11 replies to this topic

[Erion]

So R1 was just reset and hasnt even started, but some guys are overly aggressive already: Just one company put 514 daily seats on a 481 demand route (one of the best in the country)

 

How do i deal with this? Go somewhere else for the time being then try to take a piece of this route later with pricing or better aircraft? Or what? Tips would be good because this happens every server restart and i'm tired of losing then to sleep or else.

[Aviator48]

You can either directly compete or aim for other airports first. Personally, when I start off at larger airports, I aim for airports that are medium/less popular but with enough demand to gain enough profit. I usually use the 'browse airports' function using my aircrafts range and scroll a bit further down the list (anywhere from 10-30 airports down depending on origin airport size) and start there and then when I'm big enough transition into direct competition at the busiest.

[da_Master_Airliner]

You can either directly compete or aim for other airports first. Personally, when I start off at larger airports, I aim for airports that are medium/less popular but with enough demand to gain enough profit. I usually use the 'browse airports' function using my aircrafts range and scroll a bit further down the list (anywhere from 10-30 airports down depending on origin airport size) and start there and then when I'm big enough transition into direct competition at the busiest.

I agree. you've got to find perfect niches to grow from which helps you expand plus competitors might not operate there (at least not a ton of routes) and I've found that those heavily coveted routes (like JFK, ORD, MCO, LAX, SFO, SEA, LHR, CDG, PEK, HND, BKK, DEN, CLT, ATL, etc.) will always be bloated with larger airlines. and you can work around that. here are some tips to help you:

 

• Either avoid large city airports (like new york JFK, chicago ORD, los angeles LAX, etc.) and operate to secondary airports (like new york LGA or EWR, chicago MDW, long beach LGB (which is a suburb of los angeles) or Burbank BUR, etc.) those secondary cities usually see less airlines as they are smaller but on the plus side they have decent demand on routes. like when I fly to London for example I usually fly to Gatwick, or Stansted instead of heathrow.
• Start in secondary airports/cities. examples include (SLC, BUR, FLL, PHL, PIT, BOS, PDX, OAK, SJC, PDX, HOU, SAT, MSY, LGW, ORY, DME, FCO, DAX, NRT, etc.) these give you decent demand plus you might not see much competition competing for your routes. (I said might because you never know what'll happen) (plus cheaper operating gate costs)
• if you ever run into major competition you can avoid them (if you wish) but look at what they are offering and top that. Either with dropping ticket prices from $5-40 dollars under the lowest prices. or having much better service that the other. (I usually like 3-4 star IFS and 5 star IFE but that's just me  ) the reason why is that many airlines set either scam IFS which is like setting 1 star meals at $50  but if you set the higher bar and have a better route reputation and services that can really help people choose to fly with you.
• But if the default ticket price is say for example $700 dollars but the lowest competitors price is say $300 dollars you don't necessarily need to drop below that. with a ticket price that low (and i've seen low prices like $1  ) it auto generates new demand so you just stay at the $700 price and you get the demand that's set in game. newer planes I think might help on the reputation but they probably on their on won't do much.

Do all of these and you can set pretty successful airlines (in fact my record for the largest airline I operated (Air England) had over 700 aircraft 400 destinations, 10 hubs, and a whoopin $200 billion dollars in cash, + asset worth. and the coolest part was my HQ/largest hub was LHR and that's one of the hardest airports in the world to operate to as it's in a great destination + a very large airport and many have heard of it and will automatically fly there) Take my wisdom I beg of you 

 

hope this helps! 

[Erion]

Thanks for the tips, decided to focus on other cities for a while, but my base is still in a large city/airport

One more thing, is it possible to "absorb" some demand from primary airports like some airlines do in real life? For example, Azul is based in Campinas, 94km away, and starts its international flights there. Now the city itself doesnt provide enough demand for this, but they have a free-of-charge bus service from select points in São Paulo that ferry passengers from the larger city to its hub, so effectively no one will avoid the airline just because it  flies from somewhere else.

I was thinking this would be feasible with small planes or helicopters flying to a hub, but their financial losses always flinch me, and i dunno if they're being efficient at this type of feeding. If they are, then the losses are meaningless, but i dunno yet.

 

EDIT: Typos

[RubberDuckGaming]

So R1 was just reset and hasnt even started, but some guys are overly aggressive already: Just one company put 514 daily seats on a 481 demand route (one of the best in the country)

 

 

How do i deal with this? Go somewhere else for the time being then try to take a piece of this route later with pricing or better aircraft? Or what? Tips would be good because this happens every server restart and i'm tired of losing then to sleep or else.

 

The best way to counter aggressive players is to be aggressive yourself. Create Scam IFS(1 star food at max price, all amenities at max price) and create a hub at your airport. Add tens of thousands of seats to your route, set the price to $1, and you can not be competed with.

