What I’ve learned so far in AE
1. Introduction
2. Aircraft selection
3. Cabin layout
4. IFE
5. IFS
6. Competition
7. Awards
8. Runway length
9. Destinations
10. Alliances
11. Headquarter country
12. Political restrictions
13. A nice tweak for knowing airport offer vs. demand (Excel)
14. Some routes you want to fly but won’t give profit
15. Reputation
16. Negotiations with competition and agreements
17. Shared control
1. Introduction
In this document, I’ll share with you a couple of things I’ve learned about this wonderful game. Of course, it’s based on my own experience, and gameplay can be quite different between users.
2. Aircraft selection
Most of us have some sort of brand fanatism, the world is full of Boeing or Airbus fans. But this must not be something to take into account when selecting our aircraft, since we must choose the most reliable and efficient aircraft for our airline.
A simple calculation we can make, is to divide the fuel flow of the aircraft, by the number of seats it allows, therefor we’ll have the fuel flow/seat ratio.
Here’s an example:
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We need to cover a range up to 3500 mi. It’s 1976 and we decided to choose between the Boeing 707-220 and the Airbus A300B4.
These are the specs we look for:
Boeing 707-220
Range: 3728 mi
Max seats: 179
Fuel flow: 50,560
Fuel flow/seats ratio: 282.45
Airbus A300B4
Range: 3824 mi
Max seats: 345
Fuel flow: 37,904
Fuel flow/seats ratio: 109.86
This gives us an obvious choice, the A300B4 (I’m a Boeing fan, so I’m not happy with the choice, but it’s the one that will make my airline the most profit). Of course, you may consider many other aircraft, just make sure you get the one it fits best on the routes you’ll be flying. Another thing to take into account, is the price of the aircraft. You can also make a Price/Seats ratio to get the best result.
One other thing you must do, is compromise with an aircraft family. Every aircraft family you have, it’ll pay a base maintenance cost, so the number of families must be short. At the beginning you should handle one aircraft family, that way you minimise maintenance costs, and if you need long and short haul, two families would suffice that demand. In my case, in a map that starts in 1975, I start with the 722Adv for short haul, and then I get some 742Bs for medium and long haul. Just remember, keep aircraft families short, when you’re on your tracks, you can start having a more diverse fleet.
3. Cabin layout
This is mostly up to you, but here are some tips of my own. If you want to have an airline with good reputation, the legroom is one of the things it gives you extra points. I never use the whole space in the cabin, so seats have better legroom. I usually leave at least 10% of the aircraft free. If you can put in 200 seats, I put 160.This gives legroom for my passengers. After setting the seating configuration, you’ll get to choose the IFE (In-flight Entertainment).
Here’s an example of my own cabin layout:
4. IFE
In-flight entertainment is another way to improve your reputation. The better the IFE, more reputation points you’ll get. I myself choose to give the passengers the best available at the time, and always updating IFE on the aircrafts when something new is available. I spare no expense on the systems, always selecting the best quality and the most amenities I can have. But that’s up to you, since some users only concentrate on the airline valuation, I put my efforts on the reputation.
Here’s an example of my own IFE:
5. IFS
The In-flight service is one of the priorities when looking for a good reputation. Of course, the IFS must be according to the class and the flight length. In a short haul flight you won’t offer breakfast, launch, dinner and snacks, it would break down any profit you could make.
Here’s an example of my Economy cabin short to medium haul IFS:
And here’s an example of my configurations:
6. Competition
Competition is harsh, fares drop, and you may go bankrupt if you don’t pay attention to your routes. You should always check if your routes are right on track or if some other airline took the lead. If yours is the last one, you might need to adjust your fares. Here’s an example:
Fozzie Bear Air is using the same route as I. He has a best fare, but since my reputation is quite good, I still carry passengers. Now, to get more passengers with me, I must change my fares without compromising the service.
There we go, I recovered the lead on the route, and I make much more profit since my aircraft have a greater loadfactor.
A quick way to see which routes are losing or making little profit, is clicking at the navigation menu, ROUTES. Then you sort them by profit, and voilá!
You can see that all my routes give profit, and that the loadfactor is mostly full.
7. Awards
There are two kind of awards, the ones by airline valuation, and the ones by airline reputation. By valuation it’s simply the top 10 most valued airlines. Gold for the first place, silver for 2nd and 3rd, and bronze for 4th to 10th. For reputation is much the same, but the only difference is that usually you can share a position with some other airline, even if oyu hit 100% reputation, and someone else does, you both have first place and will be awarded Gold for Reputation.
In your profile you can look for your awards under the awards section.
8. Runway length
Oh, those damn airports with short runway. While choosing your aircrafts, one thing you must do, is check the airport’s runway length. Most main airports have long runways, over 9000ft, but some of them, like AEP which is the second most important airport in Argentina, but has a runway length of 6890ft. Long haul flights get complicated, until the A350 or 787-8 are available. So choose wisely your aircrafts.
