Airline Manager strategy discussion in English

[Air_Americas_1707456]

Hello all,

I’ve been searching for a lot of strategical and comparisons in discussion on the web but it looks like it’s rather limited in English since it’s so new. Hence I thought I would begin a discussion in English.

After 8 months of not really understanding how to effectively generate a strategy, I really want to learn more about this game. Just recently I found the differences in the R&D categories (Ie: ‘comfort’ and ‘punctuality’). I couldn’t get refunds on the wasted R&D (from paying for researches I won’t use for my strategy) but I retired 1200 employees and rehired them into the correct categories. Now I see how people go different ways with their airline (luxury, economy, INTL, Cargo, etc).

I used to base which airplanes went to which routes by the price of the ticket. <1000 would get a 737-MAX9; 1000-1500 a 75-3; >1500 a 777-3ER. I don’t know what gave me that idea but it was horrible. I’ve since sold all those and bought mostly 777-3ER’s (I’m a little partial to Boeing). I bought routes according to their time frame based on what space was available on the aircraft, not which ones I wanted, so that each plane would be at 100%. For example, I would buy 2 10-hour routes and a 4-hour route that all needed 3 flights to fully satisfy then buy 3 planes so everything was 100%. Right now all my planes are at or near 100% (+/- 1hour) and all my routes are fully satisfied. My 777’s are set up in a 30/75-80/xxx, my A380’s are 40-50/120/xxx, and my A300-600 R’s are 20/50/xxx. I’m buying all the routes divisible by 24 (12X2, 6x4, 8x3) first then start with the 5:45’s and the 7:15’s buying them all in line to add up to 24 hours. I went with the 777 because 550 seats and its ‘8’ ranking covers every major airport. For all airports under 8 I use the A300-600R, that I hesitantly chose due to its wear and fuel but has a bit more seats than the 75-3. This keeps me from bouncing around seat arrangements. After auditing the route and seeing how many seats are available I know exactly how many flights will be needed. In the end I envision having 1 hub on every continent with each hub flying, at least, to every country’s capital and each domestic airport down to a ‘4’ ranking.

My ranking went up 2,000 when I was reorganized. My daily revenue went from 41M to 89M, I went from leasing 16 planes to 1 A380 that will be gone in a couple days, although my debt went to 2B. I’m right at 344M weekly takehome, 496M pre-expenses. I’m hella in debt because of the switch from lease to own. I don’t pay any repair expenses because once a week, while I’m cooking dinner or something, I “watch” all the ads (lol) needed to play the game until they’re at 0%. I haven’t ‘needed’ to do an A or D check yet so it must be rare, although I just learned what they were for last week, and although I used to do them as soon as the plane got to 9% thinking that was how you repair. Yes, I stumbled a lot and wasted millions in the first few months of this game.

I know this isn’t much but it’s a start. I read about someone purchasing x50 a380’s at one time the other day and my jaw hit the floor. One day...

Anywho... please leave some comments on your strategy, things you’ve learned, or what you know. It’s difficult to learn about when the majority of the forums are in French. Everything I’ve stated here is just thoughts, it’s not facts nor is it presumed to be factual. If I’m wrong in something, please share with everyone.

Thanks for reading!

[Air_Americas_1707456]

My first question is: How do I join an Alliance?

[NHades]

It's nice to see your progress (I had a quick look to your airline), I started more or less same time than you in Dec 17
I'm still learning but trying to play as much RP/luxury as possible giving some real restrictions and working with every/3 classes + cargo, I found this as an interesting strategy while reading this forum instead of looking for the ultimate optimization... and I still need to redo some past stuffs according this new strategy

I would say you didn't wasted anything in R&D because you need to unlock every research & level of each line to unlock bonus R&D that can give you interesting advantages & revenues. I ended some months ago all the #5 Services R&D and unlock every bonus there. I'm now busy to do the same with Cargo research and still missing 4 levels to unlock the last bonus of this serie.

I would suggest you to acquire a new HUB and build a new network from this HUB (can be same region or worldwide according your personal choice or even similar routes) this can give you a boost as you'll enjoy back some subsidies for new routes you'll open, so you'll be able to increase quickly your revenues.

Your strategy for the routes seems really nice, for RP reasons I'm working only with new & available models of Airbus & Boeing but it seems Boeing is more interesting for price/capacity.
I'm currently slowly reducing my debt (still 1B) and collecting some cash (would like to reach 2B) to open a 3rd HUB to give a quick boost before enforcing my 2 firsts HUB...

