I want to finally be able to run an airline with 19 seat aircraft.
Is this ever going to be a reality?
They never will be under the current format.
You can't run a small prop airline out of the carribbean even though you want to.
"biggeer" prop airline might be posiible. I'm doing that now.
I have now said this 101 times.
small and medium props are in this game only to supplement a larger airline.
IMHO, they should do away with them altogether and only have planes that have 70+ seats on them
OR:
actually make them useful.
Quote from: swiftus27 on December 04, 2010, 07:18:07 PM
I have now said this 101 times.
small and medium props are in this game only to supplement a larger airline.
IMHO, they should do away with them altogether and only have planes that have 70+ seats on them
OR:
actually make them useful.
Don't sound like thats gonna happen, I read that V 1.3 will have the Pilatus PC-12 in it......maybe some hope for it being do-able? I would absolutly LOVE to run a commuter airline something 50 seats max.....E-120's and 145's for me :)
Running at least a fleet of turbo prop like ATR42 is possible but, fly them as much as possible and if possible buy them.
Leasing those airplanes cost a lot ??? One more tip, run your airline where taxes and salaries are low.
I used to run an airline with 15 Fokker 50 in modern times 3 and I made good profit, until I decided to lease new airplanes that killed my airline :'(
I was doing OK with F28s and F27s and a few Metros up in the Pacific NW. I had a lot of money so I ordered a bunch of B1900s. Well that was the end of that. I was losing 200k+ a week. Tried everything, fiddled with routes, lowered salaries, raised fares, lowered fares. Nothing doing. My load factor was 80% plus. The huge cost of setting up routes ate my cash and then the expense of route fees and maintenance meant staying profitable was impossible.... When I was 5 million in the whole and hadn't turned a profit in more than a year I pulled the plug.
I've relocated and have a new plan. I've leased in a couple of large airplanes and have them set up on cash cow routes. When I have boats of cash then I'm going to use them to subsidize a small airplane operation.... Maybe the combo can be slightly profitable......
I ran an extremely successful Regional Airline with the bulk of my fleet being ATR 42/72 and Q400's supplemented with 10 Embrear 17/95s. It was doing so well I had bought out 1/4 of my fleet before I accidentally shut the airline down (pressed the wrong button in haste and that was that :'(). However with a regional airline it takes time and you need to fly as frequently on short hop routes as possible to make them successful; I was using the ATR 42 on short routes of around 300NM and they were making around $400k a week the ATR 72 were flying slightly longer routes but still realtively short and most of them were bringing in around $350-400k a week too, the Q400's I was using on routes up to it's max range of 1500NM most were again on shortish routes upto 1000NM and were brining in around $300-500k a week the ones I had utilised at max range still made a profit but it was very low around $80 - 150k.
The game definately needs to be tweaked and a system where at the start you choose what type of airline you are going to be ie Long Haul International or Short Haul Regional, LCC or Full Service etc imlemented and then the game will only allow you to buy aircraft that would be realistically used for the type of airline you are. That way if you are at say Heathrow against Mr Dominator who is running a large International but wants the regional pie too it cant happen as you have chosen your airline type at the beginning so he is stuck with Long Haul and cant get into a regional market. I would imagine if this were to ever be implemented it would take alot of hours of research to ensure that demand is realistic dependant on the type of carrier you are, so I cant imagine it ever being implemented anytime soon if at all - but it would be good if it did happen.
If you look back in the feature request area you will see one idea I had to fix this.
Each airline would select and then research a specialty. Airlines flying LH intl routes would be at a severe disadvantage flying SH prop routes.
Maybe we could just implement somehow like the regionals do in the States say a big airline in aws wants a small fleet the player could be its own airline but fly under the big airlines name....eg. Colgan DBA Continental connection...or united express...or compass under the Delta name....that way the small airline would be getting paid through the big airline as well as making money off routes. Sorry if this makes no sense I wrote it from my phone and I think you will get the idea?
Colgan pays their new pilots 18000 per year. I dont think that Sami modeled the salaries low enough for this game. They have virtually no marketing staff. It is just not the same in this game.
The whole staff pictures is the problem comeon im just started having 2 airbus 320 series and 6 routes. 15 customer service peoples it is just hopless specially if you has smal planes with under 60 seats. 8 people in the route strategi deparments, it has 8 people atm it is more than i have routes it is so hopeless.
