I'm rather a fan of the whole "brand revival" thing. I like the choice to keep the classic Olympic look: the rings and the majestic dark blue color. 

My only suggestion would be to find a way to take over the blank space at the front and center of the fuselage. Maybe try a minimalist "rings-only" type-aspect and see how that looks? 

Considering that you have a hub in Boston and occupy 13 gates, I personally would begin to consider building a terminal but hold some reservations. 

Building a terminal is very cost effective: the amount you spend on gate leasing fees is dramatically reduced (instead of like $300k per gate, it's about $150-200k in total times the number of expansions you've made). 

I'll provide my hub of Minneapolis as an example: I used to have 25 gates leased, with a total monthly leasing cost of about $20 million / month. I replaced it with a 28-gate terminal for about $115 million upfront, and my cost of operation went down to $160,000. I've expanded it twice, so I'm paying about $480,000 / month now ($160,000 times 3 total expansions/buildings), but overall I'm still saving a lot.

The problem arises when you are a smaller airline — sure, a terminal will reduce the amount of money you spend per month, but there's a large upfront cost that will take some airlines many weeks, months, or even years to collect, especially if operating out of a large airport like Boston. Leasing gates can also provide for more flexibility, in which you don't have to build a costly expansion everytime you need more slots. I'd personally recommend that you wait until you occupy around 20 gates, then build a terminal with around 25 to allow for some more expansion. Note that there is a flat expansion cost added to the number of gates you want to add — try to have as few gate expansions as possible. 

If you read above I'm not trying to change A/C types, just adding another. Also I don't want to go after smaller jets as I'm trying to keep my maintenance down as much as possible so I can charge less on routes. I'd be interested in order the A321 for trans-atlantic routes in the future maybe, but I don't really want to go larger than the A319

You seem to be really focused on the 100- to 130-seat market, and in your game, it is fall 2000. If you're adamant about avoiding the Airbus A320 family because of its size, but don't want regional jets, I'd recommend the 717-200. It has a max capacity of 134 (around that of the 737-600), and it has a shorter turnaround time, less runway use, and a much lower price and roughly the same fuel flow (depending on which engines you pick). It ends production in 2007, but for now, it should be a good aircraft with less of a maintenance cost.

New GIMP sucks, to be honest.
2.8 is way simpler to get around for me and it’s much easier on my eyes.

This is a nice one. Good job!

 

Tbh, GIMP is not my favourite. I've it in my computer but haven't opened it for years.

I don't know why. I think it's because I don't like the interface.

GIMP is no one's favourite. It's hideous, unusually complex, and unintuitive. The only thing it has going for it is that it's free and powerful: something that has kept me with GIMP as much as I dislike it. I'm changing over to Photoshop first chance I get.

I searched maple leaf.That is the real logo,made by tronto maple leafs (owner).

Perhaps what OtakuWeebster was saying was that you should try making your own logos. Pre-existing logos you download from a Google search is 1) stealing, but perhaps more importantly, 2) uncreative (and yes, I know that people do it anyway). If you look into the gallery, I just made Northeastern's maple leaf a few days ago in GIMP. If you want, I can help you make your own logo.

The pinned tutorial is from 2011, and has lost relevance. Wsoliman's tutorial is woefully inadequate. Many denounce GIMP as being simple, and complex to use. I present to you my own, complete tutorial on GIMP and its inner workings. Note that this tutorial is based on the macOS operating system.

Step 1. Download

The official website for GIMP is www.gimp.org. From there, you may download and install it onto your computer. Note that GIMP works for Windows, macOS, and Linux (pick your poison). From there, add it to your list of applications and launch it. You should get a blank screen that looks somewhat like this:

Step 2. Add Templates

You guys all know where Med's templates are. As a refresher, they're here. Download them, and then keep them in a safe and organized place so you know where to access them later (and while you're at it, consider helping Med out with a donation or something?). Once you've done that, double-click on the template to add it into GIMP. The .psd should be recognized by GIMP and opened automatically. If it does not, right-click on it and then click "Open With" and then select "GIMP." As an example, I've picked the 737-800. It should look something like this:

Step 3. Layers

A key aspect of GIMP (and most painting programs) is the layering options. Think of them like an onion, in which one layer goes over another. Note that Med has arranged his templates so that the base layer is in white ("FUSELAGE," for example), and all details (ie. "FUSELAGE EFFECTS") go above it. When painting, make sure that your paint goes in a new layer between the base layer and the detail layers. That way, the paint looks accurate. Also know that some templates, like the 737, offer multiple variants. Clicking on the eyeball will make layers visible or invisible: you can make the regular wing invisible and the wingletted wing visible, for example, to change the variant. That looks something like this:

Step 4. Painting

Now is when you can really get to town. I'm going to use a real-life airline for an example, in this case, something simple like Delta. First and foremost, remove all unnecessary layers. In my case, I've removed the eyebrow windows and the metal overlay.

