Very small aircraft airline

[Antoine]

Hello fellows,

I am trying something a bit different to the usual and I've read plenty of Posts here saying it's almost impossible , however I am attempting an airline based on piper pa42 Cheyenne's out of Nantucket, USA.

What I've noticed so far is the following

-4 aircraft with 8 seats each somehow require 150+ staff(24 customer service agents!!!!! ) And it'll only get worse!

-Why do aircraft under 10 seats all have two pilots ?

-How does one go about raising base Company Image without going even further into the red(marketing that is actually effective in raising your CI costs at least 150k a week and when you are making close to nothing this just ruins any profit you did make)

-Obviously the game economics aren't optimised for these sort of airlines however better small MEP aircraft such as the Cessna 402 etc, would help us guys out who are trying something different.(Not everyone wants 150+ aircraft out of Heathrow 

If anyone has any experience on running these, Opinions would be greatly appreciated

Kind Regards,

Michael

[sanabas]

It wasn't impossible years ago (I did it as an experiment), it is easier now that things like landing fees are cheaper and staffing algorithms have changed.

some tips:

It's easier outside the US, because staff costs will be one of your biggest expenses. US has higher than average salaries. It's still doable there, if you pick the right airports, but it's tougher.

Staff numbers, in particular customer service, go up with number of destinations. With more planes, the number of staff per plane should get a little better.

You need to make money  per hour of use. The time for a return trip + turnarounds at each end might double if you go from a 150nm route to 250nm, but the raw profit will be about the same. That makes the longer route roughly half as profitable on an hourly basis, and whatever profit you make from ~19 hours of routes has to cover the rest of the overhead.

You probably don't want to fly anything much further than ~200nm. So you want airports with a relatively high density of short routes, hopefully also to smaller airports with low fees.

Ignore CI. Do the smallest possible general campaign, CI will still be 20-30, and that's all you need. CI of 30 is generally the first threshold you'll reach, and for any sort of shorthaul domestic airline, even one with ~500 turboprops, CI of 30 is plenty.

Undersupply routes a little if you're struggling. If route has 20 pax, you could put 3 x daily for 24 pax, or you could put 2 x daily and increase the prices a bit.

Vanuatu is a good place to start if that's what you want, because of low salaries, no comp, and a decent number of routes for 9 seaters. But it also has no expansion opportunities and once you've got everything set up, there's literally nothing else to do. You can get pax to pay money for a 2500NM double-techstopped adventure on a 9 seater, but you won't actually make a profit doing so. Still fun to imagine just what possessed them to sign up for it though. 

15-20 seaters, e.g. Fairchild Metros, are easier than 9 seaters are. But the way the game is now, a 250+ plane airline made up entirely of small aircraft should be completely doable. Probably bigger. Just have to be very efficient, and pick airports with a sufficient density of usable routes.

[LemonButt]

Commercial flights require 2 pilots.  The exception being cargo flights IRL only requiring 1 pilot since there are no human pax on board, but AWS still requires 2 for cargo.

[MikeS]

I once operated very profitably with a large fleet of de Havilland Doves within the Greek isles. You only need minimum CI. You'll want your planes flying around 5 flights a day each.

Mike

[DanDan]

1) single pilot ops
https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,26220.msg133707.html#msg133707
https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,76845.msg451543.html#msg451543
... and here is Sami's answer to that. rule of thumb: if Sami settles on an opinion, changing his mind (even if everyone just KNOWS he is wrong) is nearly impossible.

2) small aircraft operations are certainly possible economically, but you may want to aim for the biggest small aircraft rather than the smallest. also use short routes, as mentioned here. anything above 500-1000 can easily get you an "small aircraft warning".

3) the whole concept of "plane-size-categories" as implemented here in AWS is just killing some aircraft. in some GW the emb 120 is small, the saab 340 is medium... you can imagine how many operate the latter. E2-195, 60t: medium - A220-100, 55t: large...

