, so even having a single member of staff working 2.5hrs for a 10 pax means only 4 pax in a working hour.   

[MikeS]

"smallish Greek island" ..... maybe... Paros ?? 

[Sami]

4x leased C208s in operation from EDDM in The Speed World: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Info/Airline/View/207/344/
Route Images are still less than 50pts and now making a (tiny) profit.

RIs now at 100 and profit margin is at 11%. (My avg LF is 98% so could definitely raise the ticket prices.)

[Antoine]

I managed to get Sami's attention with this  Please make my dream of a 100 aircraft piper fleet a reality

[Maytrix]

The Cessna's should really only have 1 pilot though.  That is what we see in the real world - at least here in the US.  Look at Cape Air.  An airline that is made up of all 9 seater planes and 1 pilot per plane.  That alone would make running a small airline more realistic.

[Sami]

This has been extensively discussed in the past, and it depends on the area of the world and/or type of operation.

In Europe for example two pilots is the requirement for commercial pax operations (reference). Though the regulations have changed recently and are now generally more allowable. C208 ops fall under "commercial operations with other-than-complex motor-powered aircraft" (could you BE any more bureaucratic ) but can't find the reference to it right now to check if my previous info is still valid (it was a few years ago for sure).

(I'm actually just writing a manual for a company flying Beech King Airs [< 10 pax] and they've operated it with 2 pilots for ages)

[Alpha]

This has been extensively discussed in the past, and it depends on the area of the world and/or type of operation.

In Europe for example two pilots is the requirement for commercial pax operations (reference). Though the regulations have changed recently and are now generally more allowable. C208 ops fall under "commercial operations with other-than-complex motor-powered aircraft" (could you BE any more bureaucratic ) but can't find the reference to it right now to check if my previous info is still valid (it was a few years ago for sure).

(I'm actually just writing a manual for a company flying Beech King Airs [< 10 pax] and they've operated it with 2 pilots for ages)

But I would imagine King Air / C208 pilots are paid at a lower rate than Twotter / 1900D pilots?

Perhaps if we insist on a two-pilot rule, we can have an additional size category for such very small planes (Pipers, Cessnas, Pilatuses) where the flight crew costs even less than the current "small" category?

[gazzz0x2z]

You can forego marketing altogether I guess, but I have no clue what effect 0 CI will have. I did not adjust ticket price and salary as well, they are at base level.

The problem is that with cancellations, without marketing at all, you don't stabilize CI at zero, you stabilize at -100. You can still do some money at -100, as long as you have no opposition and keep low prices. But the strict minimum to cover cancellations seems mandatory to me.