Now, you get to add a new layer. Directly below all the layers are the layer modification tools: the left-most one will add a new layer. Position it where you'd like, and then name it something memorable. Below, I've created a new layer for the fuselage, and called it "FUSELAGE_PAINT."

Here's the fun part. Select a colour with the two swatches of colour on the left-hand side: change the top one to the colour of your choice. In Delta's case, it would be their signature blue colour, which I've added.

But, how do you paint within the lines? The answer: select tools. The left-hand side is full of tools for this purpose. Most are self-explanatory: the rectangle select tool makes rectangles of the size you drag, the ellipse select tool does basically what the rectangle select tool does, but for ellipses, etcetera. Free select lets you either hand-draw what you want or make a custom polygon out of straight lines. My favourite tool, however, is the paths tool, which is arguably the most complicated. Basically, it works like the free select tool, except you can click-and-drag to add curves to your pathways. When you're done, click "selection from path." I've done this below with the Delta 73H's belly paint.

You may ask now: what about the overhang? This is solved with layer masking, which is straightforward when you figure out what it is. This is going to differ from SKY's tutorial, but the principle is roughly the same. Using the base layer ("FUSELAGE," in this case), go to Layer > Mask > Add Layer Mask > Layer's Alpha Channel. On the paint layer, use the rectangle select tool to crop the layer to be the same size as the fuselage's (Layer > Crop to Selection). From there, repeat what you just did with the base layer, adding a layer mask to the paint too. Both layers should now have a layer mask on them. All you have to do now is hit Cmd-C on the fuselage's layer mask, and Cmd-Z it to the paint's. From there, hit the anchor below the list of layers to adhere the new layer mask. Voilà, conforming paint. 

All you really need to do is keep doing this for all the other layers (tail, engines, etc.) until you get a plane that resembles your aircraft. You can also use other tools to add touches you want (ie. the text tool for registrations or aircraft titles), or use File > Open as Layers in order to add logos or whatnot to your livery. 

Step 5. Finishing Touches

In order to add realism, consider adding details to make your livery realistic. You can do this by blocking windows, changing door outline colours, etc. in order to get an aircraft that looks like it could work in the real world. I've finished the Delta 737-800 below, complete with registration. 

Step 6. Exporting

To export a GIMP image, just use Cmd-E and hit enter. It'll create an exported .png image directly next to the .xcf file in which you've saved the image. From there, all you need to do is upload it and add it here.

And voilà! You have successfully created a livery! Most stuff on GIMP is relatively straightforward, but if you need any help (gradients, colour exchange, etc.), feel free to ask me. I highly recommend trying to replicate a real-world livery, getting to know how to use GIMP successfully before you go on to try to make your own unique livery. 

Introduction

Recent news states that Air Albania, a flag carrier, will be formed by Turkish Airlines and MDN Investment. Considering the awful renderings that have been posted on news websites, Air Albania needs a new, fresh, and modern livery. This challenge is meant to spark imagination and see what the community is able to create. 

In replies below, please include your submissions for a potential livery for Air Albania by 23 June 2018. From there, submissions will be collected and a voting process will begin from 23 June 2018 until 30 June 2018, after which a victor will be announced. Feel free to any supporting materials (be that stationery, branding materials, airport vehicles, etc), but note that submissions must contain a livery. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me via PM here on AE or on the AE Discord. 

Unlike Duncorp's Lufthansa challenge, Air Albania does not hold a specific logo, history, or colour scheme. You are invited to create your own logo and colour scheme, and (if you'd like) to place it within an AE alliance or backstory.

Submission Guidelines

1. Please use an appropriate choice of aircraft for your livery (please, no A380s or Concordes).

2. An effort should be made to include Albanian national symbols and/or colours, even if submissions are not required to include either.

3. All materials used are required to either be original or include credit as to their origin.

4. Your submission should be added on time — late submissions will not be accepted.

5. You are limited to one submission per person, so make your submission count.

6. "Joke" submissions will be rejected immediately; N664US reserves the right to reject any submission for any reason.

7. All submissions should retain the name "Air Albania" and hold a feasible backstory.

Suggested Examples

Albanian Airlines by keanseeley

Albanian Airlines by Viero

Air Albania by vsauce

The winner will receive both brownie points and a potential prize that is TBD. Best of luck to you all!

"C2" sounds kind of... unnatural. If you try and put it into a situation in which airline names would be used, it seems kind of choppy."

