Lack of staff and a/c rotation

[Wayfarer]

Another question here as I am really trying to make my airline economically healthy:
What are the conditions for avoiding delays due to "Lack of staff" and "A/c rotation" ?  I have read about this many times and know there is some kind of "randomness" build in the game mechanics, but I want to know more..

1) Lack of staff: Let's say I have 3 a/c with 2 pilots/2 crew, flying full time round the clock. I have tried to think "realistic" here and added 2 pilots on "stand-by" and 2 crew attendants. Also 2 extra on ground handling and technical services but still I get these 4,5% of delay due to lack of staff.
These a/c is flying to 4 destinations each but is it so that I need to consider this and add staff locally on each destination, such as customer services, ground handling and technical services on each of them?
 I can't find a proper guide on how to balance this problem and since staff are my main cost, it is very important not to have too much staff. But were is the optimal setup? 

2) About delays due to "short turnaround": For the ATR's they have 25 min minimum t/a time but I have been generous and set 60 min on all t/a. Still I get 2,6% delay on t/a.. I just don't understand this, or.. is it something "randomized" I just have to accept? 

[jerry727]

It would be more accurate if you had the absolute numbers of these flights (not the %). I suspect it would be quite low though (given the low %), also if you say that you have enough turnaround time and enough staff. Random events still happen and that's part of running an airline

[knobbygb]

For staff, you just have to go with the recommended numbers. It tells you how many you need - no calculation needed on your part, and you leave it on auto settings.  This will actually hire 101% of required staff, so you can tune it a little, but NEVER go below 100%.  Going higher is no use either.

For scheduling,  Just go with the shortest time that gives a 1% chance of delay. For ATRs this will be 45 minutes.  Yes, it seems a bit unfair if you then get 2% or 3% delays, but it is indeed just random and there's nothing you can do about that. Making even longer turns will have no effect.

[knobbygb]

Yes, maybe it is random this but an engineer doesn't like the word "random" 

I agree, as a 'mathematician'. There is no such thing as "random". But you know what I mean - super-unpredictable. Chaos theory.

Really, keep your turns as they are for now to save time, but go for 1% in the future.  You need to squeeze every last minute in the air out of every aircraft.  Allowing an extra 15 minutes at each end of the flight on an ATR, when the average flight time is maybe 2hrs - at most - is losing you about 12% of your useful time when that a/c could be making money.  In theory, with wise scheduling and route selection, your profits could be up by at least 15%. And your game stats for things like "Aircraft Utilisation" too.

[knobbygb]

I did actually re-schedule all of my flights with 45 min t/a but it did cost me a small fortune!

Don't free-up the slots each time you cancel and re-create a flight.  Un-check the tickbox to keep the slots then you can probably re-use them later, especially if you are rescheduling many flights at once.

Now, I got some spare hours left but what to do with those empty hours from 21:30 to 05:00

These are the house I aim to fil first, not last.  I start by scheduling a redeye whenever possible, even if it won't be particularly profitable, then fill in the free day time as required.  Even with Turboprops you can usually find some way to be profitable overnight - at least in one direction.

[schro]

I call the "random" factor around here "samirandom"...

No matter how well you schedule your planes, you will always have some that get delayed by various factors. On the staffing front, overstaffing will not help you, it's only an extra expense. Even if you had more staff than passengers, you will have some flights late due to lack of staffing.

If you're still at that 5 plane sized operation, there's probably not enough flights happening to get a statistically valid represention of the probability of a low occurrence event.

So, for timeliness, if you're running an overall on time percentage of 85-90%, you won't see any negative financial impact. The game will throw weather and all other delay types at you (and weather can vary by time of year). Personally, I aim for the 8-10% chance for delay in the turn times, as that combined with all other attributes typically yields a 90-95% on time rating and no turn time related cancellations (cancel rate over 2% is bad).

One thing to keep in mind - management is not math. If you are playing to the assumed game goal of maximizing profit, running a perfect operation is not a way to achieve that. If you use the shorter turn times and it allows you to fit 22 flights on 5 planes instead of 21 flights, the 22 flight airline will make more money with all other things constant, even if they delay 5% of their flights.

The game is about finding balance - and sometimes you don't need to dig into the details to succeed (though, you're still learning which details matter...)

[Continental Sky]

Re 1, I understand you closed the existing routes and opened new ones? The way I reschedule is to edit routes, I open each route in edit mode in a separate tab and adjust departure time / TAT as needed. If new times are within the same hour as original one, the price will be zero, displayed in the route interface. Then only after I get satisfactory schedule I confirm them one by one.

Re 2, I did some testing a while ago; departures up to some half of hour after midnight or before 0500 will slightly hurt your LF; more than that, too low LF for my liking. Night arrivals have lower impact than departures. Here are the results if you want more details; I created some routes, waited for RI to reach 100, checked if demand/supply remained intact, and then varied departure times, kept each departure time for a couple of weeks, and you can see change in LF accordingly.

https://1drv.ms/b/s!ApixNzy4AI0gn6UlM218ztuzEMKrSA

Re skipping the Saturday, there was a discussion on that topic a while ago, first on Discord, and then here: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,89705.msg529279.html#msg529279

As for majority of stuff, there are pros and cons, and now I believe it's impossible to give accurate answer. If I can schedule 7x7, without skipping Saturday (or any other day, btw - if you have several planes flying the same route, you will not skip Saturday each time, but different day for each plane), that's great. If I cannot, I skip that one day, and that's also great!   

[Continental Sky]

Re  8-10% chance for delay in the turn times, you also need to see things in long term.

I trust Schro correctly estimated it has no significant impact to profits.

