AirwaySim

Hey out there in Airwaysim Land. PM "Midnight" Blum here.. chairman of WIND Airlines (twice bankrupt) and now The Shrine Temple Airlines (all Game One) and the rebirth of WIND Airlines (Game Two).

I am here to give some of my hard learned wisdom to anyone who might be wondering about what is going on in the great game and how to avoid some possible pitfalls.

As you can see, I have filed bankrupt not once but twice! Why? Do you ask? Simply because of too rapid expansion. I want to stress to you, the player reading this "guide" these three important words you should put in your Airwaysim vocabulary: Patience, Patience, Patience. Did you get that? Let me say it again- PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE! It doesn't matter if you have started your base in the most populous city on earth with the most passengers coming to the airport or whether you have chose a smaller, more out of the way city...
ALL loads will be small and not up to your lofty expectations. It could be MONTHS (game time) before you see your profits begin to finally outweigh your costs. Prepare for this and take things slow at first. You will incur a lot of losses at first. Don't panic. Have Patience.

Secondly, take your time in planning your routes! This is perhaps the most important in game decision you will make. Passengers are your life blood. Whether you have an aircraft that hold 150 people or one that holds 15.. you need to move these people to the new destinations.. as MANY of them as you can.
As I mentioned, your load factors will probably not be the highest, that takes time as I mentioned already, but you will have to put up with these loads numbers for a while. Yes, even if you've lowered your prices significantly, the load factors don't seem to alter all that much. I know, I have tried to have a low priced airline each time.. in fact, I am dedicated to running a low priced carrier.. it really takes dedication and the knowing your profit margins are going to suffer in the short term.
So where to go? As you plan your route, look at the numbers closely. If Monday and Friday have significant number of potential fliers, then obviously have your plane(s) fly in on those days.. maybe more than once or twice.. the numbers will give you an idea of how many times you might need to visit that airport (or airports) with your fleet.

Here are the facts-

Large cities usually have large or at least significant airports; therefore, passenger numbers should be greater there. Just remember, you won't be the ONLY one flying into these airports so the passenger numbers will inevitably be diluted over time as more airlines fly their planes into those large cities.
Large Cities- Pros: Large number of potential passengers. Cons: Large number of OTHER airlines competing over that airport.

Medium cities usually have significant or moderate sized airports; therefore, passengers numbers probably will not be as high as the larger cities but still should be enough to keep your air fleet busy. It may be good to look into these cities as alternate money sources if you don't want to fight it out with a ton of other companies vying for those airports.  Medium Cities- Pros: Probably fair to good passenger numbers, possibly not as many companies competing for these airports. Cons: Lesser passenger numbers means less revenue.

Small cities. So, no love for small airports? Well the argument is that the small numbers of potential passengers cannot justify the cost of flying to these airports.. well.. IF you do decide to send a plane or two to smaller airports, you probably will be the only show in town. No competition. Logically, you would think that people in the smaller cities would be more loyal to a company willing to come to their airport.. in real life, loyalty by the customers does factor into things.. in game.. well, I'm not so sure, but regardless of that, there are people in these cities wanting to go places. So there is money to be made there.. albeit, not a lot of overall revenue.
So what to do? Fly to a small city, pick up some people and fly back to your base city or stop over in a small city on your way to a larger one? Tough to answer that one. I am committed to flying at least a plane or two into smaller airports... we'll see if that strategy helps or hinders my companies, but I figure that if I can at least break even in with the small airports (eventually) my company won't be harmed in pursuing that strategy.
Small cities: Pros: probably no competition. Cons: small potential passenger pools, airports that aren't open 24 hours a day.

Airplanes:

Well the trickiest part of the game is the planes themselves. Buy or lease. With 4 million dollars to start.. you won't find a lot of planes you can purchase right off. The ones you can purchase are either older than dirt or just slightly larger than a breadbasket. Buying of course means no lease agreements and so no more money coming out of the bank every month. Of course, you wont have a lot left of your money for other things, and those monthly salaries have to paid no matter if you lease or buy. You will have to decide which way is best for you. I have tried both ways now and have yet to form an opinion about either decision. When game 1 is done, I will be able to better answer this question.

No matter what: Make sure that your C & D checks are a LONG way off. They can break your bank and bankrupt your company. Never get a plane that has C & D checks coming soon! Also, don't get a plane that holds 200 people if a smaller plane, cheaper plane will do as near a good job. Only get that 200 carrier plane if you are ABSOLUTELY sure you can get at least 65% of it full each time it flies! Otherwise, fuel costs and turn around costs and maintenance costs will eat up any potential profit you might earn.

Finally- Have fun with the game. We all want to have the best airlines around. We all want to see our airlines in the top five airline companies.. its just natural.. but don't let that desire to be the best the fastest be your guide in this game. Have patience and have fun with it.. remember.. its just a game.

So Mote It Be.

I would like to add my observation as well.

Marketing

Marketing is your bread and butter. Either company image or route image, you will need marketing to increase your LF thus increase profit. Put a lot of effort in marketing your company or routes for the first few months and then maybe scale back a little but do not eliminate marketing.

Maintenance

After you purchase your aircraft make sure your maintenance are schedule to ensure your aircraft are kept up in condition and not to get ding during ramp check. If your aircrafts are not up to date on their maintenance it will hurt your company image real bad no matter how hardcore your marketing is. Like who would want to fly with a company with unsafe airplanes right?  ;)

Great advise guys. Can I also add:

Pricing
At first, dont try to run your pricing at default rates, using the Price Management feature to reduce pricing by percentages, it makes life so much easier. I started all my route pricing with between 15% and 20% discounts. It really helps to improve your load factors. And if/when you decide to increase your prices, monitor your LF for the following few days to see the impact. You'll soon see if you're customers are happy with the price increases or not.