"Thank you for flying C2 Airlines."

"I'm flying C2 to Edmonton."

The name also doesn't fit well with the whole "legacy carrier" effect. It sounds low-cost, and I wouldn't consider flying a "C2" in business class transatlantically if I heard it off of name alone.

Not to mention, a name should have some history behind it. If it's going to be "C2," then the name should at least be derived from something with two C's. I personally still think CAS was a better name... although if you pull something of a JAS (Japan Air System), you might get by with sticking with the name rather than its acronym. "Canadian Air System" is still on the rough + choppy side though.

petition to include layer masks because they make nicer lines compared to fuzzy select

That's more or less exactly how it works, but you might think of it as though it does it automatically. 

 

When your airline establishes a hub, you can get connecting passengers in flights to and from your hub airport(s).

 

When you join an alliance, you get connecting passengers from their hubs, and vice-versa. 

Not to mention the bonus in reputation you get. If your alliance serves over 600 destinations combined, you'll also get an extra 10% of your reputation, with that percentage amount varying depending on the number of destinations served (hence an alliance serving 300 destinations will have 5% extra reputation). If you're going for an airline with a really high reputation, I'd recommend joining an alliance for reputation purposes as well.

Not picturing what you're trying to say here, sorry man!

The so-called "dorsal fin" is the extension of the tailfin outwards, found on the 737-300 and later. 

Presently, the dorsal fin has been painted blue. Thus, a blue extension is seen.

Here, the dorsal fin has been left white. As a result, only the main part of the tailfin is painted.

Try changing your livery such that the tail leaves the dorsal fin (mostly) white, with an adapted curve.

It just needs a simple range/payload demand curve. Code exists in other sims...

I think that the main issue with a "simple" fix like that is best described by your response in http://www.airline-e...de-share/page-2. 

 

 

Sorry I can't, I have bills, jobs, startup projects,  a life and adult things to do. 

It's going to be a long while before many things are even added to AE 3/4/whatever considering we all (including Yuxi) have things to do and lives to live. 

8400 feet as per this airliners.net thread (bottom reply).  

That is, however, not how planes work in real life. One of the main issues I've seen with take-off performance is that it doesn't vary like payload does because of range. Rather, it's a fixed value where being over a specific number means you can fly, and being below it means you cannot, even if there are many examples that contradict it.

London Luton is a good example of this, with a 7100-foot runway. Courtline, ATA, ECU Air / Air Ops Europe and others have all flown the L-1011 into Luton at some time. This, however, is possible because the 8400-foot statistic refers to at MTOW, which assumes that the aircraft is completely full of fuel, passengers, and cargo. This, however, is untrue mostly because aircraft flying out of Luton most likely didn't use a full load of fuel (and hence were under MTOW, using less runway). 

The same can be seen at many airports globally, where airports fall short of the 8400-foot line but still had L-1011 service. New York-Laguardia (7000 ft), Maui (7000 ft), Chicago-Midway (6500 ft) and others had some form of L1011 service, although all came with restrictions (LGA had regular service possible because most routes were limited in range, DL flew LAX-OGG as OGG-HNL-LAX on the return to deal with runway length, and MDW could only have occasional L1011 flights from ATA during rare circumstances in which the aircraft didn't fly far). 

Allowing the L-1011-1 into LTN in-game would require a change in how runway length usage is calculated, with factors like weight-and-balance and winds and whatnot taking part in limiting your actual range or payload from airports. 

I'm going to try and make a few suggestions, and I'm hoping they're "constructive" enough.

1. The blue: yes, blue and red lettering has won awards (and North Carolina's license plate is pretty great), but there's too much going on. From the waves at the bottom of the fuselage, to the stripes on the tail, to the jagged pattern on the engines, and the odd light blue on the top deck of the 747, it looks cluttered. If you have just one or two of them, it's fine. But having so many things going on at one time makes the eyes strain.

2. The font: Red provides a nice contrast. But, if you're going for a large airline (especially one that operates 747s and is #1 on S1), then you're going to need a different font. Writing "Wright Brothers" (especially with the apostrophe) with that font looks cartoonish and unprofessional. I'd recommend https://www.dafont.com/ and http://www.1001fonts.com/ for a new font: it's free, and you can make sure your text looks good before you download it.

3. All the characters: If I'm counting correctly, I see two airplanes, one man, a Boeing logo, your profile picture, and a bunch of text ("First in Flight," "Five Sins," "747-8i") smattered haphazardly onto the fuselage. If you're going to have the Wright Flyer as your logo, then so be it. But using actual images and then pasting them on isn't going to do it — that's unprofessional and messy. Same goes for everything else you've added — there's certainly a place and size for all of them, but they can't just be cropped images that have been pasted onto the plane. You need some organization in order to improve clarity and visibility. Otherwise, it looks amateur.