[freshmore]

You're ignoring the A220-300 in that comparison. The E195 is the largest of that family and the A220-300 is the largest of that family, when you consider that and the capacity it has it's definitely fits more into large than medium. I think last time I was around, this was done based on families rather than specific variants, I can't imagine there has been a reason to justify the work needed to make a change.

As for small aircraft airlines, they are very fun. I've done them a couple of times in the past, Metro's have been a very fun plane to fool about with. Economies of scale are there, you will probably find it best getting a medium 40-50 seater to compliment it in the revenue earning potential so you can switch to an ownership model as soon as you've got your profits up.

Also you often have to get creative with schedules, sometimes to squeeze that last little route in to a schedule you'll find flying into an airport late and stopping over until early morning is a reasonable strategy when trying to build a 7 day schedule. As long as you maximise use, and I really do mean maximise, you stand a really good chance.

And it goes without saying, don't pick a busy airport where fees are going to be really high, if you do fly into a couple of busier airports on busier routes, that's where a slightly larger aircraft to complement your small planes comes in.

[RALLX]

All aircrafts in the same fleet group share the same size, and the largest aircraft in the fleet group determines the fleet group aircraft size.

[Maytrix]

I've been experimenting with small aircraft as well.  And so far I can't make a profit at a 2nd base at all with 18 Cessna 208 caravans.  Seems that should be possible.  Real world it is done with even less.  And the planes are averaging $30k+ in profit per week.  Yet that base is still loosing money.  And that's even worse since marketing and other costs are all at the HQ.  And these are planes that should have a single pilot, just like they do in real life scenarios.  Just look at an Airline like Cape Air.  All small 9 seater Cessna's with a single pilot.


Only thing keeping my airline going right now is that I have some freight at my HQ which is bringing in profit.  And I own all my Cessna's.  Staff salary alone exceeds my fares.

[Antoine]

Yeah these seemed to be the problems I faced aswell

[gazzz0x2z]

my metros were working OK, IIRC. But those are 19-seaters, not 12-seaters. (and thise was 2015, loooong ago, without wind rules, without cargo). My level 1 base in Visby was doing OK.

[sanabas]

If I get really bored in next couple of weeks I might start up a project airline, small planes only.

[RALLX]

I think you can survive with C208 if you are flying very short routes, like 5 flights in a day, and if you are not in countries with very high salary level. Although C208 range is more than 500nm, it is too slow to fly that far.

The Speed World is starting soon, this might be the perfect opportunity to experiment 

[freshmore]

You need small armada of them at each base to make the base profitable. Maybe 10-20, but you do need to have scale to make it work, even with small aircraft

[[SC] - King Kong]

Nobody said E120??

[RALLX]

E120 is medium aircraft, isn't it ?

[TheGrew]

I have flown the Jetstream 41 profitably but that I think is the largest small aircraft with a reasonable speed. Even then the most profitable aircraft did many small routes with lots of turns.

[DanDan]

E120 is medium aircraft, isn't it ?

depends on the gw. but in the future yes

[RALLX]

Hmm... after experimenting for a bit, I found that it is really impossible to be profitable with C208 in the US. Even with 100% PLF and 5 flights a day, the aircraft is making $112k a week at the most. The overheads cost including marketing is $105k a week, of which $47k is for salary and $25k is for marketing. Anything larger than C208 or anywhere with lower salary level is certainly feasible, though.

I'm going to try again with Beechcraft or BAe.

[sanabas]

Hmm... after experimenting for a bit, I found that it is really impossible to be profitable with C208 in the US. Even with 100% PLF and 5 flights a day, the aircraft is making $112k a week at the most. The overheads cost including marketing is $105k a week, of which $47k is for salary and $25k is for marketing. Anything larger than C208 or anywhere with lower salary level is certainly feasible, though.

Can't tell if those are overall numbers, per plane numbers, or if you're actually a 1 plane airline. Either way, sounds like you're spending too much on marketing.

[RALLX]

Those are averages for one plane, from a total of 5 planes. All are bought so there is no lease cost. The marketing is the first level, all media except television. You can forego marketing altogether I guess, but I have no clue what effect 0 CI will have. I did not adjust ticket price and salary as well, they are at base level.