(admin note: when your company and route images raise after 6-8 months after opening the route, remember to raise the prices as the customers know you already by then and you can raise the prices by then to maximize the profits)



Maintenance
My first aircraft had only 69% condition. And at least once or twice a week I suffered from cancelled flights due to technical problems. I finally bit the bullet and decided that losing a days income to perform an early B check would be better in the long run. And it was, my a/c condition jumped to 83%, no more (frequent) cancellations. Note: this may not be a dead cert for everyone, but it worked for me, and is something to think about.

Yes Add AWAY your thoughts and observations here!! I appreciate this input.. newcomers especially need to know how to be successful in the game... the best way of course is to see how we did it (or what not to do in my cases.. at least the first two bankruptcies)

I wanted to add that when it comes to Scheduling the more places you fly, the potentially more amount of customers you may have flying your airlines. SO, if that plane of yours still has a few hours in the day open on its schedule... maybe a short jaunt to another airport just might be something to think about.. plan accordingly of course.. but having more passengers is usually a good thing.

I have noticed that there are certain popular times of the day people like flying.  Your load factors will be somewhat higher than at other times.  You can let it ride (enjoying higher load factors) or slightly increase your rates for that flight.  You'll have to play with the price to find the best profit (price vs. load). 

On the flip side of the coin, there are some times of the day that are not so popular for people to fly.  You may need to slightly decrease your rates for these (late night/early morning) flights.

Quote from: JJP on January 15, 2009, 12:54:38 AM
I have noticed that there are certain popular times of the day people like flying.  Your load factors will be somewhat higher than at other times.  You can let it ride (enjoying higher load factors) or slightly increase your rates for that flight.  You'll have to play with the price to find the best profit (price vs. load). 

On the flip side of the coin, there are some times of the day that are not so popular for people to fly.  You may need to slightly decrease your rates for these (late night/early morning) flights.

Well there's Red Eye flights in real life... I guess there should be in Airwaysim too  ;D

My addition:

Patience is KEY!  Things in this game evolve over days and weeks of real time.  DON'T expect huge results after an hour of game time. 

And if you do fail.. try again.. after all, you get three chances (three bankruptcies).. don't be afraid to use them.. of course, there are us (meaning me) who has used up ALL my bankruptcies but hey.. Im still a game newbie hehe.. no worries.. Ill be patient and wait for game 3.

ALSO! dont ever be afraid to ask Sami, Talentz or any of the number of the guys who playtested the game in the first place.. I have so much thanks to Sami and Talentz who really helped me learn what I was doing wrong as a CEO.. I will be able to put their knowledge and advice to work in the next game.. Im excited! so again I say, dont hesitate to ask the experts here, they are great people ready to help.

I know it's very tempting to start from a very popular hub, but you can make good profit even from hubs that don't seem so popular (50% - 60%).  If you don't want to be hammered with competition, choose a hub that isn't at the top of the list (80% - 100%).  Find routes that have mediocre demand (250 - 700 demand per day) that no one else is flying. 

In order to enjoy good load factors, do not overload the route with capacity.  If the route only has a demand of 300 seats per day, make only one flight per day (depending on the aircraft you choose).  Use that airplane to fly a couple of different route with around the same amount of demand.  If you provide only ~half the capacity of the demand for a route, your load factors will be much better than if you provide 100%+ of the route demand.

What type of aircraft?  Make sure you choose aircraft with at least 100 seats.  Aircraft with fewer seats may be tempting (cheaper leases, maintenance, less crew, fuel, etc.), but these aircraft will not provide the necessary profit for your airline.  The airplane's direct costs will be more than covered (and the aircraft will show a profit), but the plane will not be able to generate enough revenue to cover your airline's overhead (salaries, marketing, etc.). 

When choosing aircraft, be sure to scrutinize all the numbers.  Not all used aircraft are created equal (even the same exact type of aircraft).  Be sure to view how much your A, B, and C checks are going to cost.  Used aircraft have HUGE differences in maintenance costs depending on type, age, hours flown, and number of landings. 

Be patient when leasing aircraft.  Have an idea of what you think is a good bargain (based on cost, age, etc.) and stick with it.  Your airline will do much better in the long run if you are using good, decent aircraft instead of anything that comes along.  Also, look into changing the config on aircraft to get some business seats (C class) thrown in.  Yeah, it costs a little more to reconfig, but you can make bank with those C-class (charging up to 3 times as much as coach!).  Make sure the routes you're going to fly have business demand, however!

Hope this helps! 

While most of JJP's advice is excellent, I will beg to differ on the viability of small planes (below 100 seats). In my recent foray into Game 2 - Welcome to Airwaysim, I got my start with 37 seat DHC-8-100's. They had a few key advantages, it seems:
*able to fly to airports my competitors simply can't get a 737 or an MD-80 into.
*able to exploit thinner routes.
*much easier to fill in general under the current model. On empty routes where there were demand for 200 or so pax, these planes pulled near-full LF's right off the mark.
*short turnaround times = lots of flights.
*better availability of aircraft = faster growth.

I started with just one of these. Then two. Then four. Then a couple of batches of DHC-8-300's with even better returns. Soon I had a fully functional regional airline. Jets came later, in the form of the Avro RJ-series (including many RJ-85's, which are also profiting nicely).

In earlier eras, sub-100 seat planes were pretty much essential. In the 1960's the Viscount makes a great regional workhorse, just as it did in the real world. HS748's made very effective replacements as they matured.

