I've given up using soviet aera aircraft, just too old and disliked by passenger. Indeed, the only ones usable are the Il-96 and the Tu-204, and they are way too large for Yerevan. As you adviced me, I am kind of doomed to be a regional airline, but that's fine by me, i'll be bigger on the new world (I've started an airline in Ho Chi Minh City).
So, so far, I operate 6 Saab 340B/Plus (but they are already too old and people don't like them), 5 Dornier-328JET and 11 CRJ200ER/LR. I have also a couple of An-74 and a Fokker 70, but I canceled the lease as I have to stick to 3 aircraft families because of maintenance fees which seems to be a key factor.
Indeed, even though I manage to have a descent booking rate (some flight are full full), I just don't earn any money. A flight fully booked gives between 0 and 200$, so you can imagine what happens with an aircraft booked at just 70%.
I don't now where it come fromes. Sur, my services are quite high for a regional airline (6.7$/PAX for economy class) and I have 2 additional flight attendant per flight, but that's it. Would you reckon that base price (which are the one I'm using) are underestimated and should be upped ?
Or maybe opperating 22 aircraft at this stage is just too much, and I should focus on fewer profitable routes and get ride of some of those planes (the 6 Saab 340)
As a swede I cant say anything else about the Saabs then that they are great aircraft. They are not highly profitable but make some money and they got the speed range and popularity. Infact I have operated over 100 of them with a Swedish airline. Dornier JETs are not that good though but the CRJ 200s are ok.
I am not a Fooker Fan as i have failed miserably with them ones and I have not operated them since but I have been told that they are great.
From my experience its also important to note that demand between countries (with a few exceptions) is based on overall traffic that is equally distributed.
So lets say in real life there is a route between BCN and EVO there will be demand between EVO and all spanish cities as the traffic is distibuted according to airport size.
So, it's been 10 days, and now I can tell you that my airlines are profitable. Not much( but I don't really care as I do challenges for myself).
The issue is that it is difficult to find routes that can be filled, even with small planes (I'm operating CRJ100/200 and Saab 340/2000), and with 25 planes in Yerevan, you pretty much fly to anywhere there is a demand.
As I've started 4 times, I found that the most efficient way was to to create directly a subsidiary in Tbilissi right away and give it 4 000 000. Due to bad relations with Russia, there is even less people to transport, so 20 planes (same as above) are enough.
(You can look at Bagratouni Avia & Bagratouni Georgia on Otto) if you want to see the network.
I'm pretty happy, so now I plan to open 2 new subsiadry shortly (one in the West Indies & one in the Pacific). Quick question, what plane would consider to fly from one island to the other ? I was thinking to Saab340 with a 30/2 seat configuration. But is it still too large ?
I strongly suggest u stick to one hub in the begining. in AS, u live off transfer pax, strongly. and while there might not be a competitor in your home country, there are plenty all around you.
also, in investment open countries, everyone can drop in from anywhere in the world. so eventually, one of the faster growing airlines from another country will simply drop some 50-100 planes onto one of those hubs.
u operate ups in cities very close to each other, thus u r competing with yourself. if u want to keep your current schedules, that should be fine, as u don't use any wave structure and this will only reserve very few transfer pax, so it's direct traffic, mostly.
however, if u were to use all the starting money in your main hub, u can offer all the current flights of both airlines plus gain transfer pax (at least all those, that usually went with your georgia airline directly to Tbilisi).
for further development, I'd try flying to cities in eastern turkey and connect them both to western turkey and to Europe. you need to time those connections, though. in the very, VERY long run, u are in a great position to act as a gate between europe and both the middle east as well as asia.
I strongly suggest u stick to one hub in the begining. in AS, u live off transfer pax, strongly. and while there might not be a competitor in your home country, there are plenty all around you.
also, in investment open countries, everyone can drop in from anywhere in the world. so eventually, one of the faster growing airlines from another country will simply drop some 50-100 planes onto one of those hubs.