[da_Master_Airliner]

Thanks for the tips, decided to focus on other cities for a while, but my base is still in a large city/airport

One more thing, is it possible to "absord" some demand from primary airports like some airlines to in real life? For example, Azul is based in Campinas, 94km away, and starts its international flights there. Not the city itself doesnt provide enough demand for this, but they have a free-of-charge bus service from select points in São Paulo that ferry passengers from the larger city to its hub, so effectively no one will avoid the airline just because it doesnt start the flight here

I was thinking this would be feasible with small planes or helicopters flying to a hub, but their financial losses always flinch me, and i dunno if they're being efficient at this type of feeding. If they are, then the losses are meaningless, but i dunno yet.

you could do this but as AE doesn't allow for ferry buses the only way would be what you said. but there is a way to get "connection demand" where all the routes your airline flies are connected and people flying there would get to their destination. (for example say the airport has 200 Y demand daily. but your plane seats 300 Y, instead of lowering the flight frequencies to 5x weekly, you set it at 7x weekly, and the connection demand fills it in. flying a 55 mile flight would lose you money so I'd advise against it but hey that's just me 

 

P.S. doing what @rubberduckgaming said is a easy way of making money but it can get annoying for other players. so I'd advise against it. (except in R& where the "emperor" plays)

[Avelo]

you could do this but as AE doesn't allow for ferry buses the only way would be what you said. but there is a way to get "connection demand" where all the routes your airline flies are connected and people flying there would get to their destination. (for example say the airport has 200 Y demand daily. but your plane seats 300 Y, instead of lowering the flight frequencies to 5x weekly, you set it at 7x weekly, and the connection demand fills it in. flying a 55 mile flight would lose you money so I'd advise against it but hey that's just me

P.S. doing what @rubberduckgaming said is a easy way of making money but it can get annoying for other players. so I'd advise against it. (except in R& where the "emperor" plays)

In R-Alpha I have a route from CDG to PPT that has too few pax to sustain more than one weekly nonstop flight on a B747SP and it only makes just over $500 in DOP after drastically lowering F and Y class prices. No connecting pax on this route at all despite CDG being a major hub for my airline.

I know this is irrelevant to the topic but I have no clue why I can't fly from French Polynesia to a third country if it's part of France. Same with New Caledonia and French Guiana.

[da_Master_Airliner]

In R-Alpha I have a route from CDG to PPT that has too few pax to sustain more than one weekly nonstop flight on a B747SP and it only makes just over $500 in DOP after drastically lowering F and Y class prices. No connecting pax on this route at all despite CDG being a major hub for my airline.
 

did you make it a hub? or is it a base of operations you haven't declared a hub? FYI the blue means connecting pax.

[Erion]

The question about feeding services is because i could avoid congestion by setting up base in a secondary airport, but that leaves me at a disadvantage because of city demand... If i could bring people from the primary airport to my secondary in a odd flight, that could theoreticaly solve this...

I mean, i fly from Brazil, theres really no viable place to start other than Sao Paulo... Theres 2 airlines with me now, can't really avoid this if i want to be based in Brazil... Unless i could base myself, say, in Campinas and "borrow" some of Sao Paulo's demand for me

[Avelo]

did you make it a hub? or is it a base of operations you haven't declared a hub? FYI the blue means connecting pax.

Yes, it is indeed a proper hub and I get plenty of connecting pax on other routes.

[da_Master_Airliner]

The question about feeding services is because i could avoid congestion by setting up base in a secondary airport, but that leaves me at a disadvantage because of city demand... If i could bring people from the primary airport to my secondary in a odd flight, that could theoreticaly solve this...

I mean, i fly from Brazil, theres really no viable place to start other than Sao Paulo... Theres 2 airlines with me now, can't really avoid this if i want to be based in Brazil... Unless i could base myself, say, in Campinas and "borrow" some of Sao Paulo's demand for me

i've operated there before and sure sao paulo is the place to operate from but if find that brasilia, & rio de janeiro also has pretty good demand set hubs at brasilia, São Paulo, (both if possible) and Rio de Janeiro operate to all sorts of places domestically, and use aircraft (787-8) with great long range and set capacity at fly them to the other destinations, maybe also use the 767 as well. (on some rounds you can get 777s, or A330s) I started later in a world with a major competitor called "Tam" based in sao paulo and i underdrove his prices and I took care of him as he started losing so much money that he went bankrupt. drive others out. in your mind you've got to be no. 1 and no one else. (well at least in brazil) you can avoid this but it would be better in this case to drive the others out than yourself.

[RubberDuckGaming]

The question about feeding services is because i could avoid congestion by setting up base in a secondary airport, but that leaves me at a disadvantage because of city demand... If i could bring people from the primary airport to my secondary in a odd flight, that could theoreticaly solve this...

I mean, i fly from Brazil, theres really no viable place to start other than Sao Paulo... Theres 2 airlines with me now, can't really avoid this if i want to be based in Brazil... Unless i could base myself, say, in Campinas and "borrow" some of Sao Paulo's demand for me

 

Brasilia (BSB) is actually a pretty good airport in terms of demand for Brazil. At least it was when I last opened routes there.