After sifting through many posts on some airline on some game world on this forum, I realised that the question on how to start a profitable airline wasn't overly addressed. Having started an airline on Quimby, and having read many instructions on how to achieve profitability, I have a question: how do airlines achieve such high profit ratios? With Nalu Air, I tried increasing prices, but that just reduced LF and profit so I kept my original strategy which isn't overly profitable but still puts me in the green. How should I go about increasing profit margins instead? I tried changing catering and staff wages, reducing IL contracts, and changing types of seats yet still cannot seem to get any good profit margins compared to the 50-70% you see in the other thread. Quimby doesn't have any private lessors I know of, so I can't find any discounted rates for leasing aircraft...
Bookings are highly dependent on your ORS rating (if there is demand). Make sure that your ORS rating is high(est) and you will get more bookings and you can even charge higher prices.
My ORS ratings are either on the top of the list or 2nd to the top, yet every time I try to raise prices even by AS$1 it seems to go down to the point where I'm on the 2nd or 3rd page...
So I’ve had a look at your airline and if I were you (please don’t take any of this as an insult/judgment) I would consider…
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do I need 4 aircraft types with 9 aircraft. You get penalised financially after the 3rd type
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Could I put better seats in and charge more? Personally on a CRK I have 60 seats and running at a profit
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look at your scheduling and aircraft types used. You have A320s and Let’s on the same route
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also scheduling, some destinations you are operating multiple flights within a 3 hour time frame, yet no flights rest of day. This leads to less potential connections
Actually I'm planning on removing the CS1 type so I can get down to 3 types, which will do at some point in the future. I haven't experimented with better seats before, and am a tad afraid to use it considering that most of my seats are already 3 green in economy and 5 green in business. The LETs fly via MKK and LNY (which is really only for easier scheduling than so people can connect), so I'd put them as operating in different markets despite them both being shown on the same route. I don't really see a point in offering flights past 2100 from HNL and before 0700, considering otherwise the maintenance ratio gets too low (which I tried changing providers to no avail). I don't have any partners with late flights, so I don't see a point in having a connection flight without any flight for connecting passengers to originate from...
You need to have better seats. While you can get away with the seating config you have for the inter island flights, you need to offer a better product for you flights to the mainland. You will be able to charge a premium on those flights if you improve the product.
BTW, it is really hard to get a 70% margin on your company. You can just about forget doing it if you are paying market prices for your airplanes in a mature gameworld.
I'd also point out that Hawaii is a difficult market to start in, it can be fantastic once you reach a certain point, but its a difficult starting point.
I think really high margins are difficult to achieve unless you manage to get really cheap aircraft (and there are no or almost no cheap aircraft available at Quimby) - what is your weekly margin? Mine is around 46%, which is good, but I am sure there are some people who are a lot better (I'm not using excel tables etc.). Loadfactor is between 93% and 97% depending on the week with fare between 100% and 120% (or on some routes 130%). I think anything above 30% is good, maybe not the maximum achievable but sufficient for healthy growth. As we have an Interlining (my airline is West US Air), please let me know if you need feed at specific times to HNL, I may be able to do something (if the times somehow work on the other end, i.e. in SFO). My SFO-Hawaii(HNL, OGG, LIH - will add KOA soon as well) flights are among the most profitable routes for me, so I was considering adding flights anyway...
I normally receive about a 32% profit margin, and am normally either the best or second best competitor to the mainland, which does indeed make a TON of money… LF is at about 98%, and prices are about 105%… any higher and I drop in ORS ratings
My advice is that you build a business model which you feel comfortable with executing. Copying from something you have heard on the forums or someone has told you does not help as long as you dont fully know the model. I use the same model on most of my airlines. In order to make it work I need good seats and a great image (image is not necessary as long as you dont care about connections). On every route I out rank my competitors on the ORS and cut every cost possible without hurting my model. Thereby I also make a profit margin of around 45%. Heavily relaying on connections and have a perfectly functioning hub and try to find ideal locations. I cant tell you my pricing rations in public as I feel like I am ruining your game experience. Remember that there is nothing like low cost in AS and passengers wont care what price they pay as long as the service is matching the price level.
I do neither operate any small aircraft as they just dont make the big margins and just waste my time scheduling, I instead support players doing that "dirty work" for me which also gives a good learning experience to the players. At this moment I dont even operate regional jets.
All this really interests me in making a ton of spreadsheets to try things out and see what works best… how long does that take on average to compile? I might end up setting up some trial operation on Quimby and see what works before it ends.
Perfect idea! For me it took me around a year to come up with a strategy from trial and error but I am still developing my strategy with each new airline I start. Trying to beet the numbers of the previous one, thereby make the model more effective.
I normally receive about a 32% profit margin, and am normally either the best or second best competitor to the mainland, which does indeed make a TON of money... LF is at about 98%, and prices are about 105%... any higher and I drop in ORS ratings
And what is wrong with this achievement?
My airline only received 25-28% profit margin and it survived, it even kicks out other competitors. My load factor never reached 95%. The most important thing is you stay green at the end of the day, and this green are in a large amount.
Be strategic with your airline plan. If high rise profit margin is all you want, move to a better airport. Every airport is different.
With a similar kind of question in mind, I'd like to know if there's a concrete answer to my question.
