I formally withdraw my application to the National Alliance due to inactivity and a lack of response. I sincerely apologise and with the National Alliance the best of luck in their endeavours.

 

Cheers,

N664US

Could you provide an example of your works? It's much easier to try and fix things when you can see what can be improved.

I have to agree with Vision on this one. I remember that about a year ago I had the same resources and templates that I had now, but with a lot less patience to get things done. I eventually began pushing out liveries, but they were jagged, rough, and downright ugly things (I guess the same could also be said for my current gallery). Only when I reformed my livery creation process did I get satisfactory results.

First and foremost: think about the brand first. A livery is meant to be a large vizualization of a brand and what it stands for. AusJet doesn’t really look like much, aside from a kangaroo. From looking at it, I can’t tell if it wants to be an LCC, legacy, flag carrier, or hybrid airline. Air Pacific, on the other hand, is a good example of thinking about the brand first. You can tell precisely what you’re trying to represent and what the brand is all about. Having a set brand allows you to “tune in” on what you want to put in the livery, making it crispier. If you look at Internederland or Oceanic, for example, you find that the refined and minute qualities they have, along with the careful and concise use of colour put off an air of authority and premiumness, exactly what you’d look for in a flag carrier or major airline.

Second: think about originality. AusJet (a mix of Qantas and.JetStar) and Mountaineer (a toned-down Frontier) both lack the originality needed to really make the livery shine. Otherwise, you’re just going to fidn yourself “boxed in” to what the real-life livery looks like. Once again, I look at Air Pacific, agruably the most “original” livery you’ve presented. It’s got a set message that you’ve created for yourself and that you can allow to stretch any way you want. Creativity and originality are key in making a crisp livery; otherwise, you just have a knock-off. Names like Vanguard and Columbia were original, never-before seen ideas, allowing the corporate identity (and livery) to prosper.

Third: look at colours. One of the key ways to get attention and to make your liveries stand out is using colours — sometimes, like with Spirit Airlines or Air Asia, this means using bright yellows and reds. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. Looking at Mountaineer, I mainly see one colour: green. It doesn’t really pop out or contrast with other colours, and it’s kind of dull on its own, preventing the eyes from fully absorbing the livery. Freedom Airlines, on the other hand, is beginning to get there. Multiple distinct colours with high contrast make the eyes wander and absorb. It does, however, have a case of the “eurowhites” — just like modern liveries (lookin’ at Air France and the new Lufthansa), having too much white makes your liveries dull and boring. Staring at a mostly blank sheet of paper has the same effect, not because the colour white itself is boring but because there’s nothing interesting going on. If you look at the tail of Freedom, the stripes allow the eyes to look up and down, then focus on the logo and extraneous details. You want that, but for the entire livery. The crispiest liveries are always ones that never bore you —look at the bright colours of Amstelair or the soothing tones of New England’s blues next to each other as an example.

Fourth: Take time. Make some rough sketches first before you even reach for the computer so you can quickly run through dozens of ideas instead of handcrafting a few logos and giving up. Before you move on to a different step (making the logo, thinking of names, changing the time period, changing the class of service or country), make sure that your previous work is the best it can be. Rushing leads to mistakes, and mistakes leads to sloppiness and blandness. If you look at brands like Midamerican or NAA, you find that they don’t release new things very often, and are some of the oldest galleries here. The actual time and effort used in crafting liveries perfectly means that, although you won’t be pumping out liveries at the speed of light and may not be on the first page of the gallery all the time, you will get a better, crisper, and cleaner result.

Finally: look for inspiration. If you are really stuck, try looking up similar airlines or ones from roughly the same time period to get an idea of wha tou want to make. You obviously can’t take their idea pixel-for-pixel, but you can take the ideas, concepts, and brainstorms from earlier sessions and combine them with these insiprations to make something new. There’s no such thing as a completely original idea — everythinf is borrowed at least a little bit from somewhere else.

I sincerely hope this helps you!

