I've been playing AirlineSim for about half a year now. I've read a lot of the forums but I'm still unsure regarding which type of airplane I should chose to start out in a new world. I guess it's a matter of strategy and personal preference. Also, I've toyed with starting with two types of airplanes.
What I have gathered is that it's best to start off with props or regional jets, which makes sense. The more airplanes in the sky means more money, even if it's less money per flight. However, these two types of planes don't fly to any airports that have a 10 size.
At the beginning do I have up to 10 airplanes flying to airports classified as 5 and 6? Or, do I have less airplanes flying to airports classified as 8 and 9.
Should I even consider starting off with only four B-737's?
Honestly it depends on which game world you want to start in and which airport / market you want to start in. In a major market a bigger (North America / Europe) aircraft may be more useful as opposed to Africa...
I like the an148. It's cheap but still has good ratings, low fuel consumption and long range. The only real downer is the long production time, but if you're just starting you get them without waiting anyway.
Just go with A320s or 737s, perfect size if you know how to fill them. CRJs and Ejets are also good if you fly with lower demand. The Cseries are great for startups as they are ideally sized, though great deals are rare on these ones. There is no whatsoever reason to use props unless the specific runways require so.
Thank you everyone for the advice. Since QUIMBY is a relatively old world I decided to go with 9 ATR 72. This cost just under $10mil. However, this probably not the best idea for all airlines starting out.
Why would you got with ATRs in Barcelona? You cant even serve big cities and the high landing fees will not help. Out of your options I would go for the 5x Cseries as they are the best balance between efficient operation and number of connections to offer. Sure the A321s would operate the routes more effectively but on the other hand offer few connections and the E170 would offer more connections but operate less effectively.
I am play in both Madrid and Barcelona and Spain has a huge domestic demand. You have overextended to quickly. Sure these destinations are great but you need something to feed them with so you need the domestic flights. I also see very little to no consistency in your schedules. You need to have some waves.
CBE: I read the tutorials on these forums and I've discovered there are two methods to scheduling flights. The first method is to use waves, as you mentioned. However, isn't there more a hit on the maintenance ratio if you schedule in waves? The second method is the "Ryanair" method where planes land and take off in the minimal amount of time necessary. I decided to go with this method because I could fit the most number of flights into a schedule. What are your thoughts? You seem experienced so I value your input.
Both methods work. With waves you will most likely have better loads, but your aircraft utilization is lower (unless you’re a genius and invest A LOT of time in optimizing your flight planes and wave times).
For international flights it kinda pays off to have at least some sort of concentrated arrival wave before you head out on long hauls (and vice versa).
Sure but Ryanair has only direct passengers and with that method you will only have direct passengers. If the direct demand is high enough than that is the way to go but you will ones be limited and you cant fully stretch your wings as you dont have the connections to sustain a large network. If you plan to only have 100, 200 or 300 flights a week I would not bother with waves but any more and you will need waves. Also if you start without waves you will need to reschedule alot of schedules later on which is time consuming. Alliances also do not want player who dont offer a consistent network for other member to connect to.
On my Indonesian trunk routes I run A380s which are perfectly schedules to fir the waves while I have A321s running Ryanair schedules to handle the direct demand. This is because I want to reserve my waves for the actual connecting passengers and hope that direct passengers book other flights. I also used these Ryanair style flights when I operated a regional carrier through Europe using CRJ and Saabs with the only explanation being that I was to noob to set up proper waves. Also if I have over 3000 weekly departures I start with more random scheduling as it is impossible to find the slots for a wave structure.
Correct, with 3000 departures it’s more like a rolling hub and its statistically improbable to not find quite a few connections available at any given time.