I started my airline in India and after starting it I realised that there are already major airlines dominating the market and pretty much every route/segment is covered. I started very recently and have problems filling up seats on even small planes like ATR 42 on many legs. Flights between cities like MAA and SGP and BKK could not be filled even though in real life, the market between SIN and MAA is massive.
These large companies have all been around for a long time (almost all founded on 13th July 2011 for some reason). Given that all these big players are well established and flushed with funds, how can I compete? I am not able to get a loan and from what I’ve read in the forums it seems like I would never be able to get loans unless I actually own planes. Other hubs and cities in the region are equally packed (ME, SEA, East Asia). Does AS support the low-cost vs premium service game play?
Or is it a situation where I may not be able to catch up ever. If help is not given to small start-ups the game is going to be continually dominated by large players. Thank you guys for your help and any tips, hints, advice would be helpful and appreciated!
Though there are some well established big airlines, there are also quite a number of smaller airlines around on AS. The best strategies to start:
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Settle at an airport with enough free slots, this indicates there is room to grow and sufficient spare capacity at this airport. Don’t be afraid to settle at 6 or 7 star airports.
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The large airlines take a lot of traffic because they have a feeder network, however in the end your ORS rating counts. If your flight has the best price/quality range it will rank top in ORS and therefore passengers will choose that airline first.
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EXPERIMENT FIRST, as a start-up you make a lot of beginnermistakes, learn from them.
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Interline with usefull airlines. If you fly into SIN, team-up with an airline offering enough connections. Also check if your arrival times match those of the airlines you interline with (most airlines have departure waves, in these waves most of their flights leave, arriving just after such a wave means you’ve missed out on connections).
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Be patient, big airlines don’t grow in 1 week. Some airlines can grow ridiculously fast, but most of the airlines have to take it easy and use a steady growth to get there.
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Don’t go for the far-away routes. Long-range flights are tempting, everyone wants to operate the A380, but you’re not making money with such planes on leasing base. So leave them far away and focus on flying with small equipment for, allowing you to generate modest profits to buy your next small plane.
Can i start with A330. I seems making some mistake on lease of A330. I should have lease B738 at first.
the a330 is way too big to start with on established servers.
and don’t get the 738. it burns fuel like crazy.
make sure you use the evaluation tool to see what aircrafts get you a nice cost per passanger rating. but settle for no more than three different maintenance categories (can be found on the aircraft detail page). maintenance cost will increase by an additional 15% with every new category you operate above three.