Hello everyone. My airline has been up for about 3 weeks now going into the 4th. In my first week, I had a high Seat load factor and over the last 2 weeks its been going down. I try to keep my prices competitive and I have a very amazing on-board service. But my seats over the weeks are getting emptier…my hub is in CMN(Casablanca, Morocco).
My airline uses 1 Airbus Industrie A318-100 medium, 3 ATR 72-600, 3 Bombardier Dash8-Q400B and 2 LET 410UVP. My airport has 3 main transfer times. 2 of them have a time difference of around 120 minutes and the other has approximatly 90 mins.
630
Is there a way for me to improve my SLF and increase my passenger count? Should I add more destinations to my HUB system?
your wave system seems excellent. I have however a few remarks (but I guess that’s why you posted your flight schedule
your day flights to Barcelona, Paris and Algiers seem to have a long ground time. That means the leasing cost per flight for these planes must be very high. Maintenance time should be at least 100%, but try not to exceed 200%.
your European night flights connect to domestic flights and a few European flights. I guess the domestic flights don’t bring enough passengers to your hub to feed the (bigger) planes that fly to Europe. Plus, your European destinations are major airports. You won’t get transfer passengers from for example Rome with Barcelona as destination because there must be direct plenty flights between Rome and Barcelona.
I would add two sorts of destinations. Flights into Africa that connect to your European flights. Why not replace that day flight to Paris by a flight to Nairobi ? Other destinations that I would add are regional flights to airports that have decent passenger demand, but no direct flights to your major destinations. A flight to Sevilla for example may bring transfer passengers for Rome if there is no direct flight between these airports.
Currently i’m serving all of the airports in Morocco that have a decent demand. Should I open up more lines to airports that also have 1 bar demand?
As for my regional flights, i’ve been concidering getting a few Embraer 190 LR to operate much closer destinations like Oran, Constantine, Tunis and Djerba. I based my HUB system according to a post i had seen a while ago on this forum. My Paris flight goes 100% full…so i dont think its a good idea to kill it…although…I get almost no transfer passengers on that flight, should i increase the amount of daily flights to CDG?
I had one flight going further south, more precisely to NKC(Noukchott, Mauritania) that was a big mistake
I still have about 3$AS million in my bank account…maybe i should use that to lease out 3 more planes…hmm…
In addition to the above … you have 4 Maintanance Categories which costs 15% additional on your maintanance costs so try to get rid of the one category…
I wouldn’t bother with 1 bar airports until your airline has grown. But if you want to try small airports, I suggest to work like this: delete one return flight from a flight schedule. Replace that one flight (for just one day) with a flight to a new airport. If that flight fills up three days ahead of departure, lease a plane and add that route. If it takes 3 days for that flight to fill up, forget that airport for the next few months. And don’t forget to restore the original flight schedule
Oran and Constantine are the sort of airports I would try out with a single flight, to see if you get any bookings. Tunis and Djerba have more passenger demand. These are also the sort of airports that may give you transfer passengers for your European destinations. Cairo might also be okay. And Morocco is a muslim country… why not try if you get passengers for Jeddah ?
You are absolutely right… never kill a route that flies fully booked
If Kenya is too far, try Lagos and Abuja. Nigeria has quite some traffic, and it may well bring you some transfer passengers for Europe. Plus, it would be a better distance (with less idle ground time) for your day flights.
You could also try Las Palmas and Tenerife. The Canary Islands get a lot of European tourists… more transfer passengers for your European flights
Oh, and Benjamin is right. Why the ATR and the Dash ? I would phase out the ATR’s and only use DASH for low demand regional routes. And personally… with a hub like Casablanca, I would not operate Lets. There is enough demand for bigger and more profitable planes. You only have to find these routes.
You will also see that - as your network bcomes bigger - it will become easier to fill your planes. Then you can use Airbus planes for all your major European destinations, rather than Dashes.
I’m thinking to kill off the LETs shortly and replace them with bigger planes…i’m using them because they are cheap, and if i don’t get enough people on board, i’m not losing lots of money. My only airbus aircraft flys the CMN-CDG route and is booked 100% so i’m keeping it there. I’m currently concidering replacing my Dash8 that operates CMN - BCN by the A318-100M to handle more passengers.
It just seems rather odd that my flights are getting more empty, i’ve taken a look at the AGEX in the world and i’ve noticed that it has taken a drop of 11 in one day…that will hurt me.
It seems as if the AGEX hurts the smaller carriers before the larger ones, or am i wrong?
I have routes that are fully booked three days ahead. That means there are more passengers than available seats on these routes. If the AGEX drops, these planes will still be fully booked. That is, as long as there are more passengers who want to fly than there are seats.
I also have a few routes that are only booked for 80%. If the AGEX drops, I see the effect straight away.
If the AGEX drops, you may not see any effect on your CMN-CDG route, because you have a "reserve" of passengers on that route. Unless another airline (or you) adds more flights on the CDG-CMN route. Then you will feel it if the AGEX drops to the point that there are less passengers than available seats.
So I think the size of your airline is not very important. If you have a big airline and you keep adding flights on every route until every plane is barely full… all these planes will suddenly fly half empty if the AGEX drops too much. That’s how even big airlines can go bankrupt.
