Can someone help advise where I went wrong...

[SpongebobInlaid]

Hi All,

New to the game (First real committed start after dipping in and out of BW here and there).

I have read so much on the forums but I appeared to have missed something. I am based at LHR and seem to have lost ground quite significantly to the competition somewhere along the line and not sure how/why and would love to know for future games.

We have come to the end of the first quarter and I am approx 30m behind on revenue and recently lost around 6/7% market share swing to them. I no its not all doom and gloom but I am curious as to what I missed.

I had tickets at default +4% LF seems to be in line with the competition for Passengers but I think they maybe had more seats blocked off from the start of the game for cargo as I have carried 10% of market share for cargo vs 30% for the competition.

Was that something I missed while LF's are down at the beginning giving them a huge boost in income and in turn the ability to buy the aircraft faster than I could. Currently they have 11 x 747-400 in use and on order vs my 7 x 777-300

Would love to hear your thoughts. And please go easy on me...

[Todorojoz]

It is tough without being able to look at your airline and your competition, and knowing there are alot of variables at play that can effect things. But I'll mention a few things.

It sounds like it's a new GW. Your competitor went with leasing older planes, meaning the lease costs are cheaper. He was also able to get 4 more planes which another 36% potential.

Ticket prices when you have heavy competition on routes can be set to 4%. But in early game years if you are flying alone on a route, you can push that higher. Especially if your hitting a 95%-100% LF, don't just leave it at 4% or your leaving money on the table.

Check route distances too. The more flights a plane can make a week, the more revenue potential it has when flying PAX. So longer ranges can be less profitable than shorter ranges. (This is generally the opposite when it comes to cargo).

Short term route marketing might be in use to give them a quick boost on long haul.

Again, alot of variables and I'm speaking mostly blindly by what you've written here. But those are some thoughts.

[schro]

There's a lot of a factors in play here - I can't see your game world, but I do have concerns you're comparing apples and oranges with the stats.

First, let's talk stats -

Market share - This is solely based on the number of passengers flown. You're flying widebodies, presumably long haul, that by definition will have you flying fewer people per plane compared to the same number of planes running on a short haul basis (i.e. 3x daily hops on an A320 is more market share than 5x weekly hops on a 777).

Cargo share - Cargo is very dependent upon RI, to which reaching 100 can take a game year or longer. This _can_ also be impacted by you being all long haul vs short haul depending on the competition level and distribution of demand.

Next up, a few other notes:

A LHR start can be tricky as there's a lot of premium demand available, but you need a higher CI/RI to be able to sell those seats well. As your RI approaches 100, if you can reconfigure your planes proportionate to the premium mix, you'll see a nice boomerang in your revenue and profit with all the sections full. Default seating on 777/747s is terrible.

On the other side, your short haul competition will struggle more with slot costs.

Ultimately, getting a fast start is about finding and flying routes that you're only supplying about 30% of the demand and jacking prices up as high as you can get them until competition catches up. If you're flying a route multiple times per day with a low RI, stop it and fly somewhere else with those extgra flights.

[SpongebobInlaid]

It is tough without being able to look at your airline and your competition, and knowing there are alot of variables at play that can effect things. But I'll mention a few things.

It sounds like it's a new GW. Your competitor went with leasing older planes, meaning the lease costs are cheaper. He was also able to get 4 more planes which another 36% potential.

Ticket prices when you have heavy competition on routes can be set to 4%. But in early game years if you are flying alone on a route, you can push that higher. Especially if your hitting a 95%-100% LF, don't just leave it at 4% or your leaving money on the table.

Check route distances too. The more flights a plane can make a week, the more revenue potential it has when flying PAX. So longer ranges can be less profitable than shorter ranges. (This is generally the opposite when it comes to cargo).

Short term route marketing might be in use to give them a quick boost on long haul.

Again, alot of variables and I'm speaking mostly blindly by what you've written here. But those are some thoughts.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, I did look into the age etc... and we were averaging 15/16 years each. However I did discover that I messed up and rented one that was 900k more than my others a month... Dont known how. The cost difference between a 747 and 777 doesnt vary too much but I assume per week it adds up!

I will go look for the destinations that no one is flying and hike up the price

Thank you again!

[SP7]

I am in BW2 to test some things.

I think you are trying to set up 7-day scheduling on your 737s but for some reason you've started multiple 7 days that are very similar, and on top of that you are flying to the same destinations on the same days within the 7 days you've set up.

For example you're flying to Manchester 5 separate routes daily, but they are all happening on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Paris CDG is happening only on Mondays and Sundays. AMS is a little more spread out but you have 2x Monday Tuesday only.

it looks like you have a 7-day for your 773s, so that should start earning a lot of money soon as it's a BW with low player count and high demand.

[SpongebobInlaid]

I am in BW2 to test some things.

I think you are trying to set up 7-day scheduling on your 737s but for some reason you've started multiple 7 days that are very similar, and on top of that you are flying to the same destinations on the same days within the 7 days you've set up.

For example you're flying to Manchester 5 separate routes daily, but they are all happening on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Paris CDG is happening only on Mondays and Sundays. AMS is a little more spread out but you have 2x Monday Tuesday only.

it looks like you have a 7-day for your 773s, so that should start earning a lot of money soon as it's a BW with low player count and high demand.

I got my 777-300   7 day schedule completed first and started the 737s to grab some slots but the costs were mounting up fast so switched back to the 777s just started my second 7 day schedule.