I have said it many times on the forum.
If you want to run a "baby airline", staff levels should be based on the amount of seats one can sell rather then how much metal you launch into the air.
A way to implement this is to give the player a "feature" option on start up of their airline:
[ ] Classic Airline: Works as we know it right now
[ ] LCC: Very price sensitive pax with a fourth class of demand willing to pay LCC only. Part of Y class pax is willing to fly LCC, but not all. LCC will not be able to ell Business or First class tickets. Staff is paid less then Classic airline. Marketing costs reduced by 15%. Slot costs at 200%.
[ ] Baby Airline: Staff levels based on seats available, Only small and medium AC allowed with a max of 50 seats per plane. Staff paid as Classic airline, Slot costs after first 12 months 150% of market value. Banned from airports as LHR, AMS, FRA and JFK. Allowed to open up to 6 base airports. and ticket prices generally 50% above RRP allowed.
[ ] Business/private airline: Demand is per business contract. Only small AC's allowed. No airport restrictions, but slots come at a high price.
Quote from: Maarten Otto on December 07, 2010, 09:32:44 AM
I have said it many times on the forum.
If you want to run a "baby airline", staff levels should be based on the amount of seats one can sell rather then how much metal you launch into the air.
A way to implement this is to give the player a "feature" option on start up of their airline:
[ ] Classic Airline: Works as we know it right now
[ ] LCC: Very price sensitive pax with a fourth class of demand willing to pay LCC only. Part of Y class pax is willing to fly LCC, but not all. LCC will not be able to ell Business or First class tickets. Staff is paid less then Classic airline. Marketing costs reduced by 15%. Slot costs at 200%.
[ ] Baby Airline: Staff levels based on seats available, Only small and medium AC allowed with a max of 50 seats per plane. Staff paid as Classic airline, Slot costs after first 12 months 150% of market value. Banned from airports as LHR, AMS, FRA and JFK. Allowed to open up to 6 base airports. and ticket prices generally 50% above RRP allowed.
[ ] Business/private airline: Demand is per business contract. Only small AC's allowed. No airport restrictions, but slots come at a high price.
+1. Only change I'd make is the baby airline should be allowed slightly larger aircraft, maybe up to 100 seats to allow things like the bigger E-Jets, Fokker 70/100s and the BAe 146 sized aircraft.
Quote from: Maarten Otto on December 07, 2010, 09:32:44 AM
Very price sensitive pax with a fourth class of demand willing to pay LCC only. Part of Y class pax is willing to fly LCC, but not all.
You have to remember that LCC also opens up for another new type of passenger, those who wouldn't have flown at all but can now afford to instead of getting ground transport. So in a sense it can create more demand that wasn't there previously and doesn't necessarily compete with all the conventional demand as some will opt for service over price, as you said.
These are all great idea's but to model it as near to RL as possible I guess alot of research needs to be done. Saying that a LCC should pay 200% more for slots than say a classic airline, doesnt quite sound right to me, the same for a 150% slot cost for the baby airline, again if they are flying smaller aircraft why on earth would they pay more than the guy who's flying 747's - I'm sure someone who has worked in the airline industry can verify how slot costs are calculated in RL.
One thing you could include is that for the LCC they are only limited to 2 fleet type choices say 737-3/4/500 or 737/7/8/9OO or A318/19/20/21 or Q400 and E195 which would realistically model the LCC concept as well as a HD seat config only.
Not sure how you could model the baby airline - possibly limiting it to a certain size aircraft say a large aircraft with no more than 100 seats.
The possibilities are endless, and I'm sure there will be plenty more debate on this!
Quote from: ukatlantic on December 07, 2010, 01:20:32 PM
I'm sure someone who has worked in the airline industry can verify how slot costs are calculated in RL.
Most airport fees (landing, hangarage/parking, etc.) are dependant on aircraft MTOW. But they still vary from airport to airport.
Quote from: ukatlantic on December 07, 2010, 01:20:32 PM
One thing you could include is that for the LCC they are only limited to 2 fleet type choices say 737-3/4/500 or 737/7/8/9OO or A318/19/20/21 or Q400 and E195 which would realistically model the LCC concept as well as a HD seat config only.