If you ARE going to try this approach, you want to do so somewhere with a large number of potential destinations within ~400 NM, particularly in the small-medium range - jackpot if you have a number of airports nearby with shorter runways. Stick to a single fleet-group of aircraft until you have at least a dozen planes. Have a look at the max seating numbers of your planes - if there's a significant difference between it and default, it's probably worth doing a custom high-density refit since you'll be doing a lot of short flights (BAe 146's and Avro RJ's particularly benefit from this). Note that short runs often will not have much by way of C-class pax, but then 50 pax turboprops can only carry a single class of pax anyways.

On the subject of jets vs props, preferences vary rather widely. I am told that there is a subtle 'prop aversion' factor modeled into the background (at least for some aircraft), but of course props come with great fuel efficiency. On longer runs, jets will get you further, faster. On short runs, they lose this edge rapidly. The emergence of faster turboprops like the Dash 8 Q400, the Saab 2000 and the Dornier 328 will particularly erode the regional jet's attractiveness for shorter runs. Jets, on the other hand, will give you longer legs, and odds are that EVENTUALLY you'll want to stretch beyond your regional roots.

I have bombed with this strategy before, BTW. It was on the Beta Europe Challenge as Lutefisk Airways. I tried starting up with a number of 80 pax BAC 1-11 400's, if I recall correctly, which weren't exactly up to the higher fuel prices of the times. They also reinforced the importance of keeping a close eye on the maintenance costs when selecting an aircraft. I was also running these things at the edge of their range (meaning fewer flights per day), and the costs steadily caught up to the revenue they could pull. There have, however, been refinements to the demand models since this occurred, and I suspect that I would have an easier time filling those planes this time around.

Hi Mahon,

I really appreciate your perspective and experience on this point.  I'm curious. I had near 100% load factors on my 50 passenger planes, but the profit simply could not cover my fixed costs.  How did you accomplish this?  Each of my aircraft (brand new Dash 8's, by the way, that I was lucky to nab) were making good profit individually, but overall my airline suffered a defecit.  Interesting . . .

That's the funny thing. I'm not under the impression that I did anything special beyond getting the planes, utilizing them heavily (4+ flight legs per day), starting out fairly modest with the advertising, and not jumping straight into hyper-competitive territory. I would certainly be glad to discuss matters further via PM while we figure out the key differences though.

One the best ways to ensure your aircraft is making $$$ asap is to work the thing...just as the airlines do in real life.

An aircraft sitting on the ground is a waste of $$$.

Schedule the aircraft to work from 6am - 5am the next day (with the red eye not available 1 day a week for the 'A' check).

It doesn't matter what your aircraft costs to run a month, if it is sitting on the ground, it is losing. Even if you schedule a red-eye flight and it only makes $2000-, making $$$ is better than the aircraft sitting on the ground costing.

Quote from: zoohead on February 08, 2009, 06:36:08 AM
One the best ways to ensure your aircraft is making $$$ asap is to work the thing...just as the airlines do in real life.

An aircraft sitting on the ground is a waste of $$$.

Schedule the aircraft to work from 6am - 5am the next day (with the red eye not available 1 day a week for the 'A' check).

It doesn't matter what your aircraft costs to run a month, if it is sitting on the ground, it is losing. Even if you schedule a red-eye flight and it only makes $2000-, making $$$ is better than the aircraft sitting on the ground costing.

This is great advice.  One thing I have noticed, though, is scheduling too many flights very close together will cause delays due to "too short turn-around times."  That's not too big a deal if you've already established your route image, but if you're just starting off, it could kill your chances. Schedule the red-eyes, but be sure to put some breathing room between flights.   8)

Best thing about the Red Eye flights is, most of the bigger airports are open 24 hours.. this means you could be flying into those big cities, big airports when competition might be a bit less as well as a good chance of having decent pax. A wise air company can utilize this strategy to their advantage ESPECIALLY if your prices are significantly lower than other airlines coming into said airport.

Red Eyes?!?!?!...is there a glossary around so i can have a look!??!

Quote from: carloscarlos on March 07, 2009, 02:01:55 PM
Red Eyes?!?!?!...is there a glossary around so i can have a look!??!

Not really, but there are things such as Google and Wikipedia that you are allowed to use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eye_flight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eye_flight)

Great stuff all.. keep it up!!!

What I've learned from operating as ZJA
is that a premium product is the key to success.
Also location along with your premium product
will make the door for your key. The plane I would
reccomend would be the F70/100. Because of its fuslage
and fuel economy it is perfect for a (F/J) cabin. The base you should probably
choose if you go down this path than you should base yourself in
Europe due to a high demand for (F/J) class cabin. If you operate the F70
in a (8F/32J) cabin on average per day you will make $86,000 USD.

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Even better, 5/15/132 on a 737-400 or just 150/5  ;)

Quote from: zoohead on February 08, 2009, 06:36:08 AM
One the best ways to ensure your aircraft is making $$$ asap is to work the thing...just as the airlines do in real life.

An aircraft sitting on the ground is a waste of $$$.

Schedule the aircraft to work from 6am - 5am the next day (with the red eye not available 1 day a week for the 'A' check).

It doesn't matter what your aircraft costs to run a month, if it is sitting on the ground, it is losing. Even if you schedule a red-eye flight and it only makes $2000-, making $$$ is better than the aircraft sitting on the ground costing.

As a newbie to AirwaySim(a little over 2 weeks now) I found that this advice is so true. To me in real life leaving an airport at 2 am isn't very good but my CRJ100's make at least $2,000 a flight doing this. That is better than nothing at all. Daytime flights usually average $9500-10,000.