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. 

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.

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. 

What are alliances for?

There are two kinds of alliances, those in the forums and those in-game.

 

Those in the forums (look for Forums > Alliances > [alliance name]) are more strategic cooperations. They tend to have stricter admissions policies and require a certain standing before accepting people. They tend to operate in only a few specific worlds (such as how Dynasty World operates in RDelta), but have much closer cooperation in comparison to the strictly in-game alliances. Expect teamwork, cooperation, and tips and tricks to come your way with these alliances, but know that you need the experience to join some (especially those like Unitedwings, Dynasty World, or Azure). There will also be some policies like anti-competition and cooperation involved with joining one of these alliances.

 

Those in-game tend to do much less. If you look under "Reputation," 10% of your possible reputation comes from alliance destinations served. If you feel as if you'll be accepted in one (and acceptance rates are usually high), then join one. You should (depending on the size of the alliance) gain a few reputation points. Some alliances in-game are connected together, either via threads in the alliance forum or external methods such as Slack or Discord. For the most part, however, many treat in-game alliances as ways to gain reputation and have little in terms of actual cooperation. 

"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.

Best International: Tokyo-Haneda (HND), more specifically in the international terminal. The domestic terminals for JAL and ANA are on the older side, but they are better off compared to most airports in the US. Haneda's international terminal is new, spacious, clean, and offers great ramp views (including the spotting deck). It's on the large side in terms of walkability, but it's rather pleasant to stay in. My runners-up would be Seattle-Tacoma (SEA), New York-JFK's T4 (JFK), Seoul-Incheon (ICN), Oslo-Gardermoen (OSL), and Singapore-Changi (SIN). 

 

Worst International: Los Angeles (LAX) overall. As much as some terminals (T2, T5, TBIT, etc.) are on the spacious, new, and airy side of things, some of the terminals haven't been updated since construction, or retain the same layout. T1-T8 were not designed for today with all the space TSA takes up and the number of passengers flowing through, leading to traffic into the airport, long lines at every terminal, and cramped and crowded gate areas. Runners-up in this category include Rome-Fiumicino (FCO), Atlanta-Hartsfield Jackson excluding Terminals T and F (ATL), Honolulu (HNL), London-Heathrow (LHR), New York-Newark (EWR), and Paris-CDG except for 2E and 2F (CDG). 

 

Best Regional: San Jose, California (SJC). As much as it's on the smaller side, it's bright, clean, and modern. I appreciate that both short gate distances and space for TSA lines are present here. I guess it doesn't count as a regional airport anymore with all the international flights, but I guess it's regional enough considering the destinations it serves. Runners-up in this category include Bergen (BGO), Busan-Gimhae (PUS), and Portland (PWM). 

 

Worst Regional: I'm going to have to award this to Santorini, Greece (JTR). Small terminal with little inside that can barely support a single flight, let alone multiple. It was fine to fly into but a pain to leave from. Other notable examples of bad regional airports include Osaka-Itami (ITM), Geneva (GVA), Kona (KOA), and Burbank (BUR). 

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. 

Favourites: Qantas (2017-), Hawaiian (2017-), Air Canada (2004-2017), Garuda Indonesia (2010-), KLM (1971-2002, 2002-2017, 2017-)

 

Least Favourites: Mexicana (1991-2008), Virgin Australia as Virgin Blue (2000-2006), Japan Airlines (2011-), Lufthansa (2018-)

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.

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!

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. 

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. 

