Fleet Growth

[Alitalia744]

Hi -

New-ish to the game and wondering how people grow fleet sizes so quickly. Is it primarily operating leases and if so, how does that affect profit?

Thank you.

[groundbum2]

winning this game is all about cash flow. In the early days you are very short of cash so can lease planes, or buy slots, but not both. A lot of players end up buying slots one day at a time as the cash comes in at midnight, and before the bills comes in at midday. Later you're awash in cash so it doesn't matter a hoot.

Likewise you need to grow as quickly as possible as growth enables you to grow further, and scares off the competition. With very limited money the only way to do this is to lease old cheap planes and run them up to their (expensive) D check then lose them. So a D check in 2 years 8 months? Lease it for 2.5 years, not 5.0 years as then you're paying for the D check. Once this is up and running you'll find the used market dries up as you have lots of money and so does everybody else and you're all chasing the same planes on the used market so there isn't any.

This is where you borrow as much money as you're allowed and order leased planes on the new market. This is to make sure you get deliveries before your competitors, as again they'll be doing the same thing and deliveries will stretch out over years for popular types. If you lease you're fairly modest cash will allow you to order 2 or 3 times as many planes as if you'd purchases, ie 50 rather than 20 for example.

Hopefully now your airline is generating some serious spare cash which is piling up. Quick as you can, again with huge loans, purchase (not lease) new aircraft so you have a guaranteed pipeline of aircraft arriving. Generally you'll do as new launch discounts are available.

There is a side trick in the early days of buying used aircraft. not leasing them, and using these as collateral for bigger loans. I'd leave this to the sophisticated players, likewise buying new aircraft to lease them to other players as a side hustle.

An alliance will have a list of future aircraft production schedules, eg A350-1000 starting in 2017, along with specs, so you can plan your fleet. If you plan to get about 400 aircraft you need to understand commonality. Do a forum search.

Sorry for being verbose, but your question is key to winning the game,

Simon

[tungstennedge]

Simons post is very nice, Id like to add when choosing routes, find the ones which have the greatest amount of unserved demand to open first. A route with 1000 unserved demand will fill up much quicker than one with 200.

[groundbum2]

without giving too much away, when choosing routes in a highly competitive airport, eg JFK, I usually start off with routes NOT from page 1, but from page 2. As I know the other 5 or 6 players are busy filling page 1 and the juicy routes. If I start on page 2 then it'll take everybody else a year or two to get to page 2 and start jumping on my routes. Until then I've had them all to myself...

Simon

[gazzz0x2z]

Time to broadcast my very unfinished power start guide. Fine tuned for Modern time starts, but most concepts apply to earlier eras (single aisle airplanes are just harder to get back then, which makes the whole thing more difficult). It focuses on very first months of the game, whils Simon offers a broader view.

There are some very specific techniques in it. All of them have been tried and used several times. But the most important is to generate as much cash flow as possible from day one, which is also what Tungstennedge focuses on.

Note also that this is a single aisle start. Starting with very larges is tad different, the sweet spot between immediate cash flow and raising RI is not that easy to spot when starting on long lines. While with A320s /B737s, it's damn easy : short routes with plenty of empty space, and far enough in the list to make competition not attack here first.

Finally, point 20 does not work 100% of the time. My current opponent in GRU in the most recent modern times game seems very good, and I don't expect him to fold. It's only my second direct opponent ever to make me this impression. Most players can't face a well executed power start.

If one day you start single aisle from day one (i.e. when the game world starts), here are a few tips (don't do this in other circumstances - many points are pointless if you start later, or after the start) :

