I’m in Meigs so the number of prop planes is limited compared to the other servers. what is the best shorthaul plane that is between 15 and 40 passengers and good for trips under 500 km?
Thanks for any answers. I’m currently looking at the LET 410 and want to know if there is a better option that I can lease as new.
There isnt a limit for the most planes. You have to order them yourself if there is no plane on the market … and you will get a fresh produced plane after some hours
So order a Dash8 and start your short-haul ops with a Eco-Seat config and some business seats and you will have around 50 to 60 seats. thats perfekt. LET wont give you a good margin. Maybe the ATRs are worth to try too.
I have 5 Dash 8s and 2 737’s as of now. My Dash 8’s are beautiful great but I need something to serve the 1 or 2 bar regional airports from my hub.
Bombardiers Q200/Q300 perhaps? The only problem with them is they are out of production.
There is no need to serve them yet. You should concentrate on expanding your network to the bigger airports. the 1 and 2 bar airpots can be served via ground networks yet.
this early in the game you should just aim for the bigger markets
Everyone is always saying Dash 8 but yet no one ever talks about the Saab 2000
58 Passengers with a 4 for Maintenance Stage V noise and +2 Popularity I find it to be a great short haul plane
Yes you cant get them new, but with the low Maintenance stat you can certainly run the used ones for a long time!
Its basically a smaller Dash 8 thats a bit more maintenance effiecient and fuel effiecient on shorter routes…
I don’t know the actual numbers but please DO NOT deduct maintenance “efficiency” or costs from the maintenance category. those things have nothing to do with each other. the latter is merely a way to differentiate.
From my own understanding Yukawa has that correct in regards to maintenance category. The more categories you have the more your maintenance will go up. The general consensus is that you should try and stick to only 3 maintenance categories. There are many relevant posts about this topic in the forum if you want to know a little more about it.
In regards to the OP, the best short haul a/c depends on a few things. Firstly if you aiming to serve the 1,2 or 3 demand airports then you need to look at their respective runway lengths. Depending on the country some may have very long ones (eg. Saudi Arabia) or short ones (UK). If you wanting to get service to most then look at this as this will determine your a/c choice. Of course you can have more than one type servicing the ports, but then you will run up your maintenance fees quickly and incur losses. The LET410 is pretty good a/c with great runway lengths. But the margin of this as said before is low. However, if you are servicing the port exclusively then don’t be afraid to hike up the price and you and get around AS$400-590 profit per flight. Another thing to keep in mind for these type of fights is they it will take time for the passengers to start using them. Some more so than others. So be prepared to wait and have enough cash to wait it out. The other crucial factor is you must have a feeder network. Either from your own airline from have good IL partners. What port are based at? What is its demand like?
Besides the LET the ATR42-500 with Eco-seating and a few business class seats do a really good job as well. I have a configuration of 3/36 which run regional routes. Again prices have to be higher than normal to get good profit from them. For me they serve only demand 3 & 4. Always test the waters with the demand 2 airports. They can be tricky, but there is some money to be made with these airports if you play it right. One big thing I always take into consideration is whether I can get the a/c new or not. So to star with the LET is the only real choice. Once the cash starts flowing look at the Dash 100/200/300s. They work really really well as they have the same maintenance category as the Q400s so you can save a bit of cash there plus increase your capacity on flights as your feeder network grows. One downside to them though is fuel economy. Use the Aircraft Evaluation tool to help you here.
So all in all give it go!. Just make sure you have done you research and have your game plan and stick to it. With this you should be fine. Good luck and let us know how you get on.