27 replies to this topic

[Pasti]

I'm making money. $216 million per day, to be exact. If you wanna be like me follow these tips.

(I have a sense of realism though. I don't spam a route with 747s 100 times a week like others do, and I don't do the infamous $1 F tickets)


1. START EARLY. The world is more unclaimed and you can establish your most foundational routes. To do this, go to the Wikipedia page for your hub airport. Look for the busiest air routes, and make those the first routes you fly.

2. UTILIZE TO THE MAX. I have a realistic airline, and I usually leave about 20 hours to get better on-time performance. But this isn't about those. Do not leave one hour unused. Even if there is only flight left in the Add Flights tab, use it. Don't waste planes.

3. USE SCAM IFS AND IFE. Set all quality options to 1 and prices to the highest for food, then in accessories charge the max. In IFE charge $30 for blasting the most ads possible and making everything the lowest quality. $706 max profit per passenger is a lot, amirite?

4. BUY USED. I placed a bulk order for 45 new B733s to replace my 732-Adv's, but that was because there were none of them on the used market. Quality doesn't matter with a spamliner. Find the lowest price for the plane you're looking for; increased maintenance costs will not hurt you financially. And don't lease once you have enough money; prices for buying planes are already low enough.

5. PRIORITIZE LONG-HAUL. You can charge more for ticket prices and your passengers will oblige, therefore more profit. It's better to fill a plane with a few long routes than tons of short ones.

6. CHARGE THE HIGHEST PRICES THAT WILL GET 100% LOAD FACTOR. And do not, whatsoever, charge $1 for Y. You might get more market share, but market share does not equal profit.

7. BUILD TERMINALS AND HUBS WHENEVER POSSIBLE. Having hubs is like an insurance plan; if someone invades your routes, you will still be covered with connecting passengers. And terminals slice most of your gate costs; a 16 gate terminal at LAX costs less than 4 leased gates at MSP.

8. DON'T BE A JERK. I put 21 weekly flights on most of my routes but that's still enough to let new people join a route and to get good profit. If you put more than 3x more seats than demand, that's being a jerk, and that doesn't give you a good reputation with other airlines. However, if you have no green passengers on routes you've dropped tons of flights on, you're still letting other airlines join in which is an exception to this.

9. JOIN ALLIANCES WITH MORE THAN 600 DESTINATIONS. They increase your reputation, and that means more passengers, which means more money.

10. FILL PLANES WITH THE DENSEST CONFIGURATIONS. Do not let one space be untouched. You're just losing passengers, and therefore money, if you don't do this.

11. PAY ATTENTION TO SPECS. Don't just buy the cheapest plane with the most seats (I'm looking at you, Dassault Mercure), look at its range, fuel flow, speed, turnaround time, etc.

12. GO TO SMALLER AIRPORTS LATER IN THE GAME. You need to get profit ASAP, and flying to smaller airports won't help that.

13. DO NOT AVOID COMPETITION UNLESS THERE'S TOO MUCH OF IT. They say there's no point in making a fraction of what you could be making, but some money is better than no money, right?

14. CHECK ROUTES OFTEN. Don't try to change prices to improve low F load factor in short haul; you can't really fix that. But if it's any other case where either F (for medium to extra long haul), C, or Y is yellow or red, look at the competition's prices, and try to stay a bit above the lowest one. If that doesn't work, change it to the lowest price or go a tiny bit below if it doesn't help.

So, this is my advice. If you have any questions leave them in the comments.

UPDATE: I AM CURRENTLY #10 IN MY WORLD AND AM THE 4TH LARGEST AIRLINE IN THE UNITED STATES. IT TURNS OUT THIS WORKS FOR GETTING TROPHIES.

UPDATE #2: I HAVE A TROPHY NOW. CHECK MY PROFILE FOR PROOF.

[Denver.]

Thanks for Killing the fun! The bird is cute! 

[Airboss777]

Quite a well thought out piece, which no doubt would have taken some time to put together & put out there for everyone. Well meaning indeed, but only half way right & seems to completely miss the bigger picture of hub & terminal networking. No offense, but maybe that's why he's not in the top 10.

 

I guess I'm one of the jerks. But in optimal mode I can play this game without touching a single green passenger. How is that selfish? They're all still there for everyone else to play with at regular competitive fares.

 

In the interests of keeping the magic a secret however, that's all I'll say.

[Michael.]

Long haul doesn't work. Short haul is what works. One should always avoid competition. To engage in competition is foolish, particularly early in the game. Points eight and nine are irrelevant. Particularly nine. Reputation means nothing. Have to agree with Airboss here.

[Pasti]

Long haul doesn't work. Short haul is what works. One should always avoid competition. To engage in competition is foolish, particularly early in the game. Points eight and nine are irrelevant. Particularly nine. Reputation means nothing. Have to agree with Airboss here.

I am currently operating in the U.S in which I started my airline 4 years after world start so there is almost no route left untouched, which means engaging in others' routes was and is necessary. Unless there is upwards of 10 different airlines competing on a route with far more seats than demand you should station some planes on it.

For long-haul, even though there is a big debate over it I have visual proof long haul brings in more money even with less flights.

And for reputation (this is from personal experience), if 3 airlines have the same prices on a route green passengers will choose the route with better reputation (blue don't care). You can also get trophies for having good reputation.

[Pasti]

Quite a well thought out piece, which no doubt would have taken some time to put together & put out there for everyone. Well meaning indeed, but only half way right & seems to completely miss the bigger picture of hub & terminal networking. No offense, but maybe that's why he's not in the top 10.
 