I'm a newbie myself, started around the same time as DSimm626 in fact, and I am operating out of a smaller regional airport (KTRI/TRI) as Astral Sea Airlines. I'm finding LOTS of trouble making a profit with my 50-seaters (Dash-8-200/300's), but making bank with my MD-81 despite its age.
The one thing I have found to be advantageous in flying out of a regional is, with the airport closed late at night, I can schedule my A checks without any route conflicts. I set the checks for 00:00-0500 and the planes depart between 0530-0600 for their first leg. B and C checks, obviously, are still going to create issues because they take a plane out of service for at least a whole day, but at least the weekly maintenance doesn't mess me up.
(I have also found the truth in what an earlier post mentioned about having many destinations very close: I was frankly amazed at how many airports of various sizes, including more than one major one, were within 300-400 nm of TRI. I guess it's very strategically located after all, even if it is horribly under-utilized in the real world.)
I do have one n00b question though. Where do we report errors in airport info? The data is really amazingly accurate, but I noticed the closing time for KTRI is an hour earlier ingame than in real life (which occasionally messes with scheduling late-evening flights...). Is there a specific thread or do I need to PM an Admin or...?

I don't know the range for your MD-81 but since your airport is closed at a certain time at night have you looked into a red eye out west? It could be flying out west and back while your airport is closed.

On your 50 seaters try making a route to say ATL(or other large airport) then another regional airport and back to ATL to TRI. Bad thing is you'll be competing with me on alot of those routes because I have a lot of CRJ100's and F70's going from ATL to regional airports. I could be bribed to leave a route so you can try and learn how to do it before Game 1 ends in a week. Let me know if you want to try it and I'll suggest a good route for you.
David

I don't think the MD81 can make a trip quite that long unless maybe a multi-leg with a refuel somewhere around Reno but that is a great idea, thanks... I've already restarted the final time since I last posted and nixed the Dash-8's in favor of ERJ-145's that can make more trips per day. They're making some profit but I'm still losing tons of money each day.
I may try the multi-leg like you suggested, the game ends really soon but at this point it still may have a chance at digging me out of the hole some. Unfortunately I'm too far in the red to offer a decent bribe, so I'll just have to bear the competition and pray it works LOL. I'll try to give you a much better run for your money next game, when I can actually get in from the start :D.

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I would like to add my wisdom also.

Airports

Heres the lowdown on airports. The bigger the airport, the more passangers/ business that you will have. But, you will have a huge amount of competiotion. Not just from carriers that are also based at you airport, but from carriers flying into your city.

I've always stayed away from airports like London-Heathrow, Amsterdam, Atlanta, etc. The airports that I have based at are as follows:

Beta 1 (1997-2008ish):

Tokyo- Haneda: I had Shorts 330s that made no money. I was stupid in not choosing Narita, because I wanted to operate International flights.

Phoenix: After BKing in Tokyo, I moved my operations to here. I had a 767 operationg LH to London via Newark. Lost money. BK again.

Phoenix (again): After my first try here, I leased a TU-154M and did domestic routes. I dont remember how far I got, but I had a good airline. Then the Russian built aircraft struck back.

Geneva -Conitrin: Based here for a little bit. Had good success, then got bord with airline. Bk again.

London City: DING DING DING! A winner for me! I based here around 2002 or so, when airlines started to go BK. Got some Dash-8-400Qs cheap, later operated ERJ-190s from airlines that went BK.

So, I learned a lot from that game.

Beta 2 (1967-1977):

I disliked this beta alot. There was much less demand then before.

Geneva -Conitrin: Had a great airline here, dismantled it after there was no new demand.

Oslo - Gardenmoren: (Yes, we know that this airport didnt open until the 1990s. We had people based in Narita and Osaka too =p) After a carrier (who tried to operate EVERY SINGLE type of plane avaliable) went BK, I moved in. It was ok. Not spectacular. BKed airline once the Quick Beta opened.

Quick Beta (1992-1995):

Zurich: Made a huge airline here. Sadly, game cut it short.

Welcome to AirwaySim #1:

Honululu: Based here for a a little bit. Dassaults and L-1011s killed me. Bked, made new airline witht MD-80s. Bked after competition became too much.

Ft. Lauderdale: Went here. Made a great airline! ACCIDENTALLY Bked it. Whoops...

Welcome to AirwaySim #3:

London City: Based here for whole game. Bked before game end.

Hi:

Im new.  I am a long time player of Airlinesimulation (since 2003). Does length of haul make a difference? Are longer flights more of less profitable on average?

Thanks

I'd say that having 1 long route flown once a day is better than having 2 daily routes. Especially, if the route is long enough so that the 1st leg (from A to B) lasts over night, and the leg back (B to A) is flown in daylight. This way, you maximize the time your aircraft is in the air, thus giving you more money, since when the airplane is on ground, all it does is loses money (service, parking fees (ok, not used here) etc.). So I usually like to start with as big an aircraft as possible (777, MD-11 or so) and put it on a route that leaves like 9pm and arrives at the destination at 7am, and then flies back home from 9-11 am (depending on the turn around time) until 3pm, and then has A check from 4 to 9pm on one day. This way, the plane spends only some 5 hours/day on the ground, and flies 19h.

The times in the example are just made from my head, but you get the idea of having a night flight, and the airplane in the air as much as possible.

Of course, you can make profit on shorter routes, too, and sometimes even more, but sometimes less. It totally depends on the routes and aircraft. So there really is no exact rule as which is better, long or short haul. Short haul is good especially in Japan, where you can have more than 1 daily flight with a 747 in a route less than 600nm.

I am running two airlines, one completely short haul and one almost all short haul and it is possible to make quite decent profits. You need to choose you aircraft carefully and fit in as many flights in a day as possible. I dont operate any flights between midnight and 6am (as in Europe short haul pretty much comes to a halt overnight and I like to be realistic) and I try to fit in at least 6 sectors and preferably 8. This generally brings in far more revenue than doing two 4 longer sectors.

