It's never been very profitable to operate 1 small plane in AS.
Take this case as a model:
http://airchive.com/blog/2014/06/18/analysis-part-ii-nostalgia-is-not-a-viable-business-model-for-peoplexpress/
For the route in question, the operating cost per available seat mile works out to 9.3 cents, which is in line with operating costs for Allegiant once you adjust for stage length (keep in mind also that as PEOPLExpress grows, if it grows, it will gain some benefit from economies of scale, which will drive down “other” costs). Thus the break-even PRASM is 9.3 cents, or $70.09 per seat (at 150 seats), which is not insurmountable. The open question is whether PEOPLExpress’ route network and ULCC model can generate even that much revenue.
Basically how does this apply to your case? As you grow, you will be able to spread the "other costs" (in this case wages of all those employees) among more planes and flights. The employee count will not grow arithmetically with the number of flights, so as you have more flights the economy of scale will kick in.
Now, the problem I see is that this is your "holding", and you bought a plane from the dividends proceeds and you thought to put that money to work by buying plane and scheduling a flight. Now that is NOT a good approach as you have found out. Holding companies that "own" operating subsidiaries rarely fly and do business, unless they function as an operating company from the get go.
You now have two options ... if your plane at least makes money to pay the employees, you should be fine. If it does not ... you have a problem. You need to put that plane in fleet inactive status, meaning transferring it into a 100% owned subsidary, or putting it on used market for sale/lease (offering it for lease may not be available if you have low equity, so putting it up for sale would be your only option, but you have to remove it form the market before two weeks are up or AS will buy it at 15%of the value and you will lose the plane). Once your plane is off your fleet, you can fire all those employees paying them 4 weeks severance package. Or you can keep them on your payroll. You can fire them only if you have sufficient money to pay their severance. If you keep them and you do not have money when the week end closing comes, you "may" be given a rescue loan for two consecutive weeks... but that is not 100% guaranteed. If you are not given rescue loan, your holding (and with it, your subsidiary) will be liquidated.
The best approach would be to see how you can make the plane work in your favor, and for it to earn enough money to pay the employees.
If that is not an option, and If you do not have enough money, you should enter in an emergency mode and try to sell some stock of your publicly traded subsidiary. Maybe ask the investors to help you out (at the end, if your holding is liquidated, they may lose their whole investment, so they may have some incentive to help you out). Selling stock to pay off those employees and putting the plane on used market is your best option, if you cannot get that plane work for you and make profit.
If you put it on market, as I mentioned, fire all employees and you will have a clean holding. Before two weeks are up, get the plane off the market into your fleet, DO NOT CLICK on STAFF button, and then immediately put it back on the market so your two week's clock starts ticking again. If you go to STAFF tab while your plane is within your fleet YOU WILL get those employees hired again even if you have no flights scheduled (see here: http://community.airlinesim.aero/topic/6860-new-bug-aircraft-asset-transfer-createshires-staff/#entry57271 ).
Hope this helps.
George
