How to Improve Fleet Utilization?

[Sharkman711]

Hey guys, first I just want to say I just got into this game less than a week ago and have been having a blast so far. Love the realism that most other air games don't offer

Anyways, for my question. I'm having a hard time getting the average utilization/plane over 12 hours per day. Mostly coming down to the fact that the maintenance A check gets in the way, especially with my long haul flights. With my short haul flights, it is easy enough to fit it in between routes and get decent utilization.

With my long haul flights, so far I've had to simply not fly a certain day of the week in order to fit in maintenance. This leads to my long-haul utilization to be subpar compared to short haul ones.

Is there any way for me to try and improve the long-haul utilization for each plane? Any tips for ensuring high utilization overall?

Anything would be greatly appreciated, and thank you all!

[Andre090904]

Read about 7-day-scheduling: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,71633.msg414896.html#msg414896

[knobbygb]

Also I'd add that if you're usually able to fit the maintenance in without making any changes then you're not scheduling tightly enough on short-haul either. For all but the shortest routes you should be trying to fly overnight too (dependent on location/curfew of course). With a good mix of short/medium/long routes I would be aiming for 17.5hrs utilisation, with 16.5hrs being acceptable.

[gazzz0x2z]

Also I'd add that if you're usually able to fit the maintenance in without making any changes then you're not scheduling tightly enough on short-haul either. For all but the shortest routes you should be trying to fly overnight too (dependent on location/curfew of course). With a good mix of short/medium/long routes I would be aiming for 17.5hrs utilisation, with 16.5hrs being acceptable.

this depends on the fleet type. With a Short range fleet (i.e. without the ability to do red eyes), 12 to 14 hours is OK.

[Maarten Otto]

Does it make you money? I hava a 737 with 10,5 hours utilization making me over a million a week. Fine enough for me.

[knobbygb]

Does it make you money? I hava a 737 with 10,5 hours utilization making me over a million a week. Fine enough for me.

Fair enough, but if you could find another 5hr to 6hr flight to add you might make another 300k on top!  The fixed costs (lease/purchase, maintenance, crew etc.) wouldn't go up, particularly as the system hires the same number of crew however many hours you are flying a given a/c.  When you start hitting hard limits such as number of a/c out of base, this can be the easiest way to expand - and a way to make the game less boring towards the end. Also remember stats matter (to some people) and having a high utilisation gets you those extra points.

[sirvalkyerie]

And at more competitive airports you're going to want better fleet utilization for a myriad of reasons. Slots are scarce, competition is high, frequency gets a boost in LF. You can easily get squeezed out of the world's more in-demand airports if you're flying inefficiently.

You can fly 8 hours a day on a plane and that's fine if you're in the USSR and no one is competing with you at your bases. You'll make money just fine (of course lower stats on the leaderboard). But stick yourself in most anywhere in the US, UK, Japan and flying less hours per plane will make it hard for you to keep pace

[knobbygb]

Yeah and also look at it like this:  Particularly on high-demand routes, even if you fly a redeye flight and make almost no profit at all, that's some of the demand "used up" and extra frequency added - i.e. pax that you are taking away from other airlines.  So it's a double-edge sword - you break even on the flight and get better stats but you are also decreasing the profit of your competitors!

[Andre090904]

Too high frequency seems to hurt, too. If it gets too high, you may also use fewer bigger planes rather than more smaller planes.