You're off and running in the world of template making. But before you keep going, you need to slow down, take some time off from the templates, and then come back to them with fresh eyes to see what needs work (and no, bashing Med's templates does not count as taking time off). Just like Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was the perfect livery. I see some promise in this, it just needs some... improvements.

If you're talking about Spring Air, then it's 2015.

Seeing as you already have the A330-200 (and it's in a much denser configuration), you'd need something the same size/capacity of the existing model, not an upgrade. In that case, I'd steer you towards the 787-8, which has roughly the same capacity as the 767-300ER.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend you a replacement for the 767-200ER (it's somewhat of a niche aircraft, with no real replacement that has the same range). You can only really go up or down in capacity and range, unfortunately. Closest in physical size going up would be the 787-8, but it would be too much aircraft for some routes. Closest in size going down would be the A321neo, although it would have fewer seats and less range. 

R0 is in 1979... any sort of replacement for the DC-9 and the end of production aren't for the next few years. Nothing really ends up replacing the DC-9 for a while, so I'd keep replacing old planes with new DC-9's until the time comes. I personally like either upgauging to the B737-300 which keeps the same range, or switching to the BAe 146's for the same capacity with less range. 

Because of this should I compete in the routes by pushing lower prices or should I just stick with routes that arn't being serviced by the 2 major airlines. 

I'm sure others will have a different strategy, but mine personally would be to do the following, especially in a very crowded world:

Initially, try and avoid competing directly with large carriers. As much as you can try to undercut their prices, they can do the exact same to you, but with one large difference: the large airline can run one or two routes with losses when all others are profitable; you cannot survive when all your routes are unprofitable. Initially, stick with lucrative yet underserved routes — it's common to find that people will sometimes ignore routes with huge demand, which you can exploit. I'd recommend only facing another competitor head-on when you are of a large enough size, so that way one or two loss-making routes because of competitions won't overly impact your bottom line. 

Some would disagree with me. Some would say that direct competition is a good way to serve markets with large amounts of demand when few routes have sufficient demand to warrant flights. Others would argue that not competing at all allows your airline to slip "under the radar" and grow large, then wiping out any competition. Neither is wrong — the key part of Airline Empires is to find a strategy that works for you. And it's not the same in every market or hub on the globe, so know that each world and country work differently. 

Hopefully this helps you. Good luck and enjoy playing!

you should ask oggey

Well, first and foremost, most alliances in the forum are dead. Many (with the exception of DWA, Venture, Unitedwings, and Aloft) have been inactive for quite some time, and have seen little if any meaningful content published on the forums within the past year or so. 

Joining one of these alliances mainly serves a purpose in the Gallery, in which cooperation with an alliance adds both prestige and realism to the brands published there (after all, if you're making fake airlines, you might as well make fake alliances to accompany them). Most also run their own private, member-only alliances in the Realistic worlds, so there's that advantage as well. One of the least-spoken benefits of joining a forum alliance, however, is the community aspect. As "elitist," "preoccupied," and "snobbish" as some perceive alliance members, a sense of belonging, camaraderie, and openness exists, whether that's for help and suggestions or just talking about what's on your mind to a group of like-minded people. 

As to how to create an alliance, I'm not exactly sure. The mods haven't exactly been all too active on this forum, and taking over a dead alliance is just about impossible. If you haven't noticed, joining an alliance isn't much easier. You (mostly) need to establish a presence on the gallery for realistic, appealing brands over time and to get to know a few members before your application is seriously considered. Regardless, it's a process that pays off in the long run.

My main issue with a North American livery contest is that most people already have a North American airline in the gallery. Assuming that you can't post pre-made liveries, you'd have to create your own, which is difficult when most major cities are already the hubs for 2+ pre-existing carriers. You'd end up stepping on a lot of people's toes.

Aren't you the "Fruits Rouges" guy?

It's the aircraft age factor I'm thinking of. Cost isn't an issue currently

Looking at your airline, the average age of the 757-300 fleet is 1.41 years, and for your airline, it's 1.14 years. I wouldn't consider age a problem at all where you are right now. That being said, your reputation will drop as age increases — ie. running twenty-year-old aircraft is not a good idea. I personally tend to replace my aircraft when they reach around 10-15 years of age (depending on their versatility) — that way it keeps the average fleet age (the important metric) down. There are exceptions, such as the Saab fleet (which I keep around for longer because they're useful and cost-efficient) or niche aircraft like the 757-300, which I know is a low-cost, high margin plane that ceases production.