There are lots of secondary airports in Europe (not just the obvious LHR, AMS, FRA etc) that can support a pretty good short haul airline! It's challenging but I enjoy it :)

You need to have the right planes on the right routes. I was based in Stuttgart and was running out of close routes and had many CRJ's. I put them on flights to Turkey and northern Africa, making my a/c's only go on two routes a day. They were barely making profits.

Quote from: RisteMakedonski on April 17, 2009, 01:52:47 PM
You need to have the right planes on the right routes. I was based in Stuttgart and was running out of close routes and had many CRJ's. I put them on flights to Turkey and northern Africa, making my a/c's only go on two routes a day. They were barely making profits.

Yeah I agree 100%. If you have something like the BAe146-300 or Fokker100 in your fleet you can send these a little further and still do well (Eg. I have a 146-300 doing FCO-MAN-MXP and back and it makes around $60,000) but the 50 seat range aircraft really need to be doing 4 returns on short routes to get the best out of them. Short haul is definately a challenge, but I think thats why I like it.

Planning is the key. I have an example what you should not do. My airline expanded pretty well, even so much that I decided to get some MD11's. Leased one then another, so that finally I had about 10. All went well and I found some decent long-haul routes, for which I had to fly to another hub first, because my home town had zero overseas demand. But worse times were coming, while all the big companies had orders for bigger planes. When those appeared on routes, my load factors started to lower, whatever I did. At some poin C-checks made me loan money and the tailspin had started. Too late I understood that getting rid of those big planes would be the only chance. The trouble was I had long-time leases.

So my lesson learned after the bankrupty is - plan the lease times carefully.

I am not sure if this is built into the game or not, but when I started my airline (for the third time) I tried to keep my one plane to the same two or three airports until I made enough money to expand. I think this affects staffing and may be cheaper for you to focus on one route a few times a day that has a large demand, rather than run your plane to seven different cities and have to pay for staffing at all airports. This helped me get my airline going in the early stages, especially because I started half way though the game when fuel prices and competition was tough.

One thing which works for me is: NEVER take a loan until you making very good profit. Taking loan to lease new aircraft at the start (sometimes in first game day) ruined me many times. Wait with leasing new aircrafts until you get money for that by flying. This really helped me :)

I am still the Bankrupt king around here (11 times now) so I am still learning and still trying.. not in a game currently (Ill wait 'til the next round of games) but there will be success at some point... or me just having as much fun as I can before I go belly up haha.. if it wasn't so funny and stupid I'd be in a bad mood, but what the heck.. its only a game.. a great one at that.. I'll get there someday.

well, you have to spend money to make money, and the games dont give you much money to spend at the start... i'm currently playing three different games, and have borrowed a lot of money in all of them... i suppose it may bite me in the ass eventually, but I've used the money to lease planes that are making me huge profits each week... as long as you're well into the green even after making your loan payments, I think it's ok...

I BK all the time, but I'm Finally making some money in 'Rise of the Modern Airliners'

The way I did this was locate in Vegas, and use the lack of competition to my advantage, which gave me access to 1k plus seats per day on the KPHX - KLAS route. High frequencies and low fares send the RI soaring and allow you to make good money, right now I have 2 737-300's operating the KLAS-KPHX route, both making huge profits, each with about 5 flights into phoenix every day

I know this is a really nooby question probably and there's probably another thread for a question like this, but...

How do I create a route not from my home base? Or open a new hub/focus city?

I do not know if this question has been asked somewhere else or not:

I have started my airline in O'hare Intl, but realized, after, that there are no open slots.

How do I change my base of operations airport?

Quote from: soulbuyer on November 02, 2009, 06:50:39 PM
How do I change my base of operations airport?

If you haven't been there over 3 game months, then Relocate (page Office > Rebrand/Relocate Airline):

QuoteYou can relocate your airline to another home base if you have started the game less than three months ago in game time. Relocation means moving your home base to another city and re-starting all operations from the start. All your routes must be closed but the current aircraft fleet and staff are automatically moved to the new location. Relocation takes two weeks and costs a significant sum of money.

Just a note for route planning.

This is an excellent point. I find its best to look at airlines skeds to see where they fly and where from.

Its not a perfect model because of hubbing in real life, but it can be a good starting point, especially if you arent familiar with the area.

My most successful game was in the beta where I bankrupted out of YYC (my home) and MIA - and went to PTY. from there I had no competition and and a great place to fly from. You just have to tepid your expectations. i wont be flying 747 to HKG from panama city, but I was able to become crazy profitable, enough to try flights to Europe, CAI, Lebanon etc.

Quote from: DSimm626 on March 19, 2009, 12:50:07 AM
As a newbie to AirwaySim(a little over 2 weeks now) I found that this advice is so true. To me in real life leaving an airport at 2 am isn't very good but my CRJ100's make at least $2,000 a flight doing this. That is better than nothing at all. Daytime flights usually average $9500-10,000.

If you are leasing its ok to run the planes into the ground, if you own them I wouldnt suggest it personally.

Quote from: JJP on February 01, 2009, 03:03:57 AM
I know it's very tempting to start from a very popular hub, but you can make good profit even from hubs that don't seem so popular (50% - 60%).  If you don't want to be hammered with competition, choose a hub that isn't at the top of the list (80% - 100%).  Find routes that have mediocre demand (250 - 700 demand per day) that no one else is flying. 

In order to enjoy good load factors, do not overload the route with capacity.  If the route only has a demand of 300 seats per day, make only one flight per day (depending on the aircraft you choose).  Use that airplane to fly a couple of different route with around the same amount of demand.  If you provide only ~half the capacity of the demand for a route, your load factors will be much better than if you provide 100%+ of the route demand.