(0) Start at a big airport with juicy nearby destinations.
(0 bis) Hire exactly one staffer in each category (bar pilots on categories you're not gonna use). Give each of them a 40% bonus, then a 35% bonus.
(1) find a cheap single aisle aircraft with decent capacity, turnaround, available in big numbers. Bonus points if it's cheap and not many players use it (last modern times game that began in 1998, I went full MD88 - only MD88 and A320s were available in thousands, and far more players went for much better A320s. I went for clearly inferior MD88, with great success, supply was unlimited, while even A320s became scarce quickly)
(2) Find 8 destinations less than 300NM from your HQ with 2.5 times demand the capacity of your airplane of choice.
(2 bis) even better, those are the 8 smallest destinations that fit the description.
(3) Lease 2 old cheap planes of the line of your choice.
(3 bis) don't reseat them
(4) schedule 4 destinations on each bird. Don't spread out, don't 7-7. Do a basic, day standard schedule.
(5) schedule between 0535 and 2355. Set up the A check on saturday at 0535
(5 bis) in fact, schedule four first flight at 0525, and then move it at 0535. The rest of the schedule follows for a 0535 first flight.
(6) set all your pax prices at +10%
(7) Set a very low company marketing. Set route marketing on your best starting routes (the ones where opposition runs going sooner than the others).
(8 ) on day 2 (i.e. the first day at normal speed), rinse & repeat, 2 additional birds. If still cash remaining, take plane number 5 on day 3.
(9) as soon as cash allows, take more birds. From week 2, you should be in profit.Cash flow positive should be even earlier. So lease birds now, and purchase slots later, just before plane arrival.
(10) you can premake the routes, maybe even slot the routes if you have enough cash, but from bird 3, schedule the birds as late as possible. you spare 2 weeks of staff costs each time.
(11) grow until you reach a level where  the main limit of your growth rate is the ability to lease planes.
(12) begin to think about 7-7 schedules and long range destinations.
(13) fill everything you can at your home airport. 120% of demand. Even if locals are setting up a lot of flights too. Most of them will be dead within 2 years. The remaining ones will lack air to breath, and threaten you properly. You can begin to think about optimizing your seating at this moment, as well. You can also maybe add a second fleet group (pax or cargo, depending on local specifics)
(14) look for another airport with a lot of potential and weak opponents.
(15) now, power growth is finished, and your explosive growth should be made a way that is more sustainable. You can (and shall) do a start there clean with 7-7 schedules, and with ranges you see fit. Still, overwhelm locals, and teach them who's the boss.
(16) keep your standard +10% pricing policy. increase your company marketing to be around 5-10% of total expenses (it depends on local staff costs. I did spend around 3.5% in PEK, but you'd be around 8/10% in AMS for the same result). Once you reach 80 CI, push up every pax category at +15%.(17) in the meantime, you should have enough cash flow to purchase new birds from the factory. Do it by batches of 7, later 14... always multiples of 7.
(18) once you're short of quick easy growth, begin to consolidate. Replace your leased old crap by shining new superstars.
(19) you may want reorganize your starting flights as well. Time has passed, and they might be suboptimal(euphemism) now.
(20) count your opponent's BK and feel like a true Elite member.

Rationale behind point 0 bis : morale of each category is instant 100 like that. 40% + 35% bonus work cheaper and better than one single bonus.

Rationale behind point 1 : you make more money flying 4 times a day for 150$ than 3 times a day for 170$

Rationale behind point 2 : 2.5 more demand than supply is the threshold where you reach the maximum LF of 50% at RI 0

Rationale behind point 2bis : opposition will rush to the biggest destinations. In PEK, I deliberately ignored the big natural destinations (CAN, SHA, NRT...) for a few months.

Rationale behind point 3 bis : you need cash in a power start. You'll change seats after a few months. Not now.

Rationale behind point 4 : you need to maximize income from day one. Spreading out is better for long term RI, but we're not in long term thinking. You need to bury your opponents before his long term bets can pay off, and you'll grow so much that you'll follow his long term routes so early that he'll never get the fruit of it.

Rationale behind point 5 : the penalty for taking off before 0600 is weak, but in when your CI is very low, it's not negligible. It's much stronger than the penalty for landing at 2355. The later you take off, the lower the penalty. As you need 5h40m for the A-check to happen (for A320, 737, MD88, 727...including the turnaround after landing at 2355), you set up the A check where you can maximize your income.
Note also that you'll make sleepovers or redeyes later, but fornow, as you'd lose one weekly flight per week, they'd be counter productive.

Rationale behind 5bis : it spares precious cash for getting exactly the same slot. 0525 slots are much cheaper. You might want to play with turnaround times at arrival if your start from there is at xx50 or xx55, so that you don't repay the destination slot when moving the start at your airport.

Rationale behind point 6 : it works. More in detail, when unopposed, or when your CI is higher, it works. But you'll grow so much faster than your opponents that most of your route will be unopposed until your CI reaches nice levels. +10% income is a huge boost. Feels like a cheat. It's by far the most important point.

NB : in short challenges, where opposition is not as harsh and basing is possible everywhere, the point 13 is not to push that far. Better go far West style and go to uncharted territories earlier. 10/15 years is too short to kill competent opponents, and you'll make better money elsewhere.