9. Destinations
Some destinations are a must-do. Main airports of the globe are the ones with most passenger demand, therefor, the ones more congested. If you need help locating those airports, you can search on wikipedia for the busiest airports in the world, or by continent, and even country. Here’s an example:
With this information you can get the most popular routes and make a lot of profit. AE seems to be based on real data, so the numbers are quite correct, I checked it.
10. Alliances
Being part of an alliance gives you a couple of benefits. You have code-shared flights, which will help you fill those empty seats, and also you get a reputation boost. The best you can do is join an alliance with many airlines, so you get 100% on points based on alliance destinations. Some alliances have agreements with other alliances about the routes they can fly. Some other alliances are designated for airlines from some continent, or region. Read carefully the description so you can know what’s the alliance about.
11. Headquarter country
When choosing your country, you must consider the airport with most traffic available, so you have it easier to make a profit. In my case I always use Turkey since I have Turkish Airlines, and the airport I choose is IST (Istanbul Atatürk), the one with most traffic in the country. Afterwards I’ll start routing from the other one in Istanbul, and Ankara. IST is one of the airports with most traffic in the world, so it’s a great choice. Beware, if you settle there, you’ll be with me, and I shall destroy you! Hahaha, it’s a joke. But competition will be there, always.
I encourage you to choose your own country, just to give the game a bit of diversity, but like myself, at the moment I have two airlines in Turkey, and one in my home country, Argentina (Very low traffic).
12. Political restrictions
Some countries share their skies, but some others don’t. This applies to maps with political restrictions. In Europe you might be able to make flight from another european country that’s not yours to any other destination, but in other airports outside EU, you can’t. In the airlines I have in Argentina, I can’t make flights without one of it’s ends being in Argentina. Of course, I don’t know all the political restrictions there are, but I you should research on your own countries.
13. Tweak to assign flights
Here I will hand over an Excel spreadsheet so you can quickly calculate the frequency of flights you should assign to every route. First you fill up all your aircraft capacities on Y seating. After that, you only put the daily demand, and you’ll have the result of how many flights you should assign to that route with all the aircraft you have.
14. Some routes you want to fly but won’t give profit (they might even give loss)
Sometimes, just to get more destinations at a very low cost, you can put small aircraft (with little seating space) working on very short routes, just for the sake of getting more destinations and getting better reputation. Also you can make that to get some aircraft who are flying on some route, and you can make them depart from some other airport.
Example:
You have an aircraft flying from Istanbul to Athens, but the aircraft has 70 hours left to use. Then you make just one flight to Adana, and then you make it go from Adana to anywhere else. This way you can use the aircraft for many routes, even if the flight from Istanbul to Adana gives little or no profit at all.
15. Reputation
This one is a tricky one. There are many variables which make your reputation, even ones I’m not aware of. But let me tell you about the ones I know:
On-time performance: To get OTP points, you need to give the aircraft some spare time for delays. If you use your aircrafts whole avail time, they won’t have time for any unexpected delays. So, what you do is not use the whole aircraft hours, and you leave them with some spare hours. I usually leave them with 30 to 40 hours to spare, and gives me a good OTP. But OTP is also influenced by staff. You need to keep those boys happy so they dispatch the aircraft in time for their next flight. Keep staff happy, improve salaries, give bonus from time to time.
IFE: Having a very good IFE will also help on your reputation.
IFS: IFS should also be adequate for every route you have.
Flight frequency: This one is a priority. It’s indispensable for you to assign the correct aircraft to the routes so you can have a good frequency. If you have a destination with a daily demand of 120 passengers, and you put a 747 on that route, you’ll have very little frequency, and that’s bad. You better put an aircraft that can at least fly 7 times a week, to ensure a daily flight AT LEAST.
More destinations: If you reach 200 unique destinations, you’ll have an extra reputation. Keep those boys flying everywhere.
Alliance network bonus: If the alliance you’re in has 600 unique destinations, you’ll have 10 points.
Employee morale: Keep your staff happy, and your reputation will go up.
Age of airline: After 3 years, you get all the points.
Average fleet age: Replace your old aircraft. The older aircraft you have, the less points you get. Modernise the fleet, you’ll also save cash on fuel.
Financial health: This point is about your finances. If you have a lot of bonds, or you hit every now and then negative balance, you’ll have less points. Keep balance positive, and issue bonds only when necessary.
16. Negotiation with competition and agreements
This one is up to you. Some of us like to talk to other users, while some others just compete without socialising. If you’re the social type, you can talk to other competitors so you can make arrangements for routes you might share. This can be pretty handy, and may assure some sort of stability, but you have to be quite political.
17. Shared control
You have friends in AE? Would you like them to help you control your airline? You can!
Ask for your friend’s forum ID, and then go to Airline options on the navigation menu, and hit the tab Shared Control. Add the ID and click save. That’s it!
Well, that's everything for now. I hope it helps you and I'm sorry if it's a bit messy. Cheers!