13 replies to this topic

[bAnderson]

I cannot start an airline. That is a fact. I play S4. I know low fuel flow is a good tactic, one aircraft type, winglets, etc. I had a billion dollar company with help, but that got in the negative billions in the fifth year. I have no airlines now. Any tips? Should I buy? I already lower employee prices. Help me!

[SirMoo]

You have no airline... so it's hard to see where you're going wrong.

 

Any semblance of realism aside... Are you doing the common strategy of using all 20 or so hours of your plane as well as expanding out from your hub slowly in 500mile increments? It's ideal to have an airline started while asking for help so someone can point out what you're actually doing wrong.

[bAnderson]

Okay. I'll start one now. But yeah, I use all 140 hours. My last airline had an average utilization of 19.80 hours a day.

[EthansInControl]

In your new airline, you are using a crj-200. To start out, it's smart to use a A320 or 737. Starting with a small aircraft like that will certainly not make you enough money to pay for gates and the aircraft lease payment.

[bAnderson]

I chose the CRJ because of the low fuel flow... is that a wise decision?

[Chubby Bear]

It might have a low fuel flow for its class but for a starter aircraft you're going to struggle. Like ethansincontrol said you need a minimum of A320 or B737 with high passenger capacity to start with to get a nice profit started to be able to afford the gate, aircraft payments. And try to fly to hubs with high passenger demand to start with.

[Hake.]

CRJs are a bad idea I think. ATRs are a much better work horse. As well as being cheaper to run, they also have a lower fuel flow. I'll send you my start up guide because Boing moved it to a locked archive ...

[Issac1709]

CRJs are a bad idea I think. ATRs are a much better work horse. As well as being cheaper to run, they also have a lower fuel flow. I'll send you my start up guide because Boing moved it to a locked archive ...

Can i have the guide too?

[channy_thegreat]

In your new airline, you are using a crj-200. To start out, it's smart to use a A320 or 737. Starting with a small aircraft like that will certainly not make you enough money to pay for gates and the aircraft lease payment.

 

 

I just started my airline, Shuttle America, in a world using only 50 seat planes (CRJ, ATR, ATP, Q300) with hubs at JFK, ORD, ATL, LAX, ANC and DFW. I'm doing perfectly fine. 

 

Sure it might be easier to start with a 737 or a A321 but they're more expensive to lease or buy and cheaper planes means faster expansion.

 

I chose the CRJ because of the low fuel flow... is that a wise decision?

 

No. Fuel flow is lower in a CRJ vs a 737, but if you took the time to do a calculation of fuel flow per seat, the 737 wins. 

 

Also, smaller planes means more gates. 

 

However, it can be done the way you chose. It's harder, but everyone who seems to be hinting at it being impossible is wrong. Look at my airline. 

 

It might have a low fuel flow for its class but for a starter aircraft you're going to struggle. Like ethansincontrol said you need a minimum of A320 or B737 with high passenger capacity to start with to get a nice profit started to be able to afford the gate, aircraft payments. And try to fly to hubs with high passenger demand to start with.

 

You don't need it. It might make it easier, but it's by no means inpossible to do it the way he chose to do it .

[bAnderson]

Im broke. Help

[MacPhal]

I'm Very new myself and I have been expanding by using 3 classes of planes a 200 pax plane (757-200) 100 pax plane (737-***) and a 50 pax plane. ( Q300). I started in Calgary In my current game. When I started a route I try to have it so that I don't have more then 21 flights a day. If it's more then that I need a bigger plane for that route and I move on to the next city on the list. Small planes may use less fuel but if you need 2x the trips your not saving much in fuel and your paying more in landing fees and gate fees. After about the first year or so I add A300-600's to my fleet for the bigger cities.

 

I know this is a bit of a necro but as a new player I would like to hear how others start out. And I would like to add some questions myself.

 

1) When do you build a terminals? ASAP or when you feel like you have a more stable cash flow?

 

2) When do you start up a hub? I see some people start one right away. But wouldn't be better to wait until you connect to others in you alliance. And even then wait until you start to get competition for the extra pax's?

[Hake.]

I for one set up a hub when I set up a terminal. Don't open a hub straight away, as it drains money which could be spent on aircraft leases. As well as that, it depends on the extent of your ops. If you have 10 high demand routes out of Calgary (as an example) there is not much reason for a hub. However, if you have 50 impossibly small routes the it makes a lot of sense.

[davedave]

 

1) When do you build a terminals? ASAP or when you feel like you have a more stable cash flow?

 

2) When do you start up a hub? I see some people start one right away. But wouldn't be better to wait until you connect to others in you alliance. And even then wait until you start to get competition for the extra pax's?

 

1) It partly depends on what strategy you're going for. If you want to expand as fast as possible, hold off on building terminals until you have more cash than you need to lease/buy as many planes as you want. The ROI on terminals isn't bad, but you'll make money much faster investing the same amount of cash in a plane and putting it on profitable routes. Also bear in mind how high the construction cost is in relation to your monthly gate cost, if you're likely to need to rebuild the terminal to a larger size fairly shortly: sometimes it's cheaper to wait another few months and only build once. 

 

2) There's a bit of a bug with hubs, where if you create/change one at an airport where you have lots of flights, you'll have to go through and save all the routes to/from there. I suspect that partly explains why people build hubs early. Otherwise, there's not much point when you're below a certain size, but I'm not sure what that size is. Anyway, non-hub passengers are more lucrative, so you only need hub passengers if you can't fill all your planes by putting them on routes with sufficient demand. 

[Tesla]

My recommendation is to use A320 family, mainly the A319/320 models. For LCCS, 156 is a good start for A319 and 186-189 is a good start for A320, though the A320 technically only has that upgrade past 2013.

At the start. Ensure you are only using planes with 5 or more miles per passenger litre. Any less and you're throwing money in the bin. In that case, Avros, CRJ-200/700/705 is a very bad idea. CRJ-900LR is ok, but when it comes out, the CRJ-1000EL is by far the best. Who needs the full 1309 er range, or the 1009 standard range. I don't, you probably don't either

Use this formula to calculate fuel efficiency.
P-passenger numbers
FF-fuel flow
S-speed
S/(FF/P).
A good result for turboprops is 7.5 or above. For jets, it's generally above 6. That result can be hard to find in the early worlds, in late 2000s, you should have no problem

Edited by aayushg, 11 January 2015 - 09:15 PM.