I guess I'm one of the jerks. But in optimal mode I can play this game without touching a single green passenger. How is that selfish? They're all still there for everyone else to play with at regular competitive fares.
 
In the interests of keeping the magic a secret however, that's all I'll say.

Well, that's an exception I'll put up.

[Airboss777]

Well, that's an exception I'll put up.

 

It's ok mate. You're obviously a committed player & you know what works for you. That's fine. As long as you enjoy playing, that's all you need. And many of the points you mentioned are relevant for a lot of players. So you've done a good thing; be proud of your work.  

 

But there are some dark-art "secrets" to this game which completely changes the way you play it. We'll have to have a private chat sometime.

[Pasti]

It's ok mate. You're obviously a committed player & you know what works for you. That's fine. As long as you enjoy playing, that's all you need. And many of the points you mentioned are relevant for a lot of players. So you've done a good thing; be proud of your work.  
 
But there are some dark-art "secrets" to this game which completely changes the way you play it. We'll have to have a private chat sometime.

Thanks!

[davedave]

1) Play on Saturdays, that's when planes hit the used market.

2) Starting strategy doesn't make any noticeable difference.

3) The only thing that really matters is getting all the planes from the used market.

4) That, and using the exploits, since that now seems to be permitted/required. 

5) If the exploiting ever stops, then you can just run any ordinary strategy with scam IFS/IFE and you'll be fine as long as you dominate the used market.

6) Focus on efficient use of your time, not efficient use of planes/capital.

 

That's about it. You can spend way too much time on the details, but it's not going to matter if you have 3x the fleet of the next biggest airline.

[Airboss777]

1) Play on Saturdays, that's when planes hit the used market.

2) Starting strategy doesn't make any noticeable difference.

3) The only thing that really matters is getting all the planes from the used market.

4) That, and using the exploits, since that now seems to be permitted/required. 

5) If the exploiting ever stops, then you can just run any ordinary strategy with scam IFS/IFE and you'll be fine as long as you dominate the used market.

6) Focus on efficient use of your time, not efficient use of planes/capital.

 

That's about it. You can spend way too much time on the details, but it's not going to matter if you have 3x the fleet of the next biggest airline.

 

1) Wrong

2) Wrong

3) It helps, but wrong.

4) You have to know what they are first

5) It wont

6) Wrong

[WAZZ]

1) Play on Saturdays, that's when planes hit the used market.

2) Starting strategy doesn't make any noticeable difference.

3) The only thing that really matters is getting all the planes from the used market.

4) That, and using the exploits, since that now seems to be permitted/required. 

5) If the exploiting ever stops, then you can just run any ordinary strategy with scam IFS/IFE and you'll be fine as long as you dominate the used market.

6) Focus on efficient use of your time, not efficient use of planes/capital.

 

That's about it. You can spend way too much time on the details, but it's not going to matter if you have 3x the fleet of the next biggest airline.

1) I've never seen a correlation of a day and the used market. Ever.

2) Partially right. Where you start kinda matters, but as long as you expand fast you'll be fine

3) There's more to it than that

4) This game isn't Pokemon Red, you actually have to do something. You can't glitch your way to victory.

5) What

6) Contradicts point 3.

[Stevphfeniey]

"I find if I'm working on a problem, if the solution isn't beautiful then I know I've done it wrong"

Just do your best, make a cool airline, and remember failure is always an option on AE.

[Abhorsen]

Partially right. Where you start kinda matters, but as long as you expand fast you'll be fine

Can't say I agree that where you start matters all that much. Operating an Ethiopian airline in R6, I can tell you that connecting passengers can still be found easily enough, as long as you have at least one large-ish airport to start from in the country (Addis Ababa was enough for me) and enough airports with runways long enough to land widebody aircraft at to continue expanding.

[Michael.]

1) Wrong

2) Wrong

3) It helps, but wrong.

4) You have to know what they are first

5) It wont

6) Wrong

Well said. Could not have been said more effectively.

 

3) The only thing that really matters is getting all the planes from the used market.

Can I just point out that I'm leading the way by a long way in R4 without having touched the used market

 

it's not going to matter if you have 3x the fleet of the next biggest airline.

No, check out the rankings in R0. Second place has almost 3 times the fleet of first place (12258 vs 4100) yet first place is generating far more profits.

[iquit]

Ethiopian airline in R6

The questions is, can you hold the position until the world ends?

 

leading the way by a long way in R4 without having touched the used market

You don't even have to spam if you pick the right opponents. In a multi player game, it is not about what you do, but who your opponents are. You just need to do all they do, plus one more thing they don't know.

 

 

I suppose both of you are too bored and thus openly invite someone to overtake you?

[Abhorsen]

The questions is, can you hold the position until the world ends?

Who knows. I'm at the point now though where being in Ethiopia doesn't make any difference whatsoever, I could be in the United States at this point in the game and growing at the same speed. Hopefully I can hold but the fact I'm Ethiopian won't have any bearing on whether I do or not.

[Denver.]

**COMMENT WITHDRWAN BY DENVER**

[Pineair]

All I csn say is that your childish choice of livery seems to contradict the idea that you are trying to offer helpful advice.

[Michael.]

I suppose both of you are too bored and thus openly invite someone to overtake you?

If someone new comes, I'll deal with it. 

[Abhorsen]

Why can't we all just enjoy playing this game having our own rules and not giving a s*** as to why other players have ATR and A380 on the same route. It helps but doing spamlines are not nice cause you spoil the market being an airline in Nigeria.

Is this aimed at me? (Sorry, can't quite tell)