26 replies to this topic

[RmTrice]

Hey guys. I have a question for all those airlines that have extensive international networks in the game. I am currently ranked in the top 25 (sim2) and am looking at expanding internationally out of my two main hubs. The only problem is that I am having a hard time finding profit! (my A380 is only making a little less than $400,000!) I feel that I have built up my main hub enough to have substantial profits on asian/european routes. However, that dosent appear to be the case. Does anyone have any advice as how to increase or maximize profits on international routes? Thanks!

[YamazaruNinja]

Umm... nope. Stupid enough... I don't own any routes. Ask random airlines ranked in the top 10 (most of the time it works) I'm only in the top 120:p.

[Watsup Airways]

Im currently ranked 13 in sim 2.

$400,000 can be a lot depending on the route. I can get up to $800,000 on the really lucritave routes, but when competition comes in you cant get that kind of profit. Also an A380 is not usually the best plane for the route. 787s and A333s are usually more pfofitable unless there is a huge demand. Also use of multiple frequencies can help a lot, 3 A380s making $300,000 each is much better than one A380 making $500,000

Try looking for routes with no competition. What are your hubs, maybe I can help you out.

[gba222]

I'm number 10 in sim2 (and sometimes moonlight as number 9 when i'm feeling lucky), 400,000 is actually quite average for an A380 unfortunately. The real money is in high-capacity shorthaul, where I have A330's earning in excess of 1,000,000 on single routes alone. I have some A320's and 757's that earn more from one route than some 777's do on several.

Problem is, it'll get worse as it goes on, i've already had airlines higher up than me move into virtually every one of my hubs (notably KaiElEm, but he's everywhere anyway & competition is a good thing - I make much more on routes where I have competitors, than I do on monopoly routes), so i'm having to totally re-adjust my international strategy. My profits on international routes have plummeted recently, and I doubt i'll be in the top 10 for too much longer.

I could be doing better and getting more out of my aircraft, but i'm pressed for time, so I can't really compete all that effectively at the moment.

[RmTrice]

Thanks for all the insight. I'll probably just increase my domestic capacity by adding a bunch of A330s on some of my high-density routes, while just havin a handfull of international ones. It sucks because the 19 airlines ahead of me are most likely gonna end up running me out of the top 25, but I gotta keep fighting. Whatsup, my hubs are DTW and DEN in case u have any more advice.

[gba222]

Well, don't just dump capacity - that won't necessarily work, just carefully review your most profitable routes.

[Watsup Airways]

I am not very familior with DEN or DTW, but you should be able to do some profitable routes to Heathrow (get gates fast) Charles De Gaul (get gates fast) Frankfurt (if they have gates left) Rome, Moscow, Amsterdam, Dublin, Eidinburgh. For DEN you may want to look into the Asian market (Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing)

You should get good profit on long range domestic routes like DEN-MIA and DEN-BOS as well as DTW-LAX and DTW-SAN

I have gotten the A380 to output $1,000,000 but only on the longer range domestic routes. On European routes I usually can't get more than $500,000 on any plane, unless I get lucky. Most of the European routes I have to share with KaaiElEm as he moved into my MCO hub :sniff:

It would be likely to be more profitable if you open a hub in Europe too. The fuel costs will be much lower than transatlantic

One last word, look for non competitive routes before competitive ones.

[RmTrice]

Yea, i thought about opening up a hub in europe. It just seems so well established already and it'l be hard to get pax to start flying my airline with so many others. But, i do agree that i need to upgrade most of my domestic fleet to larger/widebody aircraft. DEN-MIA got me like 100,000 flat, but DTW-LAX has been doing me well for a long time now. With just over 2 billion in cash, I'll just have to order up a bunch of A330s and get to work.

[Josh426]

the problem is not necessarily your routes but there are some others that have cheated from the beginning and now have such a large amount of planes that they do not care about the money anymore. i know by me saying this i have a few people that are getting mad as they are reading this and that is not what i am out to do, but i had a nice route. was making about 450000 on it. then a few other airlines jumped on and started playing the pricing game to the point now where a few guys have 380s flying in and are charging 0.00 . now i might not be a the smartest guy here, but a 380 international route charging 0 ( yes zero ) per ticket... hmm i do not think he is making a profit there.

[RmTrice]

Yea, i totally feel u. I was makin 1,200,000 on DTW-ORD and a bunch of airlines decided to join in. I got angry and placed an A380 on there 4 times daily and hopefully some ppl will just give up cause even though im only makin about 30,000, i got a 100% load factor. Thats a little more than 2,000 seats a day. lol My concern now is that I dont have too much more i can do domestically besides improve DEN. Internationally... well... thats gonna be incredibly difficult to start up but im sure i can find an airport to grow out of.

btw, anyone know KaaiElEm's story? His plan of starting out in South Africa seems pretty ingenious if there's really that much money to make there. He rose to the top almost instantly and is just an enormous airline. Number 2 cant even really be compared to him! lol Incredible.

[Josh426]

his story is quite interesting if you ask me. while i can not say 100% what happened there i started shortly after he did on the same day. i started out of MUC and had several great routes. but while i was trying to make enough to purchase more planes he jumped from 2 to 3 to 5 to 9 etc.. in no time at all... ironically there are quite a few airlines starting at the same time that are still listed in the game but have 0 planes and 0 routes.. strange but everyone else is all within reach in a way except for 1 person who is so far out it someone kills the game.

