The plane that I would make would be an STOL 150 pax twin engine jet.  At 120 pax with 2500 miles range this would allow for service to many developing pacific islands with smaller runways allowing service to one of the major airports bringing better transport for tourism to replace older and smaller aircraft in service.  This would also allow better service to mountainous and more remote points.  Something along the lines of a scaled down nextgen 787 engine.  Target sould be around 3500 foot take off or less, 3200 woiuld service 80% of smaller runways and allow use in and out of tighter airports like london city.  Possibly a Long range version with say 100 pax and 3000 miles range.

The longer range version would be useful for flying to Alaska and smaller airports in various countries. 

I factored all of the airplanes at fuel/passenger/475mph average speed.  the c406 is the most fuel efficient per passenger but the landing feex/rtaxes kill you.  so if we eliminate all planes under 50 pax because of fees and taxes, you are left with the dhc-7 as the most fuel efficient per passenger a .072lbs/passenger/mile

Firstly, 707 is better in my experience although I choose DC-8s half the time. Secondly, CL-44s and Tu-114s are extremely unrealistic, as safety restrictions have banned them in many countries and they are propeller driven. I would pick a trip on a DC-8 before any others. But then again, I don't know anyone flying Cl-44s or 707s . Ignoring that both are spammy.

TU-114 Was only replaced because the USSR did not want to fall behind the west in jet transport.  Of the 84 planes built they carried over 6 million passengers in their 12 years of service, without a single flight accident, only 2 airframes were ever lost, 1 due to the ground crew not properly plowing a runway, the wingtip hit a snowbank and the #'s 2,4 props hit the ground causing the aircraft to slam into the snow on the side of the runway, over half the passengers survived.  the only other one lost was due to a maintenance mistake.  someone pulled the wrong bolt out of the front landing gear bay, the load on the remaining bolts was too much and the gear gave. this dropped the planes nose to the concrete and cracked the main spine of the aircraft.  Until the IL96 many aeroflot officials believed that a further development of the tu-114 would have been superior to the IL-62, and also that the tu-114 was so profitable and reliable that the entire fleet would have benefitted keeping them around.

I played a few years back and ended up coming back because although there are others out there I found none of them as fun, I like micromanaging and such to a point but running a spreadsheet 8 hours a day sounds a little too much like a job then a game.  I am one of the people that looks at various things in a bit more detail and I track things like which planes have the fastest rate of return and such, but overall the timetabling is just a hassle and unnessary.  each plane can fly "x" hours a week and the computer takes care of the timetabling.  I tend to fly 1 plane out of 1 airport until it runs up to the hour limit I set for myself.  Great game, easy enough to play casually or spend some time on.

I have to add something else here the sorting options are also good but something to I have ran into is like in plane assignment it would be nice to be able to focus only onn planes you have assigned to that terminal, like when you are assigning routes and you want to make sure you use your hours left to best effect, something like an ability to ignore unassigned planes and see only those currently assigned to that terminal. 

I am not explaining this well *forgive my ADD please*  I recently got into a competition with another airline he started bouncing my hub routes, I was operating out of mostly mid to low end terminals like boise and great falls nebraska for a general range.  anyway I closed my routes and relocated my entire airline to his hq after several in game months of him showwing up on all of my best routes.  ATM I have a couple hundred puddle jumpers and reassigning all of them is a pain, because to assign the plane I am working on I have to constantly scroll down though a hundred aircraft of the same type.  The ability to switch something so the plane I am currently working on is at the top would be nice.  this could be done by allowing us to flip the order of the planes in the list so the one with fewest hours is at top, or to assign a plane to a hub and then it always whows at the top of the list when it is available.

Cl44 production dates incorrect, they are taken from WIKI, deliveries began in 1961 and were completed by january 1965. (google any production lst or the ADQ+ database) The 1971 date is most probably the delivery of the last J conversion.

 

Chris

If we are speaking IRL I agree with the earlier comments, the DC-8 and 707 series are still flown worldwide, both mainly in a military role anymore.  The CL-44 was notorious for engine problems and the TU-114 is the civillian version of one of the greatest aircraft ever made.  So I would have to stand behind the three aircraft still in service, but for game purposes, the yukon and tu-114 are profit machines.  Only time I replace them is when the 747 comes out.

My 2 cents, the boeing in this list but the tu114 and Yukon smoke all of them for profitability once you consider maintenance and fuel.