Hi, just coming back after a 6 month hiatus. After leasing my aircraft I began going about the usual routine- hiring pilots and configuring my cabin. It looks like this is no longer completely necessary as the aircraft appear to have come with a cabin and pilots.
Will every plane come with a flight crew? I now have more pilots than I need, will this continue to be the case until I lay them off?
I know that the current configuration is too tight to be competitive in the long term, but at this early stage can I still do OK with the default configuration, or should I change it right away?
I’ve numbered the questions for ease of answering…
If you keep the option set to this, as Jaxs pointed out, then yes, they will. However, it will first use up any flight crew you might still have, so no, you won’t have a surplus if you keep ordering more of the same type of planes.
That’s a matter of weighing cost against benefit. If you think you can earn more with the current cabin than with the one you have in mind to use in the future, and in fact earn enough to cover the cost of replacing the cabin interior, then you may want to hang on to this one until bookings start to drop off. Be aware that this may have a slight impact on your image, though probably nothing alarming.
Anyway, the pilots will still be useful for you. You’ll save those costs when you lease your next plane. As for the cabin, if you can fill it with high prices, you’ll get that money back in no time (I’d bet it’d only take you about 3 days of operating flights). You’ll need to change the layout later so you don’t lose out when the market starts to get saturated, but by then you’ll have more than earned back the expense you’ll need to make. It also helps that it’s no longer necessary to remove all scheduled flights, wait for all flights to be carried out, the plane to be on the ground again and then swap the cabin config… Now you can just do it on the fly.