Newbie Strategy Question! Help me!!

[alvarez1670]

I read a little online about making some money at the start of the game by running LONG routes with a plane that only has first class on it.

I went ahead and tried it with an Ilyushin Il-62 and put the whole plane as First Class Standard seats, I got 39 seats out of it.

I'm running at route as follows: Atlanta - Heathrow - Dubai - Heathrow - Atlanta

I did that because the demand for first class was high on those routes.

With 70% load, why am I still losing money?

Thanks

[RushmoreAir]

What game are you in? In modern times, for instance, fuel is at $560 kg. That will kill you in a IL-62, especially if you are just starting out. Use a more economic aircraft. The extra leasing cost is worth it.

[Filippo]

fuel consumption and maintaining cost.

The Il - 62 is an old (thus not cheap to maintain) soviet built plane which uses lots and lots of fuel. Even if those 39 seats are 70% full, there is no way you can cover for the fuel. Check your income statement to see.

[Sami]

Any large aircraft with only 39 seats (even first class) is not enough to make a profit I'd say. And Il-62 (or other old equipment) is even worse.

[Unbornio]

Ilyushin Il-62
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That's your problem... Now if the Il-62 can fit 500 pax  ...

[alvarez1670]

Well the problem is that I'm in the beginners world and there are no other aircrafts up for lease that can do the long range!

Will this strategy work on domestic flights in the US?

Thanks

[Sigma]

Maybe.  If you can turn the plane enough times a day, you might be able to do it.  But as soon as there's any competition whatsoever, and your LF drops too low, you'll start losing money in a hurry.  There's not too many domestic routes with those kinds of F-Class numbers either.

The long-range, only-F-class, strategy works exceptionally well in the early game here since there's no competition.  But you've got to have enough seats to cover your costs first.  The IL-62 doesn't do that for you.  And you've got to be ready to replace those with something else, as the strategy can fall apart really quickly as there's not a lot of F-Class traffic and any impact to your LF can take you from super-high profits to money loss in a hurry.