I have an airline on Quimby, where in my last financial period I achieved a profit margin of 36% (which I was happy about). My load factors are running at 95% or better but in ORS, my Product Rating is averaging about 20 and my Image Rating is averaging about 50 which I guess is primarily due to the fact that my fares are set at about 25-35% above the default setting.
So, bearing in mind my load factors and profit margin which are healthy, do I still need to be concerned about my image - which I understand people say is absolutely crucial - or do I leave things as they are? Is my poor image going to hurt me somewhere that I'm not aware of, possibly down the line?
With a similar kind of question in mind, I'd like to know if there's a concrete answer to my question.
I have an airline on Quimby, where in my last financial period I achieved a profit margin of 36% (which I was happy about). My load factors are running at 95% or better but in ORS, my Product Rating is averaging about 20 and my Image Rating is averaging about 50 which I guess is primarily due to the fact that my fares are set at about 25-35% above the default setting.
So, bearing in mind my load factors and profit margin which are healthy, do I still need to be concerned about my image - which I understand people say is absolutely crucial - or do I leave things as they are? Is my poor image going to hurt me somewhere that I’m not aware of, possibly down the line?
A poor image will allow a competitor to enter your country with better ORS and eat your lunch. However if you already have the market and all good connections with a good wave system in place it will still be difficult for them.
A poor image will allow a competitor to enter your country with better ORS and eat your lunch. However if you already have the market and all good connections with a good wave system in place it will still be difficult for them.
Appreciate the response - thanks. My wave pattern is firm and I have no locally based competition, so guess I will just have to keep a keen eye on things and should I sense "an attack" on my home base, I know what I can do to get my ratings back up again ...
Price has no effect on image. Aircraft age, condition, employee mood, seat pitch and flight attendants are what affects image.
And yes, you should be worried about image always because higher image affects positively your ORS rating, so you can increase prices or use more basic seats or service profiles with top image. The image is affected by all flights taken in the past, so it’s an average. Image value of 50 is not bad depending on your airline age but can be improved to 80s range.
Easiest way to bump up image is to increase flight attendants and employee mood to 5 green bars.
Price has no effect on image. Aircraft age, condition, employee mood, seat pitch and flight attendants are what affects image.
And yes, you should be worried about image always because higher image affects positively your ORS rating, so you can increase prices or use more basic seats or service profiles with top image. The image is affected by all flights taken in the past, so it’s an average. Image value of 50 is not bad depending on your airline age but can be improved to 80s range.
Easiest way to bump up image is to increase flight attendants and employee mood to 5 green bars.
Thanks a lot for that. A couple of months into playing this game for the first time and still on a steep learning curve .....
OK, so it took me a little while to get my head around this one but I have now seen the relevant page in the game which indicates the factors which affect "product" and the factors which affect "image" and as you quite rightly say, pricing does not affect image. So,
On the product side :
PRICING is 1 RED for C&Y which I understand due to my increased fares over and above the default setting.
ONBOARD SERVICE is 4 GREEN for Y and just 2 GREEN for C. My Y product costs me $6.50 and C costs me $32.85 - I thought that would have been enough in C but perhaps I need to up this further ?
SEATS 3 GREEN for Y and 5 GREEN for C. My CS100s are configure for 20 Recliner Shorthaul in C and 85 Leisure Plus in Y. Is Leisure Plus not good enough for flights up to about 1000kms?
OVERALL PRODUCT says 2 GREEN for Y and 3 GREEN for C
On the image side :
SEAT SPACE is 1 GREEN for Y and 3 GREEN for C - why is this different to the seats on the product side? Is the determining factor something different in each case?
AIRCRAFT TYPE is 5 GREEN for C&Y so no problem there
AGE is 5 GREEN for C&Y so no problem there
CONDITION is 4 GREEN for C&Y so no problem there
FLIGHTS ATTENDANTS is 3 GREEN for Y and 1 GREEN for C. The maximum crew level is 6 for the CS100 and I already have the basic 3 required for my config (1C and 2Y) and I also have an additional 1C and 2Y, taking it up to 6. What else can I do to improve my image here, especially in C class, as I can't add further crew? I understand that changing to better seats and hence having fewer in C class would help but is that the only alternative? For further clarification, when looking at my staff mood in the personnel section, both Pursers and Flights Attendants have 5 GREEN bars .....
STAFF MOOD is 4 GREEN for C&Y and still climbing so no problem there.
IMAGE OVERALL 4 GREEN for C&Y. If that is the case, why is my image in ORS only 50 out of 100, if the image here tells me I have 4 green out of a potential 5?
Any suggestions / answers would be greatly appreciated.
You are talking about 50 in ORS or 50 image in dahsboard? Becaus ethose are two completely differnt things.
Flight rating of e.g. 50/99 is quite good, for O/D pax 99 is important, for connections it's the 50 that is cimportant + time factor, and you can improve that 50 in ORS by offering even better service, seat or lower price (even though you still have 99), and using a 5 star jetway terminal.
You are talking about 50 in ORS or 50 image in dahsboard? Becaus ethose are two completely differnt things.
Flight rating of e.g. 50/99 is quite good, for O/D pax 99 is important, for connections it's the 50 that is cimportant + time factor, and you can improve that 50 in ORS by offering even better service, seat or lower price (even though you still have 99), and using a 5 star jetway terminal.
No, that's what I worry about. In ORS my rating is 20/50 - 20 for product and 50 for image ....