But what else I check now is what I want to do with that plane - will it fly until the end of the game, or I will want to replace it with another type down the road.

In first case, you're fine to go with Schro's advice; but in second case, if that replacement plane is considerably slower or has longer default TAT than initial plane, it will not fit in the schedule, and you will have to reschedule them all once again. I did it several times with almost hundred of planes, and I don't want to do it again, so I always leave sufficient TAT.

I mean, you know you'll have to reschedule when you switch from props to jets in epic GWs, because flight time difference is measured in hours, when scheduled 7 days/7 planes, typical prop can cover total distance of ~16,000 nm per week, while jets can get close to 30,000 nm per week. But jets' velocities vary between some 0.70 and 0.86 mach, and it drove me crazy if I had to reschedule because of 5 or 10 minutes missing...

[knobbygb]

No I am sure I edited the routes but still the costs was very high.

But if you edit them into a different hour, you pay for totally new slots and there's no way to keep the old ones.  Remember to check on the return slots too - they could also go over the hour mark. Generally, DON'T edit - create new routes when you're making lots of changes.

I am doing a experiment now with late flights, departing around 22:30 or so, and landing back at 4 am. We'll see what happens.

Again, don't forget to pay attention to the departure time from the outstation.  From the graphic you posted, it looks like many of your flights might be 1am/2am departing back to base.  That can be OK if you accept the low load-factor on the return - you'll still make money even if your stats DO suffer. 

You could also fly to an outstation at say 22:55 arriving 2am and then wait until 5am to return.  So, you lose an additional 2hr15 minutes but that's better than 5 or 6 hours on the ground overnight at HQ.

Maybe look at longer routes and consider time zones.  If you're based in central Europe (GMT+1) either depart just before midnight for GMT+2 places (or even +3 - Russia, Turkey) or fly to UK (and Portugal) departing maybe 9pm ish and heading back to base at 23:55.  These are some of my Turboprop departures from MXP.  JSI, ORN are 23:55 departures from base and places like LPL, EXP, LBA, EDI are 23:55 departures of the return flight. For some, like DJE, I do both! I also have a few "stupid-O-Clock" flights on high-density domestic routes (CTA as an example) but that's more about just filling the schedule while frustrating the competition with high frequency. Those flights still make money though!

[Continental Sky]

Guys, why do you both leave TAT after A-check? As far as I know, there is no need for that. If a flight departs at 0530, A-check should be at 0030, not 2345 or something like that.

With knobbygb, I may see the reasoning, for example last ac on the screenshot, A-check and B-check are scheduled so you don't lose flight to BLL next day, i.e., B-check does not overlap with flight to BLL. But they do not need to start at the same time - in cases like this, I leave B-check as it is, and move A-check forward, in this screenshot "stick" it to BRI route. You need TAT before A-check, so by doing that you ensure you suffer higher chance of delay only once a month, for B-check, whereas there is sufficient TAT for A-check each week.

[knobbygb]

It doesn't really matter either way. The mandatory (in this case) 30 minute TAT is still there after arrival and the longer TAT after the check is just time that would be wasted anyway - I don't allow it deliberately.  It's easier to calculate - I know to just add 30 minutes to my arrival time rather than having to look at the other flight and subtract 5hrs. I suppose I should allow 45 minutes before the check but I've never really noticed a problem.

Anyway, usually often arrive just before midnight (not in this example, I know) so there's almost no chance of that flight being changed later. With a morning departure at maybe 05:30 I MIGHT want to move it forward 5 or 10 minutes at some point to fit in other flights.  This way I don't have to change the maint. times.

[Continental Sky]

I see... everyone has their own method, of course. 

[schro]

Re  8-10% chance for delay in the turn times, you also need to see things in long term.

I trust Schro correctly estimated it has no significant impact to profits.

But what else I check now is what I want to do with that plane - will it fly until the end of the game, or I will want to replace it with another type down the road.

In first case, you're fine to go with Schro's advice; but in second case, if that replacement plane is considerably slower or has longer default TAT than initial plane, it will not fit in the schedule, and you will have to reschedule them all once again. I did it several times with almost hundred of planes, and I don't want to do it again, so I always leave sufficient TAT.

I mean, you know you'll have to reschedule when you switch from props to jets in epic GWs, because flight time difference is measured in hours, when scheduled 7 days/7 planes, typical prop can cover total distance of ~16,000 nm per week, while jets can get close to 30,000 nm per week. But jets' velocities vary between some 0.70 and 0.86 mach, and it drove me crazy if I had to reschedule because of 5 or 10 minutes missing...

That's more advanced advice, didn't want to confuse him with too much too soon, but that's absolutely a consideration.

Specifically, looking at dc8/707 turn around times and speeds, you really have to set them to 120-135 minutes across the board even though 80 minutes (ish?) Is sufficent to get to the 8-10% chance of delay, as when you move them on to dc-10s, you need the 135 minute turn time to hit 8% chance.

If we are taking props to jets, that's a whole different pain in the rear end, especially in slot constrained situations. You've basically got to hope you have enough slots at the right times (which can include you flying inefficient/odd prop schedules to hold the jet slots you'll need later).

On the when to schedule stuff, I have a fairly lazy play style. For short haul, I'm just not booking landings and takeoffs between 12 and 5 am. Sure, it might be ok enough on props, but on larger jets, it's really not all that great especially when fuel gets unreasonably high. It also makes bulk price management harder. If you have default plus some percent pricing across the board, you will tank those after hours flights (as you really can't price them over default), which means they will fly empty unless you do your global reset, then go bulk change the odd hours flight back. When you have a 1000 plane fleet, it's just not worth it.