Good aircraft for short legs

[hohum]

Just started out and I ended up leasing a long range aircraft and 2 Saab 2000s for short leg flights.  I plan to use the Saab planes to establish myself as a regional airline with flights all over the south east US and the Caribbean islands.

Was the Saab a smart purchase or are there better aircrafts for this type of travel.

[RushmoreAir]

The Saabs are good, but usually you have to operate at least 4 or 5 to make an overall profit.  Make sure you fill up short sectors first, before moving to longer routes.

[Jps]

Also, starting out with 2 fleet types can be tricky... So don't wonder if you BK soon 

If you do, try to stick with just one fleet type until you have some 10+ aircraft.

[hohum]

Also, starting out with 2 fleet types can be tricky... So don't wonder if you BK soon 

If you do, try to stick with just one fleet type until you have some 10+ aircraft.

I'm already spiraling into massive debt

Good advice though.  I might just start again.

What about marketing campaigns?  Obviously starting out with full-on ad campaigns has hurt my bottom line.  Should I stay off of TV and radio until my routes start turning profits, or?

[Jps]

What about marketing campaigns?  Obviously starting out with full-on ad campaigns has hurt my bottom line.  Should I stay off of TV and radio until my routes start turning profits, or?

First off, route marketing is a waste of money - don't do that.

As for the general marketing, it's suggested to use no more than 30% of profit in marketing. In general, marketing is the only way to increase CI, which allows you to compete with other airlines for marketshare. However, if you don't have much competition, there's no need for high LF.
I suggest keeping marketing at minimum at first (perhaps a country-wide marketing with everything but tv for a couple of months) to see how your CI and profits develop.

Here's a post I made recently that may shed some light to how CI works:

I was competing against a huge airline in MT3 who's HQ was Tokyo Haneda and bases in Narita and Fukuoka. I was based in Fukuoka, flying all B737NG-fleet, some 30 aircraft. My competitor had DHCs and 737NGs, if I remember correctly. My CI was initially 20-30, my competitor at 100. I was making a profit of $1-4 million/week. At the end of the game, I pushed up my marketing and reached CI of 70. This cost me $20 mil/week. In the end, I only received a 15% boost to ticket income (from ~$28 mil to ~$34 mil).
This result might not be generalized, but still shows that you can do well with low CI if other aspects are ok. Though I have to admit, that my competitor didn't really try to push me out, as he only served max demand, and sometimes not even that. I also had some routes where he wasn't flying.

[hohum]

I took the advise and BKd and restarted under a single fleet type.

I've got a fleet of 7 Saab 340s but I seem to be having a tough time turning a profit on them initially.

My across 7 planes and 32 route pairs is only in the high 30s but trending upwards at the moment.  I'm 1.6m in the hole and I've already gotten a warning about missed payments.

The only ad campaign I'm running is a statewide newspaper generic and it consumes about 1% of my weekly ticket intake.

Should I be worried or should I wait it out and see if the LF/Profit continues improving.

[hohum]

also should I have gone with the ATR instead?  People seem to prefer those for short legs.

[starrymarkb]

I'm working a D328 on some island routes. With 5 return trips per day it seems to be working well.

Main fleet is BAe146s at the moment on short routes of mostly 1-2hours flight

[Ilyushin]

The Saab 340 is rather small. You would want to be operating aircraft with at least 50 seats to make a decent profit. The bigger the aircraft, the better.

[hohum]

The Saab 340 is rather small. You would want to be operating aircraft with at least 50 seats to make a decent profit. The bigger the aircraft, the better.

Problem here is I'm trying to fill routes with <30 pax so bigger is better is also unprofitable.

I couldn't figure out how to make the Saab planes profitable even on more popular routes so I've started flying emberaer EMB-120 Brasilia and it's working out quite well.  I'm turning a profit on routes that make it to about 40% LF so I'm satisfied with the result.

I put 737s on routes >100pax

It seems to be a winning combination as my airliner was nearly instantly profitable as a result.  With decent LF I'm turning almost half a million dollars worth of profit per week on the 737s and I'm in the 5 figure range on the Emberaer

I'll be up to 15 aircraft in fleet in no time flat and then I can start running routes out of a bigger airport.

[Curse]

Routes under 30 pax as well as aircraft with less than 40 seats are normally very hard.

In Beginners World maybe the low fuel price save you, but in the normal game worlds it's mostly only possible to run such routes if you have good other routes to negate the loss done by the small routes.


Don't forget: You must not pay just leasing, crew, fuel and fees, you also must pay a B-Check once a month and a C-Check once a year.