New player looking to improve airline

Hi Everyone, Newish player with some questions and hoping to get feedback on my Airline.

Server: ELLINIKON

Airline: United Air International

As of right now I’m getting the feeling that I’m not doing that well. My profit margins are super low and I feel like it’s going to take forever to break even. Another issue is that I’m having trouble picking new routes. I’m currently running five A320-200’s.

Currently, I’m flying from ATL to: CLT, BNA, MCO, MIA, TPA, IND, and JAX. I’m planning on cutting service to IND due to the fact that it’s getting the lowest passengers despite filling up with cargo. I’m also experimenting with flights to PHL, IAD, LGA and OHD and plan to increase flights to the airport that does the best initially. All of my planes are running the same configuration, 10 Business with Recliner Longhaul seats, and 96 Economy with Recliner Shorthaul seats. I’m also offering ok rated IFS, Prices are set at 130%. For some of my flights (MIA specifically) I’m getting 70%-80% economy seats filled and 100% business seats filled. In cases where I’m not quite getting 100% of seats filled what are some ways I can get the last bit of passengers on the plane? I’m a bit hesitant to lower prices due to the high service and seat cost. Early on ATL-MIA was my best route and lately less passengers have been taking it, could it be because I drastically increased flights to Miami? I guess I’m just overly cautious to change anything because this is my best airline so far (after two others failed).

Also, I’m hoping to increase cargo service due the fact that a lot of my flights are sitting at 0% cargo filled. In some cases I’m getting around $1,000 in profit so a $450 loss of cargo hurts. Should I just dump the cargo price to increase it? I’m going under the assumption that cargo handling costs stay the same regardless of seat and IFS costs (and thus does not merit 130% price markup).

What kind of profit margin can I expect for a 3 week old airline?

How exactly does the ORS work? It’s my understanding that the higher up you are the better but in some cases I’ve got flights at the very top but not sold out while others below me are sold out.

Are there any tools for finding good routes? I’ve been playing around with ASRoutemap. I should mention that I have not set my flights up in waves, I’m just trying to fly as many flights as possible.

And lastly what are some good tips that most new players don’t know?

I’ve also included some screenshots to work with.

I’m definitely finding the game interesting though and can see myself playing in the future, the learning curve is pretty high however, Thanks for any help!

There is something wrong with your airline. If you are leaving the first week closing with a minus, that is ok. But after 3 weeks, you should already earn money. Margin at around 30% are normal.

You may want to install more business seats as these bring the money.

You also may want to check the service profiles. Could be that you are paying too much.

Try to hire pilots from the market. Don't know if there are any available.

ORS: please search the forum. You will find hundreds of threads and post explaining how ORS works.

Create waves on your hub.

How is your maintenance ratio? Are the planes flying enough?

Last but not least: read the forum, check the tutorials which are available and try to figure out what is going wrong. Learn from this mistakes (everybody is making the same mistakes and everybody has done many resets in his AS time) and make it better the next time.

Good luck!

Thanks for the Reply! I'll take your comments into account.

My maintenance ratios range from 130% to 197%

If you are already on the top on ORS, you should increase prices, not decrease them. Aim for a 99 rating and then increase prices till the rating starts to drop.

For cargo you might get better loads with prices below 100%.

The MX ratio of 197% is rather on the high side, especially when you’re not using waves.

And yes, I’m also struggling on Ellinikon to make decent money. In the early stages it usually requires to be patient, as it takes a bit of time to earn enough to lease the next plane.

The A320 might also be a bit big to start with. You can build a better hub with smaller planes and generate more connecting pax, which is key in the game.

And no, there are no real tools to find good routes. You can search other airlines (on the same or other worlds), but depending on your competitors, the situation can vary.

Airlines with full flights with worse ORS rating fill those planes with transfer pax. That’s why you need those waves and a good hub structure.

Without looking, are there even a lot of slots available at ATL? That’s a highly competitive market on any server

@Matth

Thanks for the advice! I'll add more flights to get the maintenance ratio down. As for plane size I was advised to go with a A320/B737 sized plane instead of something smaller but I'll definitely think about smaller regional jets for future expansion. I actually had one CRJ 700 when I started the airline but it wasn't getting filled and couldn't land at ATL (my mistake) so I sold it.

@yukawa

You're right there aren't a whole lot of slots available at ATL, I haven't had too many trouble finding them yet but might soon.   

Have a look at https://www.asroutemap.info/start.asp to find a good place to start with enough slots to build up a hub.

@Matth

Thanks for the advice! I'll add more flights to get the maintenance ratio down. As for plane size I was advised to go with a A320/B737 sized plane instead of something smaller but I'll definitely think about smaller regional jets for future expansion. I actually had one CRJ 700 when I started the airline but it wasn't getting filled and couldn't land at ATL (my mistake) so I sold it.

You also should lease planes and not buy them.

I can't imagine that he bought 5 A320s with AS$10M (or even a single CR7).

And looking at his airline, it says they are all leased.