Stuck in the red :(

[nemonik]

 I just joined ystrdy and have been fixated upon this game.

Currently running my airline with 2 CRJ200 and 1 737, all leased out of DFW.

CRJs are making between $3k-6k profits each round-trip route
737 is making between $15k and 18k.

I guess I did something silly (probably getting a CRJ) cos I am $300k  in the red and can;t seem to recover despite profits (due to office rent, landing fees etc etc) 
The bank won't give a loan and until I can get out of this slump, I won't be able to purchase more 737s andp ut them on profitable routes.

Any ideas / suggestions from the more seasoned folks ?

Thanks

-- Nik

[Zabuti]

Hi

This usually happens often. First question is : What kind of routes do you operate ?
Do you operate all routes to meet demand ? Do you operate one route 2 days a week and still not meeting demand?

My main competitor at CDG was supplying routes randomly. If you want to be successful, focus on two or three routes at the beginning, then expand quickly, but gradually.

If you go to a lot of different airports, you will have huge operationnal costs (staff in all these airports, marketing campaigns will be more expensive, and you can't break even).

Second thing : what is your pricing ? You need to decrease your pricing here if you want to be successful on a route with already demand on it.

Last is : what kind of competition fo you have on your routes ? lots ? few ? None ? When you want to open a new route, enter the range of your CRJ and 737, and just go after the first page. These routes are usually ignored by a lot of competitors, so you may find profitable routes there.

Tell us a bit more, and I'd be happy to help !

Kind regards

[nemonik]

Thanks Flobacca.

I currently operate to 9 cities from DFW using these 3 leased aircraft.
Many of these routes have higher demand than available capacity but even then the LF is not quite appreciable.

I guess I am focusing on too many routes right now rather than more flights between 3-4 main cities.
Lemme see if I can turn it around a bit.

Maybe I can get rid of one of my aircrafts and add multiple flights to the 3-4 focus cities.

-- nik

[Sigma]

Yeah, I can't see your routes unfortunately as I cannot join the Beginner's World games -- a source of constant frustration for me since I can't help much if I can't see -- but that's a different problem altogether.

But, I'm going to guess you've got your routes set up incorrectly.  I'm, if I may say so, the DFW player in AWS as I play it almost every game, so I'm more than a little familiar with operating out of it.

With 9 routes and just 3 planes you're making one of two mistakes:

1>  You're picking cities way too small
2>  You're picking a new city long before you've filled up demand on your first ones

Every route you fly requires more overhead.  So if you can minimize your routes by flying to the same city over and over again you'll get more bang for your buck.  Flying to lots of cities means you've got to hire more employees in a bunch of cities and you need to market yourself in more cities.  Additionally (and this is a higher level strategy than you're considering at this point but is VERY important in a 'proper' game world), passengers LOVE frequency in this game -- the best way to defend your routes is to fly them more often than anyone else.

Starting at DFW you need to focus on HOU, IAH, and ATL, then move on to LAS, DEN, and PHX.  Start closer and move out further (I make an exception for ATL, it's so precious I normally shoot for it first and leave others to fight over IAH/HOU as it's close distance kills profits in this case because people just cram planes onto it to utilize them in the middle of the night when no other route will fit; that and ATL slots are very precious and most ATL players will leave the route alone if you fill it up because they have tight slots and would rather use them on empty routes not competing with you).  ATL is in a sweet spot that allows great utilization of planes, you should be able to get a comfortable 4 turns out of mid-size 150pax planes on that route.  4 full turnarounds of 150pax planes (even more if you can get some A321s) can yield one of the most profitable large-scale operations in North America.  That route, depending on the era, is easily 3000+ pax per day, enough to support a half-dozen planes all by itself and line your pockets nicely.  For maximum profits, that's the route for my favorite plane in the game -- the A300 (especially in A306 form).

Also, those small planes you've got, the CRJs, require a bit more expertise than average.  Profit margins tend to be tighter (or virtually non-existent) because the costs to provide the flight (both direct costs like fuel and pilots, and indirect cost like ground-handling, service personnel, etc) aren't significantly different than flying the route with a 737/A320 that can move several times the people, meaning a lot more profits.  As a beginner, I would recommend you avoid anything too much under 100 seats.  Really, operating out of DFW, there's little reason to go smaller anyway, since most destinations around it demand at least 90-100 seats.  Also, for the same reason as simply requiring a bit more finesse to manage and utilize correctly, I'd avoid anything made for long, thin routes early-on -- planes like the A310 or 767ER.  While there are some nice international destinations out of DFW, most of your international demand at DFW requires those sorts of planes to operate, and it's tempting to operate those "cool" international routes.  But it's more difficult with those 160-200 seat planes.  Margins are slim and get slimmer as distances increase and fuel costs per passenger are VERY high -- which means is fuel costs go up you can face huge losses.