Any tips for a newbie?

Good evening everyone! 

I've just signed up today, and I'm wondering if theres any tips/tutorials you could give for a newbie? I'm currently on a trial account, but definetely looking at investing in credits providing I get to understand the game etc...

I've only ever played A.E and the interface is completely different and seems way more advance! 

Is there any tips you guys could give please?

I'm looking on the site and I'm trying to work out.. How do you know about potential profit with flights or which +/- your current flights are making?

Cheers everyone

Chris

Im pretty sure I made a post like this a while back, so Im gonna give you my experience for starting out

Where to start?:

Pick a nation where there is 1) A good domestic market, 2) Room for competition, 3)A way to bridge connections (East-West, North-South etc) (I talk about connections down a bit)

If I was starting out, I would look at these countries: Argentina, Iran, Peru, they are usually good starting places I have found, but again just remember the points above and search around for a .. competitive market.  

Remember airline sim people only care about Quality and Connections, but will only take reasonable connections, (I believe it is something like 1.5 the distance of their intended route, one of the more experienced players may add to that, as Im not sure)

A nice way to think about it, is you want to be like Emirates rather than Norweign. Norwegian are "cheap" and fly point to point, whereas Emirates are fancy and use hub and spoke, offering loads of connections and lovely service.

Okay, so what aircraft to buy?:

This is extremely important, in my early days I used the Embraer ERJ family .... Big mistake, you need an airliner that is profitable.. use the aircraft type evaluation feature. Remember its easier to fill smaller aircraft, Id suggest the  Superjet family straight away, they are relatively cheap, as efficient as the C-series or any Embraer. The only issue is that there is only one variant, the C-series has 2 variants. So depending on your circumstances, the C-series may be a better option. The Embraer E-jets are great jets, but I personally prefer the Superjets and the C-series. (Avoid the ERJ's, and all of the small seater aircraft). Stick to the regional jets for now and the C-series. Remember it's nice to maintain 3 or 4 aircraft families for maintenance reasons, but that isnt the be all and end all. I'd avoid turbo-probs where possible, some others may have different views on them, I could justify the older small ones if they were at a good price, but in the newer game worlds, I wouldn't by the new ATR's or Bombardiers. Not worth it. Again, make the "Aircraft type evaluation tool" your best friend. 

Write down the routes you have in mind, and then use the aircraft type evaluation to compare Superjet, E-jet, C-series and maybe the CRJ's. 

Quality? Price?

Yes, don't worry too much about how it will decrease your capacity on your aircraft, bump up the economy and business class( Don't bother with First) To get higher bars. You can up the price by 40% of default too.

Connections?

Yes you need departure waves, every plane from the East lands at 10:59, and they Leave for the West at 12:00. Then they organize the return. So that the people coming from the East can connect to the West and vice versa. 

Maintenance 

Just swap to African Maintenance, I wouldn't bother considering the others in my opinion 

If yu have any more specfic questions, feel free to PM :)

I'd highly recommend this guide (not mine); it's very useful for someone starting out: http://community.airlinesim.aero/topic/8123-as-for-beginners-an-attempted-blog/

A couple of other essential points: 

1) Low cost doesn't work, high-density aircraft don't work, and even economy passengers like a bit of luxury (i.e. don't stick too much to real life with the trend of reducing economy pitch). The future passenger types update should help, but for now, LCCs are not a good idea. AS is also different from AE in that price isn't actually the largest determinant necessarily in a passenger's choice. The Online Reservation System (ORS) has a lot of information about it elsewhere on the forums.

2) There's no way to see the demand for a route in this simulation unlike others - you'll have to make educated guesses about routes to start with and see how they perform. Use inventory (your flights' performance) and market analysis (other airlines flying the same route) to get an idea about route performance.

3) As others have said, don't start in the US/EU/any country with a big airline. Try to find a smaller country where you can get connections in at least one axis. Personally, I like Turkey but only do it if there's slot space to expand.

4) You will likely need to restart at least a few times before you can make an airline work! It's all part of the game and everyone has had to do this before they understand the mechanics. I think my current airline in Hoover is the 12th I've started and I joined last October - so it will take a bit of playing around with what works for you.

Best of luck!

Aidan

choose your interlining partners carefull according to your demand. and in the beginning not too large

airlines, as they will cost you much more money (salaries) then bringing benefit in form of transfer PAX.

for example if your airline is located in turkey e.g. IST and you offer flights to 1 destination in germany e.g. MUC,

then check out the local connections potential IL partners offer ex MUC into german and other (further north) routes,

like UK, scandinavia and benelux countries.

while if you do not fly from IST to FCO or MXP it will not realy make sense to find a partner

in rome or milano that flies within italy and into france, spain and portugal.

To find a place to start, or check on what other airlines do, have a look at https://www.asroutemap.info/

Thanks for all your help guys, I'm going to take a look at getting started today! 

There are also a lot of videos showing how to play the game

Type “airlinesim tutorial” in Google ?

Have fun with airlinesim