What would the more experienced player's thoughts be towards the Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia, as a newbie still trying to start off. It is quite an attractive aircraft at first. It is cheap to lease, easy to fill. And I personally like to have Embraer doing my Domestic short haul, to match my other ERJs doing the larger routes.
I have noticed a bit of a lack of aircraft in the 30-40s range, I know the Dash 100, but they are much older, more expensive than the Brasilia
1. Most of these planes are very old and will reduce your aircraft image. This can be overcome....but
2. The bigger problem is though that any jet aircraft under 50 seat is very difficult to generate profits UNLESS you can charge over default fees and/or fill more seats. In general placing good seating in smaller planes is very difficult to do economically and still generate profits.
I've tried multiple times using smaller jets but I always end up coming back to 410's or other small turboprop aircraft (ATR's etc). The newer generation Dash's just have too many seats...and I might as well use a bigger jet vs a modern Dash. Losing money on a 410 is no big deal...and sometimes you can find quite lucrative small airports that bigger planes just won't do and others won't challenge you allowing to really drive up pricing. But these strategies are usually better mid to late game after you've really built up the trunk routes from your hub.
The aircraft evaluation tool is truly your friend.
The lack of small turbo probs is a real nightmare, need some smaller aircraft. Only option is the ERJ-135, but I always feel quilty operating them on the tiny shorter routes
Fairchild Dornier 328-120,BAE Jetstream 41,Dash 8-Q100A and even the Embraer ERJ-135ER is more efficient.
The Q100 might be a bit older,but they are cheaper than EMB-120 (On Gatow atleast),more popular and you might save a maintenance category for bigger turboprops
Saabs are good. But to be honest do you need a turboprop at all? Also have you discovered the aircraft type evaluation tool? It will give you an idea on how profitable an aircraft can be...E135s are usually a no go too..
Depending on your home country turboprops like the Let410, Saab, and PC12 may be your only option because of runway sizes. Canada for example has many airports with reasonable demand for small aircraft. The problem there is range of the turboprops ATR, Dash, and Let's that simply don't let your reach everywhere. I've found that PC12's are the answer to that and can reasonably make decent (if small) profits to a regional airline. The key to that is that few even pay attention to all those small 1 bar airports...thus allowing you to have much higher pricing than you otherwise would be able to get away with.
Of course none of that matters until you have a sufficient trunk routes that all those airports want to reach...
Even the smallest e-jets require runways that simply make them unsuitable for many locations. And that is assuming you can even get a hold of the CRJ 100 & 200's.
Thanks. I’m very well aware of aircraft performance. The original posting I’m sure involved a fleet consisting of E110s, E120s, and E135s. For me to make an even decent attempt at an airline I would have nothing smaller than a CRJ7.
Anything smaller is hard to make a profit on and certainly should not make up the majority of your fleet. I have over 1000 aircraft on meigs, with less than 10 turboprops, purely only for performance issues. Again players should be checking the aircraft evaluation tool and you will find it hard to make money. Keep the small aircraft(below CRJ7 size) and turboprops to a minimum, and only use them if you really really need them
