This is my first time on these forums and I'm excited I've found this world. Hopefully I'm posting this in the correct location, if not please let me know.
My Question:
I created a flight between two fairly well populated cities. I've noticed that I'm slowly getting more and more passengers on my flight. Is it sort of a gradual build up of passengers? I'm losing money at the moment with this flight and have done several calculations to see what would make me profitable. I definitely need more passengers though, I want to make sure I'm not going to be stuck.
I've adjusted my in-flight services to better cater to all pax and slightly lowered my price to make myself more competitive and perhaps get my airline started on a reputation? (I'm not sure how complex the system is, but I'm being safe) I've also signed two interlining agreements which should help my outlook.
Any helpful tips or hints for a 'newbie'? - Thank you!
[[Just realized that I clicked the general forum instead of the help forum, if a moderator could move please? my apologies!]]
Could you please say what airline, route and server and I could help you? Otherwise you might have a too large aircraft, but awnser and I will beable to give a bettre answer and if you want I could help you future on to get started :) .
Hey I am quite new here, I was looking at market analysis when I saw that my flight wernt selling out 100% my asking price is $165 but my competition's asking price is $169 and it sells out within a day it appears on the schedule, I operate a B737-900 and he operates an a321. Is there any reason why this is like this? Any help would be much appreciated!
1st of all you should check the ORS to see if your flight is at least a little bit competitive compared to others. If it is not you can see in the specific flight number where the problem comes from. It does not seem to be price
if it is not, this might be a problem. Unless you have a connecting passengers from your own other flights or your interlining partners.
2nd: Your Flight Plan looks super messy. Are you sure your flights can connect to the interlining partners and your own other flights? You can check this from the Scheduling page - other flights must arrive at least before the departure of the flight they want to connect to MINUS the airports transfer time (take care sometimes 01:30 is rounded up to 01:31. Also note that Passenger arrival time is not equal to your planes arrival time (this also includes a turn around time).
For example your JNB - CPT only has a total rating of 51, so you can first find it on the 3rd! page of the ORS. Now you can still fill your flights, slower as the competition, but they will still fill because of the really high demand on that route. However, this will change soon ( a few weeks) when your competition buys more planes and offer more seats. So you need to counter this soon. This would include e.g. higher wages (staff moral), better seats, more Flight Attendants, better Service, lower prices, etc. Most of the values that make up the total rating can be improved for the better.
1st of all you should check the ORS to see if your flight is at least a little bit competitive compared to others. If it is not you can see in the specific flight number where the problem comes from. It does not seem to be price
if it is not, this might be a problem. Unless you have a connecting passengers from your own other flights or your interlining partners.
2nd: Your Flight Plan looks super messy. Are you sure your flights can connect to the interlining partners and your own other flights? You can check this from the Scheduling page - other flights must arrive at least before the departure of the flight they want to connect to MINUS the airports transfer time (take care sometimes 01:30 is rounded up to 01:31. Also note that Passenger arrival time is not equal to your planes arrival time (this also includes a turn around time).
For example your JNB - CPT only has a total rating of 51, so you can first find it on the 3rd! page of the ORS. Now you can still fill your flights, slower as the competition, but they will still fill because of the really high demand on that route. However, this will change soon ( a few weeks) when your competition buys more planes and offer more seats. So you need to counter this soon. This would include e.g. higher wages (staff moral), better seats, more Flight Attendants, better Service, lower prices, etc. Most of the values that make up the total rating can be improved for the better.
* My tip: I would not put the same sized aircraft (or at least not the same aircraft unit) on a route to a 8/10 bar airport and 4-bar airport. Why? Because most likely in the future 8/10 bar route will be full while 4-bar may struggle. If you have 4x 4-bar routes only on one aircraft unit, you can downgauge aircraft easier than if you have 2 x full routes to 8/10 bar airports and 2 x 50% LF routes to 4-bar airports on one single flightplan. By decreasing aircraft size to accommodate less performing route, you would give up revenue on fully performing routes. Now if you have 4 x routes with range 50-75% LF, you can downgauge AC (e.g. from A320 to A319) and maintain 80-95% LF, without making a sacrifice of dumping pax from fully performing routes.
* My tip: I would not put the same sized aircraft (or at least not the same aircraft unit) on a route to a 8/10 bar airport and 4-bar airport. Why? Because most likely in the future 8/10 bar route will be full while 4-bar may struggle. If you have 4x 4-bar routes only on one aircraft unit, you can downgauge aircraft easier than if you have 2 x full routes to 8/10 bar airports and 2 x 50% LF routes to 4-bar airports on one single flightplan. By decreasing aircraft size to accommodate less performing route, you would give up revenue on fully performing routes. Now if you have 4 x routes with range 50-75% LF, you can downgauge AC (e.g. from A320 to A319) and maintain 80-95% LF, without making a sacrifice of dumping pax from fully performing routes.
Thanks for all the suggestions, I just changed the cabin service and I added 2 flight atendants in each class (y) and (c) so I someone can maybe go and check if there is anything else i should change, I would appreciate it allot! I dont know if it has an immediate effect on the ORS since my flights haven't changed a bit...?
Changes only affect future flights, that haven't been entered into the booking system yet. So for the next 72h your flights will still be in the current configuration, while future flights will be booked with the changes you made.