Just wanted to mention that Air Asia runs both Airbus and Boeing planes. OK OK only 8 Boeing 737-300. They also have both Economy and Business Class. OK both are rubbish compared to a full cost airline but we need to be careful how much you are restricting the LCC. I would guess you could change the way fleet communality work and make it prohibitive to take more than one family of craft. (Hope that last bit makes sense)
I would also be interested to know the pricing of the aircraft for the LCC's as I would guess they buy their planes at rock bottom prices??
Cheers
LostInBKK
Quote from: LostInBKK on December 08, 2010, 05:36:43 AM
Just wanted to mention that Air Asia runs both Airbus and Boeing planes. OK OK only 8 Boeing 737-300. They also have both Economy and Business Class. OK both are rubbish compared to a full cost airline but we need to be careful how much you are restricting the LCC. I would guess you could change the way fleet communality work and make it prohibitive to take more than one family of craft. (Hope that last bit makes sense)
I would also be interested to know the pricing of the aircraft for the LCC's as I would guess they buy their planes at rock bottom prices??
Cheers
LostInBKK
I flew Air Asia Thailand a few years ago, sat on seat 1D and didn't notice any business class. But a pretty new A320 and excellent service.
I believe they only offer "business class" on their long haul (wide body) flights
AirAsia only offer high density economy class on both their B733 and A322 and both are in the max seat configuration - 737 154 seats & 320 180 seats. Malaysia AirAsia and Thailand AirAsia only fly A320, only Indonesia AirAsia fly B737.
Business class only available on AirAsia X flight but these 2 are completely different company.
The whole concept of the Baby airline is to make it financially possible to operate a fleet of Fairchild Metro's and EMB120's, Cessna's and Shorts... A 100 pax aircraft doesn't fit in that strategy. The 100 pax Ac like the E195 would perfectly fit in the LCC strategy though.
Yeah. We should make ourselves clear that LCC is not equals to baby airlines.
LCC = SouthWest Airlines, Ryan Air(Not to be confused with Bryan Air ) ;D Air Asia
Baby = Eurowings sorry can think of any more :-[
Cheers
LostInBKK
Well, I think Eurowings is not a baby airlines.
Maybe MASwings and Firefly? But Firefly will soon become LCC next year.
So what is Eurowings then? Not saying your are wrong just interested what it would be classified as.
Cheers
LostInBKK
For me it will be a regional or low cost carrier. They got a healthy fleet of regional jets carrying at least 50 pax and even A320.
Personally I would expect a baby airlines to fly planes like Twin Otter, 'baby style' in term of company size and fleet size as well. But that is merely my opinion, I got no idea at all what exactly a baby airlines looks like. :P
IMO the airline can be big... but with planes up to a maximum of 50 seats. Fleet commonality will be crucial for the airline to survive. Operating such airline with 75 EMB120's or Fairchilds should be possible... but your not welcome at the world top 10 airports unless you pay a significant fee for the slots to reflect "lost income" for the airport where they could have had a 777.
Quote from: Maarten Otto on December 10, 2010, 10:43:21 AM
IMO the airline can be big... but with planes up to a maximum of 50 seats. Fleet commonality will be crucial for the airline to survive. Operating such airline with 75 EMB120's or Fairchilds should be possible... but your not welcome at the world top 10 airports unless you pay a significant fee for the slots to reflect "lost income" for the airport where they could have had a 777.
Agree. You won't be welcomed at big airports flying routes with >200 pax with your EMB120. Even if you can afford to pay the slots, you'll get shoot for slot hogging...
Maybe an idea for the 'baby airlines would be to 'limit' the number of slots they can have each hour of the day at the major airports like LHR, JFK, HKG etc, thus limiting their expansion at these bases but not putting them at a severe disadavantage due to cost. You could for example limit them to 1 slot every 15 minutes or 4 per hour which over the course of a day if they were to fly 24/7 (which they probably wouldn't) would total 96 per day or 672 slots a week. In addition maybe limiting the number of baby carriers able to set up at the major airports would help too.