[drv4truk]

the problem is not necessarily your routes but there are some others that have cheated from the beginning and now have such a large amount of planes that they do not care about the money anymore.

Once you make so much money, you get to the point where you have more aircraft coming in then you have time to make routes for. One way to make money (Add Value) without creating routes is to just order aircraft in bulk at the discounted prices. This way, you only spend the discounted aircraft price, but gain the aircrafts value.

[RmTrice]

Once you make so much money, you get to the point where you have more aircraft coming in then you have time to make routes for. One way to make money (Add Value) without creating routes is to just order aircraft in bulk at the discounted prices. This way, you only spend the discounted aircraft price, but gain the aircrafts value.

And what exactly would I do with the aircraft? Just slowly work them in as i find routes to replace them with? I figure having a bunch of unused aircraft just costs money due to the cost of employees that are added.. idk exactly how that work in sim2.

yea, josh, i find KaaiElEm very interesting. Im not gonna cry cheat just because someone is doing way better than i or anyone else in the game for that matter, i just wish i knew his strategy!

[Watsup Airways]

KaaiElEm's story is quite unusual, I dont know who would fly into NDjamea Chad on vacation. Furthermore, I dont know how an airport that has like 5 aircraft stands in real life could handle a superworldwide hub.

Anyway I spoke to him at the begining of the game when he had 4 aircraft and I had two. Of course I started a month after the game started so he had a huge head start on me. Since there was a month change he probably got one on sale and bought a brand new one here. I dont suspect a cheat, he just must have found an incredibly lucrative route just for a B1900.

My downside... I have school starting up and wont have a huge amount of time to spend on the game anymore. :sniff:

At least last round Midway was close to KaaiElEm, no one is near him now, but the rest are fairly close.

[Timsher]

For some reason this reminds me of that one airline who bought 1000 brand new beeches a long time ago, I wonder how many of them he got

http://forums.airlin...read.php?t=1266

[Glennos]

KaaiElEm's story is quite unusual, I dont know who would fly into NDjamea Chad on vacation. Furthermore, I dont know how an airport that has like 5 aircraft stands in real life could handle a superworldwide hub.

Anyway I spoke to him at the begining of the game when he had 4 aircraft and I had two. Of course I started a month after the game started so he had a huge head start on me. Since there was a month change he probably got one on sale and bought a brand new one here. I dont suspect a cheat, he just must have found an incredibly lucrative route just for a B1900.

My downside... I have school starting up and wont have a huge amount of time to spend on the game anymore. :sniff:

At least last round Midway was close to KaaiElEm, no one is near him now, but the rest are fairly close.

Well I can't see anyone getting close as I will be ordering 200 a380's a day soon so that will be an extra 15 billion on my company value due to discounts alone ;-)

I started with 2 beeches and bought a 2 cheap ones and fly the lucrative Africa market, you know full of diamond smugglers and gold propectors , hahaha.

I already mentioned before the LF's are screwed up in Africa search for the thread it's around somewhere of course you have to get in there first to take adantage.

And my final say:

As for realism , wahaha, come one , is it realistic why the most people fly 1000x LAS - LAX in the beginning i don't hink so somehow, the whole game is unrealistic I have just taken advantage of a screwed up LF script like Midway did last round and like someone else will next round ad infinitum until it is fixed.

[EXTspotter]

Africa was a goldmine this round. Many people didn't even look at it, only 5 or 6 airlines put themselves there. I was one of them, I had hubs in Dakar, Asmara and Ouagadougou. Because so few people were playing, you had monopoly on most routes and the load factorbug would give you a huge number of prospective passengers, when there wern't any really. You could make huge amount in africa on the A319. It had the perfect capacity and range needed.

[RmTrice]

I thought about opening up a 3rd hub in africa, but i definitely thing it's best for me not to even touch Africa and stay on kaaielem's good side for fear of him taking over DTW or DEN on me. lol I have my own problems that have just surfaced up in Detroit.

[Josh426]

i too am not going to say anyone is cheating. i am sure there are some people that found a loophole or something but he more power to them. it happens in the real world too, plus it is just a game. HOW EVER when i started this route there were 15 players. everyone at that time had two planes. i found a great start for my planes and was pulling in over 150000 per leg on both. that night i logged back in and a few more people started and there were 6 airlines with 0 planes that sold the planes they had to someone at the lowest possible price. just look at the rankings at airlines like echojet, italy airlines, biatch air, ual corp, etc... all 0 planes.. i will admit i have 2 airlines running this game. but they were started by me and another person who then lost interest and i just took over the operation. i wish i could have merged them, but that is currently not a option.

i am just here to have fun playing a very addictive game. i just think it is more fun to be in last place and build something honestly then in the top 5 and have to cheat the system a bit to get there.

josh

[Timsher]

i will admit i have 2 airlines running this game. but they were started by me and another person who then lost interest and i just took over the operation. i wish i could have merged them, but that is currently not a option.

It's best to just shut down the lesser of the two airlines when something like that comes up. The running of two airlines is not thought of kindly by the community.