What type of aircraft?  Make sure you choose aircraft with at least 100 seats.  Aircraft with fewer seats may be tempting (cheaper leases, maintenance, less crew, fuel, etc.), but these aircraft will not provide the necessary profit for your airline.  The airplane's direct costs will be more than covered (and the aircraft will show a profit), but the plane will not be able to generate enough revenue to cover your airline's overhead (salaries, marketing, etc.). 

When choosing aircraft, be sure to scrutinize all the numbers.  Not all used aircraft are created equal (even the same exact type of aircraft).  Be sure to view how much your A, B, and C checks are going to cost.  Used aircraft have HUGE differences in maintenance costs depending on type, age, hours flown, and number of landings. 

Be patient when leasing aircraft.  Have an idea of what you think is a good bargain (based on cost, age, etc.) and stick with it.  Your airline will do much better in the long run if you are using good, decent aircraft instead of anything that comes along.  Also, look into changing the config on aircraft to get some business seats (C class) thrown in.  Yeah, it costs a little more to reconfig, but you can make bank with those C-class (charging up to 3 times as much as coach!).  Make sure the routes you're going to fly have business demand, however!

Hope this helps! 

Ok I understand that. But how can I figure out, how much money is needed to also earn enough money to cover the overhead cost. All my aircraft generating good profits with loadfactors between 85% and 95% and a routeimage of 100, but I am still loosing money. Who can help?

 Really stunning Sim guys!!!, excellent work!!  ::)

Incredible features, and, at least for me, unknown realism in an airline sim, great job!!

Just a thing, I missed a more detailed view of the hourly slots at the airports, to make a more swift flightplan, without having more than 2, maximum 3 departing flights every 5 minutes (in Vegas), and not crowding them all at the turn of the hour and therefore (I guess...) causing delay already at the beginning of the day and at your own home base... :(
Could be something like the airport info tab, but with the possibility to see the departures sorted by time and not by destination..., just an idea..., maybe this is possible in the full version which I want to try soon.. anyway, great!!

  For Las Vegas (KLAS) starters, I must say that Vegas was just a run ;D, and I would recommend a very small regional fleet of ATRs or similar ac for the 5-15 small reachable and suited airports, something like ~4 ac schould be more than enough for the "light" job.
In addition, a main 737 (or similar) fleet. More than 70 737s can be filled relatively easy from Vegas!!!, but without big competitors, and if possible with the more economical /17 engines, and many of them with extended ~2000NM range.
This is important, as it enables you to fly to nearly all relevant and cash generating east-coast destinations. At least 80 north american destinations can be flown from Vegas with the 737s with reasonable profits per aircraft.
And finally the A300 for the main routes to LAX, ORD, ATL, DFW, IAH, JFK, MIA, DTW, DVX and in support of possible emerging routes that demand more capacities, like MCO, EWR and so on...
More than ~20 A300s can also be filled relatively easily with satisfactory load factors from Vegas, in adition to the ATR and 737s fleets...
A generous marketing strategie is one key to filling them up, and no big competition, as I think I already commented ...
 Big business class demand routes are for the airbusses, that generate the big $ you need at the start. At least that was my "strategy".

Good luck every one!

And Again, Congratulations for the excellent Simulation!!!

Cheers rgss

Very nice thread with good info. I did awesome in the demo version plenty of $ coming in, and plenty of planes quickly. But not in my current real game. Granted I started very late in this game. Im trying to be "patient" ha im not in the red. Just use my current game as practice I suppose. I can't wait to start out fresh and new with everyone else once a new game world starts.

Every time you sign up again you learn new tactics and understand the game a bit better. In time you even might want to try out complete other forms of operations or set other goals for yourself.

Quote from: TheRightSide on March 11, 2010, 04:48:04 AM
Very nice thread with good info. I did awesome in the demo version plenty of $ coming in, and plenty of planes quickly. But not in my current real game. Granted I started very late in this game. Im trying to be "patient" ha im not in the red. Just use my current game as practice I suppose. I can't wait to start out fresh and new with everyone else once a new game world starts.

I would just like to second this. This thread has been an awesome source of info and I have found myself in the same boat (plane :D) in doing well in the demo and coming in late into the game in beginners world 7. Patience is the key, but I would also like to add that if there is a competitor flying a route taking all the pax, dont be afraid to fly in and give it a go. Of course you will have to lower your prices a bit and spend a bit on marketing, but it appears pax in the sim like in the real world, like competition. That said, I dont think I would try it with over three competitors on the same route. For me at the moment, there is only me plus a big competitor, but I am turning a profit. So dont be afraid to give a go, but also find other routes that will help support your price war. Just my little bit to add. :)

Quote from: Maarten Otto on April 21, 2010, 03:24:22 PM
Every time you sign up again you learn new tactics and understand the game a bit better. In time you even might want to try out complete other forms of operations or set other goals for yourself.

Exactly, MT2 is where I am now, and every other game I have played I flew either Airbuses or Boeing's. So in ATB I'm trying something a little different by flying a regional Q300 and Q400 operation out of a regional airport in China. May I say that it is quite a different sphere of operations! :D

One thing I must say for those just starting out is to look carefully at the turnaround times for large aircraft. Sometimes they can go up to 2-3 hours on the larger, older designs if you try to reduce delay chance to 1% so remember to do your aircraft comparing before you just lease. That tool is there for a reason and it is one I use on an almost daily basis

Quote from: raptorva on September 13, 2010, 09:10:46 AM
One thing I must say for those just starting out is to look carefully at the turnaround times for large aircraft. Sometimes they can go up to 2-3 hours on the larger, older designs if you try to reduce delay chance to 1% so remember to do your aircraft comparing before you just lease. That tool is there for a reason and it is one I use on an almost daily basis

Yup, there is more to speed than mach or knots....