As for the LCC maybe a restriction on them is that they cannot operate out of and into the major airports as mentioned above and have to stick to the smaller airports eg London Gatwick, London Stansted, London Luton etc etc. You don't see the like's of Ryan Air & EasyJet flying into Paris CDG or LHR as the costs are higher and they can't negotiate a discount to take their business to these bases whereas if they fly to Glasgow Prestwick as the airport is under utilised to a degree they have room to negotiate somewhat on the price they have to pay for the slots they use.
I would imagine if we ever want ultra realistic LCC and Baby Airlines in this game, then we as players would need to assist SAMI as much as possible with the gathering of accurate statistics on where the LCC operate from and to as well as data on the baby airlines that are 'feeding' pax to the main Int'l airports that can then be used to model pax demand etc for these two concept's.
I guess though it depends on how realistic you want this simulation to be, and if SAMI even has spare capcity to implement any of thee ideas (which would be cool if he could!)
Small planes are usually not allowed to land at major big airports. Aren't they?
Quote from: GDK on December 10, 2010, 05:26:12 PM
Small planes are usually not allowed to land at major big airports. Aren't they?
they wont be sold the slot if the airport wants the slot to be used by a larger aircraft.
Quote from: ukatlantic on December 10, 2010, 02:57:22 PM
Maybe an idea for the 'baby airlines would be to 'limit' the number of slots they can have each hour of the day at the major airports like LHR, JFK, HKG etc, thus limiting their expansion at these bases but not putting them at a severe disadavantage due to cost. You could for example limit them to 1 slot every 15 minutes or 4 per hour which over the course of a day if they were to fly 24/7 (which they probably wouldn't) would total 96 per day or 672 slots a week. In addition maybe limiting the number of baby carriers able to set up at the major airports would help too.
As for the LCC maybe a restriction on them is that they cannot operate out of and into the major airports as mentioned above and have to stick to the smaller airports eg London Gatwick, London Stansted, London Luton etc etc. You don't see the like's of Ryan Air & EasyJet flying into Paris CDG or LHR as the costs are higher and they can't negotiate a discount to take their business to these bases whereas if they fly to Glasgow Prestwick as the airport is under utilised to a degree they have room to negotiate somewhat on the price they have to pay for the slots they use.
I would imagine if we ever want ultra realistic LCC and Baby Airlines in this game, then we as players would need to assist SAMI as much as possible with the gathering of accurate statistics on where the LCC operate from and to as well as data on the baby airlines that are 'feeding' pax to the main Int'l airports that can then be used to model pax demand etc for these two concept's.
I guess though it depends on how realistic you want this simulation to be, and if SAMI even has spare capcity to implement any of thee ideas (which would be cool if he could!)
I don't think LCC or Baby Airlines should be limited with where they can fly. I also don't think they should pay more than other airlines for slots at larger airports.
BUT they should certainly be limited to where they can be based. I also think they should be very limited in the choice of aircraft. Ryan Air are never going to buy Concorde no matter how much money they have.
if we can all agree what is a Baby Airline then I am happy to do some research as to how they operate.
Cheers
LostInBKK
Just a thought from the other perspective - as a new player I actually like the variety and options open to me, I have started out as a ~50pax Turboprop Regional, but my next move is going to be some ~20pax to pick up the chaff, and then I really hope to buy a couple of 'proper airliners' and do some LH, partly for the fun, partly as there are not too many other viable options for a late starting player! :)
One possible vote of support though - I would not be adverse to limiting Small a/c to airports of size 4 or less, and Medium a/c to airports of size 5 or less (although I think Size 5 is the max?) That seems reasonable to me to stop the H'row slots issues a bit, but I wouldn't want to see the bar any lower, or Small a/c become utterly useless to most players...
I'd say baby airline could be any airline operating aircraft under 100 seats. Reason being that airliners such as the ERJ's, CRJ's and Fokker jets can be used along with Avros/BAe's which are all under the 'feederliner' brand of aircraft. Maybe the restriction could be that 'baby airlines' are not able to purchase aircraft in the large category or above? that rules out all the mainline jets like the 737 and A320 anyway and uses a system that is already in the game.
Are we any closer in coming up with a Real Life example of a baby airline?
Cheers
LostInBKK
It's not about real life examples as this game is not meant to be a copy of the real world.... This is all about making it financially possible to run an airline with small aircraft like a Cessna, Fairchild or EMB120 because with the current system overhead will kill you.
