I want to share with interested people here the story of Aerolinea Mexicana on Gatow.
Founded 5th of October 2015, 2 days after Mexico Lineas was shut down. So Mexico was empty.
I started operations in MEX with flights to GDL, CUN and some other cities in Mexico. Fleet size was very soon 15 planes (MD82 and 737-300). As demand was so huge, I leased planes every day and operations started fast and good.
Within one week other competitors came to Mexico which made me struggle a bit as one of them had a better strategy and "better" planes as I had. So I decided to go public which was a great success.
With the share-revenue I leased many more planes and today (18th of November) my fleet size is 95 planes.
Some more facts:
- nearly 3500 flights last week
- flights to every Mexican city
- 1634 from MEX, 354 from GDL, 251 from CUN and 220 from MTY
- 362.320.542 flight kilometres last week
- 821.362 passengers since 5th of October
Some destinations outside of Mexico: ATL, DFW, DEN, PHX, IAH, LAS, SFO, BOG, LIM, CCS, PTY and some more. But there are many more on our radar to follow...
You should put expansion plans on hold for now and start replacing your fleet. You are almost at 100 aircraft, if you keep growing with old aircraft your image will suffer beyond repair. Mexico is not a country where you can schedule 1000+ aircraft, specially not with a competition in place. You need to grow to at least a fleet of 300+ new aircraft to repair the low image old planes have caused. All flights in the past count for the image of your airline, so anything "bad" and "low" will stay on forever. You most likely will never be able to achieve image over 80, so the longer it takes to replace your fleet and the longer you take to start adding new aircraft (and replacing and releasing old ones), the lwss the attainable image rating will be.
Thanks again - that was new for me... but would have been better if you would not have told me... the numbers are very bad... not only here for Aerolinea Mexicana but also for my other companies in other worldgames... :wacko: :( :blush:
As you operate MD-80s you can get the 717s in the same maintenance category. If I would be you I would grab all those 717s. Also 757s would be perfect for Mexico. If you have a fleet of 737s, 717/MD-80/MD-90, and 757s would be perfect in your case. Though try to aim at an average age of 15 years. If I find any 717s/MD-90s or 757s I will grab them directly.
That would mean that my Fokker have to go. But it makes sense...
There are no more MDs on the market but still some 717. And some 757 also. 737-300 will be replaced by 737-700 and 717. Will take some time as my money is gone but in some days I will start.
If anyody has "new" 717 and 757 for a good price - please drop me a PM!
15 year old is too old for good image. You should aim for fleet age of less than 5 years at all times. 717s and 757s have problem that they are no longer in production. So if you want to lower the fleet age later on, you would need to change them at some point.
Same as I have to do it with my old 737-300 and MDs in the future. But this will take time as I have not enough money to replace all 95 planes immediately.
I took a look at your airline and there are not that many 717s and 757s on Gatow so they can not be your long term fleet choice but they are great to expand quickly. Some time you will have to make the hard choice between Airbus and Boeing in order to expand. In the future you will need an infinite supply of aircraft.
I know... for now the amount of 717 is good enough to replace the old planes. And this will take a while.
For domestic flights A321 are the best choice (compared in machine evaluation tool with 737-900 and 757-200). But there are no used A321 on the market available.