^^^ dont use 752s domestically!

Quote from: swiftus27 on September 13, 2010, 01:29:04 PM
^^^ dont use 752s domestically!

Why not? I found that by using 752 and, mainly, 753, I would need at least one less aircraft if the route is good enough. Sure turns are nearly 2h but they deliver! Plus, you are using an aircraft with 767-capacity but nearly 30% less fuel. The 753 burns 15kg of fuel per passenger vs 14kg of a 739, and carries 50+ more passengers.

Quote from: swiftus27 on September 13, 2010, 01:29:04 PM
^^^ dont use 752s domestically!

Nothing are exactly black and white.  753 is better.  If you are in an airport that is slot constrained, you have to take that into consideration.  If you are somewhere at the edge of the continent, 753 might be a good option.  For short distances - 757 line would not be my first choice.

Quote from: ArcherII on September 13, 2010, 02:40:39 PM
Why not? I found that by using 752 and, mainly, 753, I would need at least one less aircraft if the route is good enough. Sure turns are nearly 2h but they deliver! Plus, you are using an aircraft with 767-capacity but nearly 30% less fuel. The 753 burns 15kg of fuel per passenger vs 14kg of a 739, and carries 50+ more passengers.

Remember in this game:

Pax prefer frequency.   It doesnt matter if the plane holds more.  When you competitor flies two 737s on that route, he will have 66% market share.   Again, I said domestically these things suck.

The two hour turn time is simply not recuperated unless you have no competition and there are few slots. 

Right now, you can easily "win" at an airport by soaking up the slots with F100s and AVROs and flying against the larger planes.  You will find that flying 3 F100s will kill a 752.

Lastly, I dont see cargo (except the self loading variety).  I think AA uses 757s in order to move more freight than it does people.

Yes, you're right about frecuency. I also forgot to say that I'm based in the US west coast, and demand to East coast is huge and without 75x wouldn't have the posibility of overtaking those routes.

Speaking of 757s, on my last trip from LAX to JFK, I took United 757 that they converted to what they call Premium Service:

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,50964,00.html?jumpLink=%2Fps

They fly these between JFK and LAX or SFO.  Looks like it has 12F, 26C and 72Y seats based on the description (I miscounted the Y seats when I was on the flight because of some funky row number sequence).  The seat pocket said it is 3 series, which I guess is 300.  From the seating configuration, you can imagine the leg room everywhere including the economy section.  They may be using some extra space for cargo, but the leg space in the economy section was the most generous I have ever seen.

...and with fewer people up top...

...there is more room below....

So I built a second base in YBBN to try my hand at some international routes (none available from YSCB). Turns out, large aircraft (big enough to fly international distances) are ridiculously expensive to run (for my airline at least!). At the worst of the endeavour I was losing around $3-4 million a week!

Luckily, I managed to salvage the airline after a few more blunderous attempts at generating a profit operating YBBN.

Here's what I learned:

• Even if it says it will cost you $20M to open a new base, you really, really, really have to take into account the operating costs. Expect to be paying a lot more staff, especially if you're investing in new airplane types. If you can't afford to keep it open, close it.
• You can't terminate a plane lease if you're in the red.
• If it's become too expensive to operate a leased aircraft, fire the pilots you use to fly it and cancel all maintenance on it. Hopefully you can absorb the lease fee while your other aircraft get you back into the black so you can terminate the lease.
• Don't be afraid to fire staff if you've got too many and reduce wages a bit to get you back into income/week. Although I took a huge image hit (down to about 10 from 50), my LF% didn't take a huge hit, and my routes remained profitable. I went from $3M a week in wages down to $1M, and this was the biggest moneysaver for me. I saw more delays than usual but I was spared any staff strikes.
• Loans can be your friend. Paying $50,000/month to the bank is better than paying $90,000/month in lease fees to an airplane broker.
• Don't be afraid to scale back your marketing. If you're losing company image due to staff cuts anyway then it will take some time to bring it back up anyway. Cutting general marketing in half saved me a huge chunk of cash. Route marketing should probably be cancelled altogether if the routes are already profitable.
• There's a lot of personal satisfaction to be gained from bailing yourself out of a blunder and seeing those weekly totals in green again after a month or two in red. Your mileage may vary on this one. :)

Hopefully this will help some other airlines out. Personally I'm having a lot of fun running a regional airline instead of trying to be an international carrier. I tried it out and found your HQ will greatly affect what sort of airline you end up playing. Limited route options can force you to seek out routes with smaller passenger yields, which generally are competition-free.

Hello i've a simple question.

When the game area that our company operates in ends,what happens to our airline?Do we have to start all over again in a different world?

Quote from: glycerine on October 21, 2010, 11:39:33 PM
Hello i've a simple question.

When the game area that our company operates in ends,what happens to our airline?Do we have to start all over again in a different world?

Yes, you have to start in a new game world.  But the full game worlds last long enough - longer than Demo games or Beginner Worlds.

Full games take almost 5 months...

Ok I have a question, when i played this a few years ago Actual airline names were not allowed to be used, and there was a place to report those airlines using real world names.... is that still around? The new beginner world is rife with those names.

Start reporting :)

yeah, but where? There use to be a thread just for it years ago.

Quote from: Wildwezul on February 26, 2011, 03:17:54 AM
yeah, but where? There use to be a thread just for it years ago.

On the airline summary page (when you click another airlines name) there is a button to report a airline name in the bottom right hand corner of the top "airline information" box, above the "fleet" box

Quote from: Wildwezul on February 25, 2011, 11:40:05 PM
Ok I have a question, when i played this a few years ago Actual airline names were not allowed to be used, and there was a place to report those airlines using real world names.... is that still around? The new beginner world is rife with those names.