We don't need 3*required amount of crew to run a small aircraft. Yes, we might need it if you fly big aircraft, but not small aircraft like Fairchild.
We don't need 2 customer service worker per routes if you fly short distance routes to nearby cities.
We don't need 1 planner to take care of 1 routes, we are not flying long haul...
First of all I don't think you should have to choose which airline you should base yourself on at the beginning of the game. If you want to run a LCC then run your airline as such by the decisions you make. You use a cheaper pricing strategy so to get the most money you must get maximum fleet utilization, have quick (30 min) turnarounds, have low fleet commonality costs, use high density seating, save money on airport costs, have lower staff costs (less staff per passenger).
I just don't think airlines should just be limited to LCC or legacy by being typecasted (because you ticked a box when you founded your airline, you should evolve your business strategy as your airline evolves) as most airlines these days use a hybrid of the two. For example Aer Lingus adopted a LCC pricing strategy with the short haul routes similar to Ryanair's to bail itself out of its recent financial trouble. Another example is that although flyBE is a low cost carrier it does offer premium services like choosing your seat or premium classes.
Things to consider with LCCs:
1) City based demand will greatly help LCCs because they can access the big cities via the lower cost airports (Frankfurt Hahn instead of Frankfurt Main, Stockholm Skvasta instead of Arlanda, Chicago Midway instead of O'Hare, etc, etc).
2) 30 minute turnarounds need to be feasible on 737 sized jets. This is possible using higher and more motivated/overworked staff.
3) LCCs would need to be allowed more based, even with the minimum aircraft based there, either that or ABCBA routes or even ABCDCBA routes where it flies the rounds and returns to the base at the end of the flying day.
4) LCCs do not necessarily compete with other standard airlines for passengers, because their low prices open up a new market sector of the people who previously couldn't afford to fly and now can, so they are drawing pax from the new market as much as existing ones (demonstrated in the picture below, don't start yapping about copyright... I have the right to use it).
[attachment expired]
Quote from: alexgv1 on December 12, 2010, 02:35:48 PM
First of all I don't think you should have to choose which airline you should base yourself on at the beginning of the game. If you want to run a LCC then run your airline as such by the decisions you make. You use a cheaper pricing strategy so to get the most money you must get maximum fleet utilization, have quick (30 min) turnarounds, have low fleet commonality costs, use high density seating, save money on airport costs, have lower staff costs (less staff per passenger).
What we concern about is the current system does not support these kind of miracle. You can simply say it 'run your airline by the decision you made' but the system don't create new demand when you drop your ticket price. The system don't allow you to run in good condition without 'required amount' of staff. The system never allow the aircraft to go on air like you wish when your turnaround is lower than the suggested time (even with the minimum suggested time you'll still get 30% flight cancelled). That is what exactly this thread is about, we are requesting the system to be edited to allow the miracles.
Quote from: GDK on December 12, 2010, 03:43:02 PM
What we concern about is the current system does not support these kind of miracle. You can simply say it 'run your airline by the decision you made' but the system don't create new demand when you drop your ticket price. The system don't allow you to run in good condition without 'required amount' of staff. The system never allow the aircraft to go on air like you wish when your turnaround is lower than the suggested time (even with the minimum suggested time you'll still get 30% flight cancelled). That is what exactly this thread is about, we are requesting the system to be edited to allow the miracles.
Yes that's exactly what this thread has developed into because at the moment LCCs and regionals are never going to be possible in the current system so the only way to implement them is in future builds of the game engine. For example, as I said above, when city based demand is incorporated then it is one step to allowing LCCs to be feesible. I imagine there will be changes to the pricing, scheduling and staffing systems in the future and these can be changed with these types of airlines in mind. I know well that they will not be possible as the game stands currently. These are my ideas of the directions I believe the developments should take to make things possible.
If there is no real life example of a baby airline?? Why should there be one in the game? The LLC option is very interesting if you ask me and would give us another way to play the game. Although I don't know how much notice is take at the moment to the current seating in the game. I have just been fly high density as I so no extra passengers choosing my airline if I had better seats.
Cheers
LostInBKK
PS Of course if someone can name a baby airline what I have written is complete rubbish ::)
well for a baby airline, there are some here in Aus like Sharpe Airlines; http://sharpairlines.com// and Airlines of Australia; http://www.airtasmania.com.au/ that only fly small aircraft and their business operates scheduled commercial flights among others from secondary airports (In this case Melbourne Essendon).