Yeah, I've red that several times, but the thing is that I'm just reaching the end of Yerevan. I've 25 planes, I operate every single route above 60% fill-up (no long-haul, too expensive) & I have trouble to find new (or I have to invest in planes I just don't know if I could fill them).
I can't even fill a CRJ200LR from EVN to CDG or LHR (and I have no competitors and good services). So I have to find alternatives. The key, I guess, is to go in places where no one would think of ^^
EDIT : Just seen your second message : I've flown to eastern turkey (Erzurum, Trabzon, Kars, Adana, Hatay, Van) but plane just don't fill-up, even with Saab340. Maybe my connecting is wrong, you're right. But there is competition in Turkey.
As of both airlines, they are not really supposed to cooperate, it is mainly direct pax. But if you tell me that transfer pax are the Graal on this game, I should look closer to that.
yukawa already indicated possibilities. Fly to Turkey in small to mid sized airports. And build your network which will give you more pax / connecting pax. Check some other airlines in Baku for example how they have build their network. Then you can grow. And merge your 2 airlines into one again. It is much too early to create another sub.
Ok, so you would recommend to serve all those tier 1-2-3-4 categories airport within 500kms with small planes to fill my bigger ones going farer ?
Why should I close my subsidiary ? I understand that I should not open new ones before my holding is big enough, but the sub in Georgia is profitable and closing it would mean losing a lot of money (as I said earlier, I don't really care to grow fast and big, just enjoying the challenge of having a descent profit in those places.)
Regarding the wave scheme, it is kind of what I do. I usually have planes leaving aroud 8 in the moring, another wave between 16&19, and the last one in the night.
Ok, i'll try to do that. It was I started to do actually, flying to Erzurum or Trabzon, but even with 32pax planes, I was stuck with ~40/50% booking. Maybe I should just use smaller planes, or have a better network.
Passengers are waiting 6 hours for a connecting flight, not longer. So use 3-4 waves per day. Example: 0:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00 for departures. Arrival latest 23:14, 05:14, 11:14 and 17:14 (minimum transfer time plus 1 minute). Upgrade your service portfolio (seating and service) and you will see that you can fill your planes in a while. This will take a couple of days but it can work.
I will try to increase the employee satisfaction as well (even though it does cost a fair bit of money) :)
What do you think about operating brand new LET410 for those very short haul flights ? Or I should stick to 20yrs old Saab340B ? It is my dilemna for the moment. I know that I have some troubles to fill them.
Saab340B are 1 green, 20 yrs old mean -5 red while LET410 are -2 green but brand new is brand new :)
The thing is that they have pretty much the same operating cost (even more expensive for the LET) but the LET have half the capacity of the saab (with my layouts, 18 vs 32) so even if I fill them, I won't b able to make any money. (And I don't want to buy & try them before eventually returning them).
Those very small local airports are tricky to serve ! ^^
Let's are a pretty decent option to operate out of those 1 to 3 bar airports that simply won't fill any other plane. My Canadian regional airline uses a boatload of them (over 100 at last count). Let's are forgiving planes that can operate at decent profits even without full loads. Use the "aircraft evaluation" tool to see what I mean. For those low demand but under 600km or so airports I've simply not found a better plane to use.
That same airline also uses PC12's for those far away airports you simply can't reach any other way that also have short runways. With the right settings and pricing even those can make (a little) money. Canada is chock full of those far flung airports that you can't reach with the modern day ATR's and Dash's and also have short runways. PC12's aren't useful as a money making scheme but they can add a couple of connecting passengers that just might make that London flight profitable. Like was said above connecting passengers are the "Holy Grail" because they pay you more than once. And even if one of those flights is just a break-even flight the other can be a huge moneymaker.
My regional airline looks mediocre in terms of passenger loads but it is still profitable because of these passengers paying multiple times.