In Croydon, A while ago, there was this well-established company in Tunisia who flew with 737-800's to places all around Europe. He went bankrupt and about 8 days ago I filled the whole. I survived my first week with 750k profit. What I don't understand is that I fly to Madrid 7 times a week with a crj 200er but its only 50% full. However, the airline before me managed to fill the flight 3x a day with a 737 and it was 100% full. Could anyone explain to me why my planes aren't filling up while his were. Ive got no competition on the route btw. My airline is called Carthage Airways in Croydon.
Do you have a large feeder network and do you have good service and fleet? I for example have gone abit over on service so I have recliner shorthaul fo econmoy and full bed for buisness, but tickets are at 200% price. It is funny to see all other flights at 80 dollars and are not full when I have a price of 160 dollars and I am totally full.
Sorry of short explination and bad writing because I broke a arm and it is much harder then I think to write whit 1 hand.
Connections, Connections, Connections ... you need many of them to fill longer and international flights.
Basically, local/domestic flights are easiest to fill. Nearby country short haul flights are more difficult but still quite easy to fill.
Longer transborder flights (e.g. to Southern Africa, middle east, Europe) are more difficult to fill, you need more connections for them.
You must time connections so the arrival time of waves and departure time of waves are separated only by the minimum connection time. The more time passengers spend on the ground, the less interesting the connections become.
Also you must offer good seats (leisure for Y and recliner shorthaul for C is the MINIMUM to get some decent connecting pax and you most likely will not be able to charge default price with that config (more like 80-90% of the default) and very good onboard service (several green bars). This all will help you get connecting passengers. You should start with SMALLER planes because you need a certain scale of operations to get connections, so with smaller planes you can get more of them for your startup money, and also smaller planes are easier to fill (and be profitable) than larger planes.
The airline you mention most likely had over 70% of connection traffic, so on his flights to Madrid were people form all over the world who wanted to fly to Madrid and connected in Tunisia.
You should start with Q400 or ATR72-600, then upgauge to CRJ700/900/1K or EJET (Embraer 190x series), and then in a third step to A320/737 NG series. If you can get several Ejets/CRJs filled, you are ready for a primetime with A320/737NG series.
Also, you should NOT be adding very long haul flights (over 3000 km) unless you have 1000+ weekly connections, and you should not use widebodies unless you have 1500+ (recommendable 2500+) weekly connections. Reason is that for example (why a 3000 km flight delimiter) it is much easier to make money (or break even) with not-so-full 2000 km flight than with 4000-km long not-so-full flight. Also flights of under 500 km are really resource heavy and you earn substantially less comparable to medium haul flights. Actually the best money making flights are in the range of 1000-3000 km route length (or about 1.5 to 4 hours of jet aircraft flight time).
You should start with Q400 or ATR72-600, then upgauge to CRJ700/900/1K or EJET (Embraer 190x series), and then in a third step to A320/737 NG series. If you can get several Ejets/CRJs filled, you are ready for a primetime with A320/737NG series.
I have had 2 CRJ 900 flying the route and they have not been full and did fly on default price and now I got a A321 flying at 200% price and totally full (strangly I deleast it), and now I am planing to get 2 so i can have 12 daily departures on the route. Even if I have jut about 600 depaertures weekly from one end and in the totall Stockholm are (NYO, BMA, ARN) I have about 1200 weekly. There are about 40 daily fligths on the route whit other carriers.
I have had 2 CRJ 900 flying the route and they have not been full and did fly on default price and now I got a A321 flying at 200% price and totally full (strangly I deleast it), and now I am planing to get 2 so i can have 12 daily departures on the route. Even if I have jut about 600 depaertures weekly from one end and in the totall Stockholm are (NYO, BMA, ARN) I have about 1200 weekly. There are about 40 daily fligths on the route whit other carriers.
Connections, Connections, Connections ... you need many of them to fill longer and international flights.
Basically, local/domestic flights are easiest to fill. Nearby country short haul flights are more difficult but still quite easy to fill.
Longer transborder flights (e.g. to Southern Africa, middle east, Europe) are more difficult to fill, you need more connections for them.
You must time connections so the arrival time of waves and departure time of waves are separated only by the minimum connection time. The more time passengers spend on the ground, the less interesting the connections become.
Also you must offer good seats (leisure for Y and recliner shorthaul for C is the MINIMUM to get some decent connecting pax and you most likely will not be able to charge default price with that config (more like 80-90% of the default) and very good onboard service (several green bars). This all will help you get connecting passengers. You should start with SMALLER planes because you need a certain scale of operations to get connections, so with smaller planes you can get more of them for your startup money, and also smaller planes are easier to fill (and be profitable) than larger planes.
The airline you mention most likely had over 70% of connection traffic, so on his flights to Madrid were people form all over the world who wanted to fly to Madrid and connected in Tunisia.
You should start with Q400 or ATR72-600, then upgauge to CRJ700/900/1K or EJET (Embraer 190x series), and then in a third step to A320/737 NG series. If you can get several Ejets/CRJs filled, you are ready for a primetime with A320/737NG series.
Also, you should NOT be adding very long haul flights (over 3000 km) unless you have 1000+ weekly connections, and you should not use widebodies unless you have 1500+ (recommendable 2500+) weekly connections. Reason is that for example (why a 3000 km flight delimiter) it is much easier to make money (or break even) with not-so-full 2000 km flight than with 4000-km long not-so-full flight. Also flights of under 500 km are really resource heavy and you earn substantially less comparable to medium haul flights. Actually the best money making flights are in the range of 1000-3000 km route length (or about 1.5 to 4 hours of jet aircraft flight time).
Thanks guys this really helped!