Turn around times

[valmarus]

I'm curious as to whether there's a good guideline for setting turn around times. At the moment I'm trying to make use of a heron for low demand routes but because my HQ airport closes between 22:00 and 7:00 (yeah that choice is biting me in the backside, but the two other major airports in the region had no slots left when I put my HQ there, I had to quit the game twice) trying to get 4 flights in a day is very tight. The plane has a turn around time of 15 min and I've set it to 20 but I'm seeing far too many cancellations for my liking, I know this doesn't seem like much but that's 33% increase in turn around time. So is there an ideal % to increase your turnaround time or is there a minimum amount in minutes also(thus negating a portion of the turn around advantage of small planes)?

A follow up question would be - the 20 min turnarounds are the only way I can fit in the 4 flights a day due to the limited time window on my HQ so is it better to put up with the cancellations in hope of getting those few extra flights in occasionally or is the reputation damage from the regular cancellations going to hurt me too much in the long run?

[Zobelle]

Ideally you want no more than 8% of delay. 20 minutes puts you at 15.3% which is nearly double.

Bite the bullet, go to 25m which decreases this to 1%. It'll cost you less to lease another plane than the marketing you'll have to shell out to make those delays seem more reasonable to your customers.

Outbound /25/ Return /25/ Outbound /25/ Return /25/ Outbound /25/ Return

[valmarus]

Thanks for your reply, I shall make the alterations

[freshmore]

Agree with 8% max. With small aircraft like the Herons you pretty much have to aim for 1%, because a 5 minute difference often makes too much of a difference to the delay chance and will hurt more than what you would gain.

5 minutes isn't that much difference, 33% increase makes it sound like a bigger difference. If you can get them on 7 day schedule you can get nearly 21 hours per day utilisation out of them.

[Cardinal]

If you're in a base with a curfew, using 7-day scheduling (a lot of work, I know) lets you overnight the plane at an outstation so the plane is in the air past your base's curfew. This way, the plane sits at the outstation for ~5 hours instead of sitting at your base for 9+ hours. Then you only have to overnight at home once a week to do the A-check.

[Cardinal]

If you can get them on 7 day schedule you can get nearly 21 hours per day utilisation out of them.

With a 25-minute turn, some of my Herons are doing 21.4 hours/day 

[freshmore]

Indeed, I nearly corrected myself when I looked and found many of mine where 21 hours plus. 21.6 highest I found, they may be little but they are working really quite hard!

[valmarus]

I considered overnighting turnaround but I seem to remember reading somewhere that not flying a route 7 days a week results in a reputation penalty? I can't remember where I saw that now. And overnighting would result in at least 1 day where I can't fly the route due to A checks. Is that not the case?

[Cardinal]

I considered overnighting turnaround but I seem to remember reading somewhere that not flying a route 7 days a week results in a reputation penalty?

Flying 6 days a week vs. 7 does not incur a Route Image penalty, although it can take slightly longer for a new route to get to RI100 if it's 6x.

And overnighting would result in at least 1 day where I can't fly the route due to A checks. Is that not the case?

In my example, I was talking about using 7-plane 7-day scheduling, just like longhaul flights have to be done. Using that method, every flight flies 7 days a week. And yes, I will use 7-plane 7-day scheduling for 19-seaters if it means getting another flight a day out of every plane. When you've got 49 planes doing this, it really adds up

If you're only using one plane, then yes one day the flight doesn't fly. In that case I would try to make the 6x flight to a city that has multiple frequencies so that the loss of one Saturday outbound and Sunday return doesn't really affect the bottom line.

[freshmore]

It's seems overkill for a sub 20 seater, but it isn't. 7 plane 7 day makes sure the aircraft are in the air and working as much as possible, when you start flying longer routes it makes those routes doable. It get's hard to find short routes to match with the longer very quickly.

The other thing it does which can be helpful, is the over night flight can sometimes land at a time where you would depart after 7am again which reduces pressure on the 6am-7am timeslots which are what you desperately need when flying anything but 7 plane 7 day schedules.

[valmarus]

Well  okay then. Thanks for all the advice and help everyone.

[knobbygb]

You don't REALLY need to do 7-day scheduling in order to be at an outstation overnight though. (It's better if you can of course).

And having such an overnight schedule doesn't impact you B checks at all. Typically you'd have a long overnight flight and two or three shorter ones in the daytime.  You just need to make one of those daytime flights the 6-weekly (ideally, as Cardinal says, to a destination you fly to more than once anyway).  Having said that, I usually try to do my checks by cancelling an overnight flight simply because that is the flight likely to be making least profit.  Unless it's a VERY long flight of course.  Complicated...

[dagwood]

I am a little confused. So what you are saying is the maximum turnaround time should targeted at 8% delay? And the next question is "does the turnaround time at the base airport have the same delay percentage for the same time as the plane on the route"?

[qunow]

I am a little confused. So what you are saying is the maximum turnaround time should targeted at 8% delay?

It depend on aircraft, routes that you're flying, and personal perference, some prefer to keep everything 1% for maximum punctuality while others think it's ok to have lower ontime performance for better utilization of their aircraft.

And the next question is "does the turnaround time at the base airport have the same delay percentage for the same time as the plane on the route"?

Yes