I was checking out some of the other game worlds to help hone my skills but I noticed most of them are dominated by behemoths that have hundreds of millions of passengers with massive global networks.
Any advice which game world a newbie should try to develop his skills?
Even in older game worlds there are markets that are not served by any airline. For instance Syria and Oman in Croydon are not served by any airline. You may find other markets as well.
Here we go again ... there are niches on many worlds where you can find space. Venezuela is underutilized on many servers. Also some Asian countries...also Peru is frequently underutilized. USA has many 7 and 8 bar airports with many slots available, and you can finely schedule to most 9 and 10 bar USA airports as well (as spokes, of course, not as a hub). There is a place everywhere, if you look beyond Europe.
Example from Nicosia:
http://community.airlinesim.aero/topic/7634-mal-wieder-spielen/#entry64104
You must periodically scout all servers for liquidations ... sometimes big airlines liquidate (of course not ever day, but there is at least one major, and I mean ***big*** liquidation per month among all servers)
Sometimes the liquidation is in a major market like EU or USA and other majors move in quickly, and sometimes there is no local player to move to ... and that is your opportunity.
Thanks
You can look into Turkey on many servers Antalya is at 30-40% occupancy (leaving you 60-70% slots) and while ISt is mostly used up you cna still un some connections and then network throughout Turkey.
Idlewild AYT is great and IST also looks so-so.
You can start with plenty of cheap MD80s.
Tempelhof is also great for AYT
MANILA on GATOW and CROYDON is 70% free!! and on Fornebu it's about 50% free
BKK on Gatow also has some space
MEX on Gatow, Stapleton and Meigs also has some nice possibilities
I don't have time to look on all servers for all major markets, but a lot can be found... if one spends time searching.
One of the methods that I use is to access the server’s Statistics -> Countries: Enterprises report as you can access this without creating an airline. Changing the limiting criteria, and you can get a complete list of all countries that have at least one active enterprise. Copying that to a spreadsheet, I can easily cross-reference the country list in order to figure out which countries have no active enterprises.
However, you don’t need to headquarter at the largest airport in a country. You can build a successful airline at an airport that is ‘big enough’, especially if you provide decent connections.
Going by the number of enterprises is not necessarily the most statistically relevant method.
You can have a server with one domininant airline and no slots in a particular country and a server with 2-3 smaller airlines and slots.
Finding an airport to open a base at is often not the problem. It's finding free slots at large enough destinations that is the problem.
Finding an airport to open a base at is often not the problem. It's finding free slots at large enough destinations that is the problem.
So far I have had this problem at maybe 2 or 3 destination airports. Then, you must get creative. Even at 99% airport you can find the odd slot pair or four to schedule your routes there.