Scheduling

I know when I start a round I use the utilization to the max. That changes as the years progress. I also tend to change the way I schedule aircraft to a more realistic approach. I am thinking it doesn't have any impact.

The question I have is how do you like to schedule 7 weekly flights on a route?

1. Same aircraft - 7 frequencies

2. 7 aircraft - 1 frequency each

3. Which ever has availability - 2 on one, 1 one another, and 4 one another

Schedule it with the same aircraft as many times you want that's how it works for me!

Obviously use the same aircraft for 7 frequencies to avoid incompatible scheduling 

I'm using 2nd option. It's much easier to manage your fleet this way. Also, it feels more realistic to me.

I use number two.  I also set my orders to arrive in batches of 7 so all the planes that go together are numbered close together.  It's big time OCD, but I'm strange that way.  I thought I was the only one in this game like that, but maybe I'm not.

My only execptions to this rule are the first year or two of gameplay & any holiday-type airlines which run routes of less than 7x weekly frequencies.  Oh & the one & only spamline I've ever created.

I set mine in increments of 7 unless they're very short range circulatory flights, then dump the utilization remainder on major routes between major hubs. 

I use number two.  I also set my orders to arrive in batches of 7 so all the planes that go together are numbered close together.  It's big time OCD, but I'm strange that way.  I thought I was the only one in this game like that, but maybe I'm not.

My only execptions to this rule are the first year or two of gameplay & any holiday-type airlines which run routes of less than 7x weekly frequencies.  Oh & the one & only spamline I've ever created.

I use a pretty similar in this method. Just gets annoying at times when replacing aircraft. 

I use a pretty similar in this method. Just gets annoying at times when replacing aircraft. 

What do you mean by that?

What do you mean by that?

When you replace an aircraft I tend to adjust the routes and switching the aircraft takes a lot longer because 7 frequencies are spread over 7 aircraft.

But you can always select an aircraft and move its routes to another one. It doesn't matter how many aircraft fly the route.
If you, however, tend to wait for all 7 aircraft to be delivered to upgrade the route, you can do what I do - switch frequencies on the 1st aircraft, close all other flights and quickly re-open them with new planes. It's much faster that way and you won't lose any rating on the route.

Or if you defer deliveries so all 7 aircraft arrive at the same time as I do, you can right click to open seven windows & quickly replace your batch of seven aircraft all at once.  Only takes a couple of minutes per batch of 7 planes.  They come consecutively numbered as well, so it makes it easy to keep your batches in order.

The way I do it is the following: if there is no new plane around, I would go to the plane with most hours available and go to the flight list, there I would check how many hours per week are being used and how many flights I can put for this aircraft based on the R/T blocktime for this specific route.

Explaining more: The way I utilize my planes is that I "set" each day to have a maximum of 16 hours of flight, so I go summing up the time for each frequency. For example, after I sum up all the hours in all frequencies for a plane I end up just using it for 6 days, then I could add 16 more hours with a route. Modifications to this are linked to a daily utilization close to 16 hours but that would count for a full day, like summing up and coming up with 12 to 14 hours and the sum of the next flight would pass the 16 hour threshold. Consequences to this are changing flights for other aircraft if there are more flights in the aircraft the is supposed to or adding flights to fill the hours available.

I implemented this system recently and I really liked it. Since I have a fleet of 43 planes It wasn't such a pain to review them all, but if you have more than this I wouldn't recommend, mainly if you use a lot of low to mid range aircraft because it takes more time to review due to the shear amount of frequencies per plane. Any questions, just ask.

I'm a strong number 3, and it appears to work for me!