Note: this counts trams/light rail/people movers, commuter/heavy rail, and subways/monorails

 

As of 22AUG2018:

 

Amsterdam (NL): GVB Trams, NS Sprinter

Atlanta (GA): Atlanta Airport PlaneTrain, ATL SkyTrain

Avignon (FR): SNCF TER

Boston (US): The T (Green Line, Red Line, Orange Line)

Copenhagen (DK): Copenhagen Metro, S-Tog

Detroit (US): Terminal A ExpressTram

Geneva (CH): TPG Trams

Hong Kong (HK): MTR

London (UK): London Underground

Minneapolis (US): Minneapolis Airport Tram

Nagoya (JP): Meitetsu μSky Limited Express

New York (US): New York City Subway, AirTrain JFK

Newark (US): NJ Transit, AirTrain EWR

Nice (FR): SNCF TER

Orlando (US): Orlando Airport People Movers

Osaka (JP): Osaka Metro

Oslo (NO): NSB Commuter

Paris (FR): Paris Métro, RER

Rome (IT): Metropolitana di Roma

San Francisco (US): BART, San Francisco Cable Cars

Seattle (US): Sound Transit, Sea-Tac Satellite Transit System

Seoul (KR): Seoul Subway, AREX, Incheon Airport Starline Shuttle

Tokyo (JP): JR East, Tokyo Metro, Tokyo Monorail

Vienna (AT): WL Tramway

Washington DC (US): WMATA Metrorail

I guess I'll include Middle West here...

 

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

Perhaps this will be implemented in the future when the capability is there. AE currently doesn't have the ability to calculate seasonal demand, so instead, I believe it shows it as being year-round which removes the whole point of seasonal flights. If seasonality is implemented in the future, then I could see a case for it.

 

Choosing days also requires a feature that either simply doesn't exist, or would require a change to implement. In the case of AE, this is scheduling, which currently is basically hours/week. Demand doesn't really care what day they're flying there and back (it's basically consistent every day), so all that's really necessary is a basic flights/week thing. Adding specific dates in which a flight would be would require a major change — instead of just figuring out how many hours a flight takes up and using basic subtraction, you'd also need to figure out what days a flight is flying, schedule each individual aircraft day by day or hour by hour ensuring that flights can operate non-consistent everyday schedules, and do the same thing for fleets of hundreds of aircraft, dramatically increasing calculations. Some sims like Airlinesim have managed to do this, but considering they're a paid program which operates in real-time, they can allow for this. I have no idea how we'd implement this into AE. 

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 bykeanseeley

Albanian Airlines by Viero

Air Albania byvsauce

 

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

N664US, TRANSPORT AÉRIEN ALGÉRIEN, DZA, ALG — Algiers Houari Boumediene International Airport

About Algérien
Transport Aérien Algérien (IATA: AG, ICAO: DZA, Callsign: ALGERIAN), commonly referred to simply as Algérien, is an Algerian airline based on the grounds of the Houari Boumediene Airport in Algiers, with focus cities in Oran and Paris - de Gaulle. In Arabic, Algérien is referred to as الجزائرية, which is a shortening of the full name of الخطوط الجوية الجزائرية. It is the flag carrier of Algeria, with service to 31 domestic destinations and 42 international destinations.

Algérien operates a fleet of predominantly Airbus aircraft, most of which came as a result of the long and historical (albeit tense) relationship between Algeria and France, which has provided both financial assistance and technical aid on the purchase and maintenance of both Airbus and ATR aircraft. Algérien is currently a member of Unitedwings, offering a connection between Northern and Western Africa and the world.

Current Fleet
Airbus A319-100 — 8C 114Y — 14 aircraft
Airbus A320-200 — 12C 132Y — 20 aircraft
Airbus A321-200 — 16C 159Y — 6 aircraft
Airbus A330-200 — 23C 28W 192Y — 12 aircraft
Airbus A330-300 — 30C 35W 223Y — 3 aircraft
ATR 72-500 — 68Y — 15 aircraft

Aircraft Orders
Airbus A330-800neo — 8 aircraft from 2018 (sole and launch customer)
Bombardier CS100 — 10 orders from 2020
Bombardier CS300 — 5 orders from 2019

 

 

Presented here is a breakdown of the livery's main components.

 

Here's a render of an example A330-200 in the Algérien fleet.

Reserved for AFC Paris-Palaiseau

Is this even still a thing?