Hey,i am currently operating one of the top 3 airlines based at Athens,my fleets consists of 4 ATR-72s,1 A320,1 A321.My load factor is over 96% but its still the beggining.
At the moment i have 4 departure waves (0800,1215,1630,2045) so every ATR flies to 4 domestic destinations every day.
I also have 4 arrival waves (0645,1100,1515,1930) (ATH transfer time is 1.15).My Jets fly to 2 international destinations every day (LHR,CDG,DOH etc).However,i need to fly to regional destinations like IST,CAI,LCA,FCO with my jets but with that wave system the can fly to 2 regional destinations per day and have lots of maintenace ratio available.
On the other hand,i can have 3 departure waves (lets say 0100,0900,1700) so the ATRs will operate 2 roundtrips from 0900 till 1700, but then my jets cannot operate 2 medium-haul flights or 1 medium and 1 short per day.
My wave strategy is every 6 hours, if the plane cannot come back before cutoff time for the next wave, it stays at outstation until the appropriate departure time to hit the next wave. So it may depart with wave 1 but arrive for wave 3. This sometimes leads to higher maintenance ratios but that’s fine with me.
When I started with AS I did 7 hour or 8 hour waves but found out they are too much hassle and actually I was worse off than with 6 hour waves. Last year I started using 6 hour waves and will not go back to anything else.
I'm with rubiohiguey. I have started several times to look for 8 hour waves, but always ended up with a mess. Although I've still got the feeling, that the 6 hour waves are rather a result of laziness and 8 hour waves would be more effective in a perfect world, I won't go back to the latter anymore.
Another aspect is probably the long-term development of a hub. If you are servicing a high-demand airport than you will gradually develop a less tight wave system in a later stage. Having scheduled four more or less strong waves, probably generate some more connections. (Haven't got a proof for this .. but seems to be logic.)
Hey,i am currently operating one of the top 3 airlines based at Athens,my fleets consists of 4 ATR-72s,1 A320,1 A321.My load factor is over 96% but its still the beggining.
At the moment i have 4 departure waves (0800,1215,1630,2045) so every ATR flies to 4 domestic destinations every day.
I also have 4 arrival waves (0645,1100,1515,1930) (ATH transfer time is 1.15).My Jets fly to 2 international destinations every day (LHR,CDG,DOH etc).However,i need to fly to regional destinations like IST,CAI,LCA,FCO with my jets but with that wave system the can fly to 2 regional destinations per day and have lots of maintenace ratio available.
On the other hand,i can have 3 departure waves (lets say 0100,0900,1700) so the ATRs will operate 2 roundtrips from 0900 till 1700, but then my jets cannot operate 2 medium-haul flights or 1 medium and 1 short per day.
Could you please sugget a better wave strategy?
Kind Regards
ithermos
I just run small planes as often as possible to as many airports nearby as possible. Once you get past a couple thousand flights, it kicks in hard. Just add frequencies till you hit a flight every 4 hours. Then up-gauge....
well, as in the real world, creating hub systems and optimizing maintenance rations are two different strategies. where do you guys find the optimum? rather concentrate on a strict hub system or utilize your a/c with a de-optimized hub structure?
Hubs, at the expense of maintenance ratio. As your hub grows, once you reach 2,000 weekly departures, it really does not matter if you run a flight at 9.30 with a 06-12-18-24 hub system, so there you can optimize your MR more. But as you grow more and the slots become scarcer, your MR will grow because you will not be able to optimize arrivals/departures the way you wish. Also there will come times when you will spend time and time over, haggling slots among various aircraft to be able to get into the departure/arrival slot (even though speed overrides and departure offsets help, there are still certain limits to what they can achieve).
One of my subs even runs some planes with just one round trip per day (no slots) of about 10-14 hour per day total utilization including the turnaround time, and the planes are quite profitable (and they run in 15-35% margin).
E.g. A320-light, PTY-IAD, it makes a $11,000 daily profit, after accounting for lease, maintenance, wages, and all route & service fees... one round trip per day, 1,082% maintenance ratio (yes, that is one thousand eighty two percent).
I think that the waves depend on what flights you start with. If your in Singapore you will probably do 8 hour waves as there are more bigger destinations that are just over 6hours return to take but nowhere near 12. Whilst if your in Europe most major short haul destinations are within 6hours wave.