Quote from: LostInBKK on December 12, 2010, 07:38:59 AM
Are we any closer in coming up with a Real Life example of a baby airline?
Cheers
LostInBKK
Eastern Airways in the UK
Loganair in the UK
SeaPort Airlines (9x PC-12 fleet)
and numerous examples in Alaska.
However, and this is a big one....at least in the US...these 'baby airlines' are almost all flying under
the Essential Air Service program; essentially they are subsidized airlines....without that subsidy, they
could not exist.
So, in a manner of speaking--and only in the US where I have knowledge--you are not incorrect per se.
Quote from: LostInBKK on December 12, 2010, 07:38:59 AM
Are we any closer in coming up with a Real Life example of a baby airline?
Cheers
LostInBKK
http://www.air2there.com/
I think the only tweak needed to make "baby airlines" realitic is fix the crew size and pay. I know I sound like a broken record but I out of sheer curiousity an running 7 EMB-120's and they are making profits but do I really need this much people:
Staff group Number of staff (current / required) Total salary expenses / month Morale
Airline CEO 1 / 1 (100%) 0 USD -
High level management 7 / 7 (100%) 114 984 USD 94
Middle level management 12 / 12 (100%) 150 642 USD 98
Economics and finance 22 / 22 (100%) 102 832 USD 100
Corporate communications 14 / 14 (100%) 62 634 USD 100
Human resources 13 / 13 (100%) 44 271 USD 93
Quality department 7 / 7 (100%) 25 240 USD 87
Safety and security 6 / 6 (100%) 22 837 USD 86
Customer services 84 / 84 (100%) 218 751 USD 100
Flight operations division 38 / 38 (100%) 177 618 USD 100
Technical services and maintenance 43 / 43 (100%) 172 276 USD 100
Ground handling 55 / 55 (100%) 110 177 USD 100
Route strategies department 42 / 42 (100%) 143 029 USD 100
Pilots (small a/c) 41 / 41 (100%) 156 050 USD 100
Pilots (medium a/c) 0 / 0 (100%) 0 USD 0
Pilots (large a/c) 0 / 0 (100%) 0 USD 0
Pilots (very large a/c) 0 / 0 (100%) 0 USD 0
Cabin crew 21 / 21 (100%) 65 906 USD 100
Total: 406 / 406 (100%) 1 567 247 USD / month
It would be fine if all you did was fix these #'s....
it looks like all staff groups besides the flight attendants and pilots could be halved.
PLEASE READ THIS THREAD:
https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,27374.0.html
to be honest.
this is the general forum. so. it is not about a specific game world.
in this case you are just talking scrap swiftus.
it is possible to build an airline with 15pax-30pax capacity in jet age.
(dont say no swiftus because i started like that and have built up an airline in the current jetage with
more than 1,000 a/c in total)
it depends in which game world players with that idea want to play.
you cannot make any general statement about the small a/c airlines in the general forum !
Quote from: THI on March 03, 2011, 05:54:25 PM
to be honest.
this is the general forum. so. it is not about a specific game world.
in this case you are just talking scrap swiftus.
it is possible to build an airline with 15pax-30pax capacity in jet age.
(dont say no swiftus because i started like that and have built up an airline in the current jetage with
more than 1,000 a/c in total)
it depends in which game world players with that idea want to play.
you cannot make any general statement about the small a/c airlines in the general forum !
You clearly didnt read that thread. I created a small airline in a game solely to test the viability of small airlines using small a/c. Of course I had to do it in a game world. So, that's why I posted the thread in that sub-forum. Also, this game was during the Dawn of the Millenium when there was tremendous demand and gas was relatively cheap.
No I am not talking "scrap" "crap" or anything of the like. Small airlines are simply non-competitive and can only be successful when MANY other factors take place as well.
I have said this before and I will say again. Small a/c are only good as a supplement and not viable on their own as a fleet choice.
If you take the time to read some of my feature requests, I did discuss how I'd love to see something along the lines of "tech trees" so that one may actually be able to excel in this arena. Until then, consider me a lover of anything from a Dash-8 on up.... as long as it isn't Soviet ;)