How do people get such good starts?

[xx420mcyoloswag]

Started in the modern times world. Granted, I am fairly new and I get that I am not perfect. Currently have around 10 planes. The top players already have 50. I don't understand how they do that. I feel like I am playing pretty well..keeping costs low..high aircraft utlilization. I expect to be beaten given I am fairly new but I did'nt expect to get 5x on fleet size. (The planes that the top players have are not super small planes they are comparable to the planes I operate (737's) Anyone have any insight into how these players amass such a fleet so early?

[groundbum2]

start at a big and juicy airport helps...

[knobbygb]

...and for the first week or so, be prepared to wake up in the middle of the night to order aircraft.  No, I'm not joking 

Don't worry, you can catch up somewhat as the initial money dries up, slots get super expensive and desirable aircraft are all snapped up.  It's a VERY fine balance between speculating just enough to have cashflow but never quite running out of money.

[groundbum2]

although top airlines last quarter made 170mill profit vs my 30M or so stuck at a regional airport...

[NovemberCharlie]

One hole I've fallen for more times than I care to admit is immediately scheduling aircraft after you order them.
Staff is immediately hired and you have to pay for them whilst your aircraft won't be delivered for another two weeks..
Scheduling them on the day they arrive, especially if you have <10 aircraft will help a lot (and yes that is also the deal in the middle of the night).

And as knobbygb said:

It's a VERY fine balance between speculating just enough to have cashflow but never quite running out of money.

Try to make sure your orders/deliveries/slot costs are balanced.
If you order too fast and don't have money for slots your aircraft will be useless.
Order too slow and you will fall behind on expanding rapidly...

[schro]

Fly once daily to short high demand routes, repeat for profit...

[tungstennedge]

The best way to make a large profit early is to fly routes with demand greater than the supply. The larger the ratio between the demand and supply, the better the profit early on will be. For example, a route with 200/3000 demand will immediately have a good load better load factor than a route with 200/600. With higher load factors, players can immediately raise prices, sometimes as high as +80% for some ridiculous profit margins, I remember having something like 65% margin when playing out of LHR. Players with strong early starts almost universally start in airport with very large routes like this, its not really skilled or anything like that. One little secret is if you fly the same route multiple times, it may be a good idea to invest in route image marketing, specifically when doing long haul. Hope this helps.