I have a 4-months old airline on old server. This was my first airline, and while still very profitable, it is suffering from very low image and staff mood (due to my lack of knowledge of how stuff works at that time, and also by my lack of dedication recently) .
The staff mood is actually at 5 red bars, and even after having the salary over average for several weeks, and now at permitted maximum (about 70% over the top of my then-wage), the week end closing that took place today did not bring any (visible) difference to staff mood. While it shows positive attitude (upward tendency arrow) it remains at 5 red bars (some staff at 4 red bars),
Also the airline image is quite negative (almost -20) and while it now has upward tendency in business (while still being deep negative), the economy still has downward tendency. The airline operates older used aircraft, so the "age" has huge impact on image (but overall image can be positive even with old used aircraft if staff mood has at least 1 green bar). So negative staff mood is affecting my overall image and dragging me down.
Again the holding is quite profitable at the moment. All in all, the current negative image affects the ORS by 2-points down (what would be zero-image ORS and what is current-negative-image ORS). I have not yet had to offset anything by lowering prices etc but I want to take care of this. Admittedly, this airline was on the second level of my attention as I was working primarily with my later-set-up airline on a different server where I was able to expand nicely in one of the principal world markets.
So here comes the question: the airline (holding) operates roughly 25 used 737s. There are some used 737s available and I can start dropping them back to AS Lessor if necessary. Would I be better off to set up a subsidiary and transfer the flights there, one plane at a time (releasing and redoing schedules), while interlining with the holding, until all traffic is moved over to the subsidiary? Or is there any way to save the holding flying with current negative image and somehow make it go up within a few weeks' time? Any suggestions?
Hi,
from my experience, every flight your airline ever did adds to your airline image. If your airline image is -20, it will literally take ages before you reach a decent image rating.
What you say about staff mood is strange... I have created three subsidiaries in the past months, and in two cases it took only one week of double salaries to bring staff mood from neutral to 5 green bars. The third case was a small country where another airline had probably also doubled his salaries because the country average was quite high. In that case maxing the salaries only gave me 4 green bars for staff mood.
If I was in your situation, I would go for the solution you suggested... create a subsidiary and transfer all flights to the new airline.
If you have the time... create your subsidiary and let it fly one flight only during the first week. That one flight will bring your airline image from naught to about 60. It will also make sure your airline has employed all sorts of staff. At the end of the week you pay double salaries and staff mood should jump up. And then you start for real. I did it that way with my youngest subsidiary and airline image stands at 85 after exactly one month (I created Red Star Lebanon on the 6th of january).
Mind you, I also used all available jump seats for extra flight attendants and I left out one row of seats (to increase seat space) on the first 5 aircraft.
Jan
Jan, I am not the first one that has "perpetual red bar" staff mood issues... I found this thread http://community.airlinesim.aero/topic/1877-staff-mood-issues/ which depicts exactly my case.
I will go ahead and start with the new subsidiary and do what you have suggested. Thank you for those interesting ideas.
Hi,
I forgot about that thread (although I replied to a post of Tandem).
Anyway, I did not imply that I don't believe you, I only meant what I said... it is strange :-)
It would mean that staff mood works like airline image - something that is built up over time - or that there is a bug somewhere. Getting staff mood to 5 bars is always the first thing I do, so I don't know if it becomes harder to improve the staff mood after some time.
If you can afford it, pay them double salaries for a few weeks and inform the AS-team if nothing happens.
Jan