Does this apply to currently operating real-world airlines ONLY or to any airline that has ever existed, even if trademark(s) are expired?

Quote from: SA2011 on June 30, 2011, 12:17:40 AM
Does this apply to currently operating real-world airlines ONLY or to any airline that has ever existed, even if trademark(s) are expired?

I'm pretty sure it's only current/active airlines.  If you wanted to call yourself Pan-Am I think it's fair game.

Quote from: LemonButt on June 30, 2011, 12:25:25 AM
I'm pretty sure it's only current/active airlines.  If you wanted to call yourself Pan-Am I think it's fair game.

Pan Am trademark is still in use :/

If you can prove the trademark has expired (or you own the trademark or have the allowence to use it in a game like this), it should be ok. But normally this does not happen to well known trademarks (like Pan Am).

Do ya think "Southern Airways" would be ok?  Not that I'm doing worth a da#n with it anyways...

Most of these names are banned.  Be careful that many were taken over through various M&As.  That doesn't mean they are retired. 

Also, you report illegal names now on their own airline page.

I would like to know what effect the type of seats offered on an aircraft have on the load factor of a flight? In other words if I fly a route with many competitors, will I have an advantage if my aircraft offer premium seating?

Thank you in advance

Michael Nishanian
Terris Aviation

Quote from: MichaelNishanian on October 22, 2012, 11:06:33 PM
I would like to know what effect the type of seats offered on an aircraft have on the load factor of a flight? In other words if I fly a route with many competitors, will I have an advantage if my aircraft offer premium seating?

Thank you in advance

Michael Nishanian
Terris Aviation

Hello Michael. Sami answered the question generally, in the following thread: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,42842.0.html (https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,42842.0.html)

Generally speaking, Prem seating helps command a better price. It is somewhat effective against competition to a point. There are many variables that decide when a pax will fly with you and at one price they will pay. The more of those factors in your favor, the better your off overall.


Talentz

Explained in manual: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Aircraft/Config/#Seat

Quote from: JJP on February 01, 2009, 03:03:57 AM
I know it's very tempting to start from a very popular hub, but you can make good profit even from hubs that don't seem so popular (50% - 60%).  If you don't want to be hammered with competition, choose a hub that isn't at the top of the list (80% - 100%).  Find routes that have mediocre demand (250 - 700 demand per day) that no one else is flying. 

In order to enjoy good load factors, do not overload the route with capacity.  If the route only has a demand of 300 seats per day, make only one flight per day (depending on the aircraft you choose).  Use that airplane to fly a couple of different route with around the same amount of demand.  If you provide only ~half the capacity of the demand for a route, your load factors will be much better than if you provide 100%+ of the route demand.

What type of aircraft?  Make sure you choose aircraft with at least 100 seats.  Aircraft with fewer seats may be tempting (cheaper leases, maintenance, less crew, fuel, etc.), but these aircraft will not provide the necessary profit for your airline.  The airplane's direct costs will be more than covered (and the aircraft will show a profit), but the plane will not be able to generate enough revenue to cover your airline's overhead (salaries, marketing, etc.). 

When choosing aircraft, be sure to scrutinize all the numbers.  Not all used aircraft are created equal (even the same exact type of aircraft).  Be sure to view how much your A, B, and C checks are going to cost.  Used aircraft have HUGE differences in maintenance costs depending on type, age, hours flown, and number of landings. 

Be patient when leasing aircraft.  Have an idea of what you think is a good bargain (based on cost, age, etc.) and stick with it.  Your airline will do much better in the long run if you are using good, decent aircraft instead of anything that comes along.  Also, look into changing the config on aircraft to get some business seats (C class) thrown in.  Yeah, it costs a little more to reconfig, but you can make bank with those C-class (charging up to 3 times as much as coach!).  Make sure the routes you're going to fly have business demand, however!

Hope this helps! 

I'm new to AWS, even though I registered last December, I finally got the courage to join in the fun.  My question pertains to the above 2nd paragraph about not overloading the route with capacity.  What if that route was serviced by other airlines as well and the total number of seats offered on a daily basis was 1000 seats.  Would I still follow the same strategy by offering less than the daily demand?

It's case by case. I if you are in a busy airport and there are other route that offer similar demand then u may want toinvest on other rroute n just keep a small presence to raise Ci. I however if it is a money route then consider bomb the route to the point you fill 110+% yourself.

Obviously the decision is based on how far in the game, and how many competition n slot situation etc

It´s simple math. If all other parameters are equal, every flight gets an equal share of potential PAX. So if your "PAX decision parameters" (price,flight times,RI/CI,comfort) are better than competition, you get a bigger share of the cake.If not, your share is smaller than average. It´s not the question of overall seat capacity if route is overserved already, it´s number of departures, number of contestants and their level of quality. If overstuffing a route, do it on contested ones, not with those you serve alone.

well I have begun to learn my lessons. Now on my 3rd re-start. have my 2 reasonably new A320-200's operating virtually non stop all day apart from the 5 hrs 'A' check time; even then I have managed to utilize the free time left between the end of the 5 hour check and the start of the next retation to to insert a flight on each plane to a nearby airport so it has a flight in the evenings twice a week. Hopefully I won't fall into the bottomless pit of despair again

I´m afraid, you will, but then for other reasons.There are many lessons to be learned......
There are many mistakes to make that show their consequences only years into the game......But that´s what keeps this game interesting.

i cant even get that far i form airlines name everything but i want to form homebase nothing shows up but blank screen i tryed everything iam done >:(

Screenshot?   This is not an error I've seen