I am a new player on AirlineSim. I've been playing for about a week now, and I'm looking for some advice from experienced players.
If you can, have a look at my company profile in the Ellinikon Game, company name Hansen Pacific. Anyways I've been up and running for a week, have a couple of regional aircrafts and two a320s'. But my problem is that I'm still not seeing any profit. I knew that it would be like this for a new airline startup, but now i think i'm starting to get into a bit of trouble financially.
I've tried a variety of strategies to improve my customer turnover rate (providing quality service profiles, spacious cabin configs, etc.) but still staying the same.
One of my regional a/c is starting to improve. For the past couple of days it has had regular customers 21 out of a 40 seat a/c, but as i already mentioned i need more so i can stop loosing money on those flights. As much as i would rather cancel the flight, i don't want that kind of reputation on the airline.
I'm even newer than you, my various airlines are all less than a week old. I've got three established and one I started today.
I've also shut one down and reorganised one.
As I say, still very new, but from all the reading I've done (and its been a lot, including watching several hours of YouTube tutorials) the key thing is to start small, with small aircraft (regional jets seem to be a good start, though in the NZ market it might be a struggle). The other successful thing is to create a hub and spoke, with good connections. Creating a base of domestic feeder traffic seems to be crucial.
I had a look at your route map and it looks like you have a domestic NZ network with some odd Australian domestic routes and a extensive international network. I am wondering how your flights are doing. Are they the ones you are struggling to fill?
I'd maybe look at reorganising and maybe offload the A320s and concentrate on either a domestic NZ or AU network with one hub and a hub and spoke network. If it was NZ logically it would be at WLG because then you can capture north/south flows.
One thing to be aware of is that if you schedule a flight you have to make sure that your minimum connection time in the city you are connecting through is not less than the connection you have schedule (even if that aircraft is able to turnaround in a quicker time).
As an example, say you schedule DUD WLG ROT. Say the aircraft you use has a turnaround time of 35m but the minimum connection time in WLG is 45m. If you schedule the flight with only 35m between arrival in WLG and departure you will not capture any DUD ROT traffic. If you schedule the connection at 45m, even though you forgo some efficiency as the aircraft is on the ground longer, it is made up for in the fact that you capture connecting traffic. From what I have read AS is heavily biased towards connecting traffic. Take a look at the flights with the highest load factor and see how many inbound and outbound connections are there.
Minimum connection time does not apply to the same aircraft so DUD ROT with stopover in WLG on the same aircraft would still get booked even without MCT.
Minimum connection time does not apply to the same aircraft so DUD ROT with stopover in WLG on the same aircraft would still get booked even without MCT.
Cool - even off there is a change of flight number?
The moment I started to get successful was the moment I understood how important connections were and how competitors were always getting more Pax. I use to make an airline, fold it, make an airline, fold it - I bet other players got fed up of seeing "XYZ has started operations" then "XYZ has been liquidated" all over the main page.
My mistake? I use to go up against established players in Europe and never had any serious connections. Gatwick to Barcelona should be fine to fill up a A320 with right? No. Not when there is 5 huge airlines operating direct route in competition, then you always have an airline in Amsterstam, both paris airports, Geneva etc and even if you do have a feed from some UK airports (Hard to do at LGW due to slots), there will be more airlines in LHR with routes every hour to most UK airports to feed their flights, with better ORS rating. Its nearly impossible (nearly). However if you find a market with a gap however, you can grow massively.
It took me about a year of trial and error until an opportunity arose when a massive airline shut down in a major market, then about 15 airlines set up and I ended up the winner after a 3 months, now I have the entire market to myself and connecting hundreds of destinations every wave out of my hub. Love the game, it takes time, keep at it and its rewarding.