[Air_Americas_1707456]

It's nice to see your progress (I had a quick look to your airline), I started more or less same time than you in Dec 17
I'm still learning but trying to play as much RP/luxury as possible giving some real restrictions and working with every/3 classes + cargo, I found this as an interesting strategy while reading this forum instead of looking for the ultimate optimization... and I still need to redo some past stuffs according this new strategy

I would say you didn't wasted anything in R&D because you need to unlock every research & level of each line to unlock bonus R&D that can give you interesting advantages & revenues. I ended some months ago all the #5 Services R&D and unlock every bonus there. I'm now busy to do the same with Cargo research and still missing 4 levels to unlock the last bonus of this serie.

I would suggest you to acquire a new HUB and build a new network from this HUB (can be same region or worldwide according your personal choice or even similar routes) this can give you a boost as you'll enjoy back some subsidies for new routes you'll open, so you'll be able to increase quickly your revenues.

Your strategy for the routes seems really nice, for RP reasons I'm working only with new & available models of Airbus & Boeing but it seems Boeing is more interesting for price/capacity.
I'm currently slowly reducing my debt (still 1B) and collecting some cash (would like to reach 2B) to open a 3rd HUB to give a quick boost before enforcing my 2 firsts HUB...

Hi! Thanks for reading. A few questions first: What is RP? How do you look at other cities? Can you explain the new hub subsidies a little more, does the available passengers increase or do the costs just go down? My next HUB will be ORD for North America or LIM for South.

I’ve noticed in all my routes, the Cargo price is severely less than economy class. Does that ever go up to compare with a passenger flights? It seems like it would be 10x the amount of time to get anywhere doing only cargo. I don’t put anything into cargo anymore. Last week I noticed all my cargo settings were turned down so I upped them all and all my flights went in the red. Oops. Backtrack.

Thanks!

[NHades]

Hi! Thanks for reading. A few questions first: What is RP? How do you look at other cities? Can you explain the new hub subsidies a little more, does the available passengers increase or do the costs just go down? My next HUB will be ORD for North America or LIM for South.

I’ve noticed in all my routes, the Cargo price is severely less than economy class. Does that ever go up to compare with a passenger flights? It seems like it would be 10x the amount of time to get anywhere doing only cargo. I don’t put anything into cargo anymore. Last week I noticed all my cargo settings were turned down so I upped them all and all my flights went in the red. Oops. Backtrack.

Thanks!

RP mean role-playing meaning in that case to limit game with rules closer than reality vs the one that can be used in the game (like take assumptions that an airport can have closure time, planes are never setup in full economy or with a different capacity that the one maximum in Airlines Manager, some time-maintenance on airplanes each week...)
When you acquire a new HUB (price of your first HUBs will also benefits from the subsidiary system) and the first routes will be discounted (I think 90%), meaning you can open new routes for approx 10M instead of approx 150M. For each HUB more routes you'll open, more you will pay, Subsidies will be reduced from each new route until you reach 0% subsidies and will never have it for this HUB. But you can repeat this principle for each new HUB you acquire.
This is indeed more efficient to transport economy travelers instead of cargo but price of 1 ton of cargo should be more than 1 eco. I would suggest just to fill your planes with remaining cargo capacities (when you customize a plan you can add cargo as remaining capacities (if available depending of plane/setup). If you do it like this and you cargo capacity turn to red this is not a problem, it just mean that you've remaining cargo capacity but this can be filled up with time with R&D on cargo level

[Air_Americas_1707456]

RP mean role-playing meaning in that case to limit game with rules closer than reality vs the one that can be used in the game (like take assumptions that an airport can have closure time, planes are never setup in full economy or with a different capacity that the one maximum in Airlines Manager, some time-maintenance on airplanes each week...)
When you acquire a new HUB (price of your first HUBs will also benefits from the subsidiary system) and the first routes will be discounted (I think 90%), meaning you can open new routes for approx 10M instead of approx 150M. For each HUB more routes you'll open, more you will pay, Subsidies will be reduced from each new route until you reach 0% subsidies and will never have it for this HUB. But you can repeat this principle for each new HUB you acquire.
This is indeed more efficient to transport economy travelers instead of cargo but price of 1 ton of cargo should be more than 1 eco. I would suggest just to fill your planes with remaining cargo capacities (when you customize a plan you can add cargo as remaining capacities (if available depending of plane/setup). If you do it like this and you cargo capacity turn to red this is not a problem, it just mean that you've remaining cargo capacity but this can be filled up with time with R&D on cargo level

Yes, the cargo price is about 3 times as much as eco individually but, for example, the 777-3ER can do 550 eco seats or 69 cargo tons. On my Atlanta flight it’s $769 x (550x2)= $845,900 in one flight. If it were cargo it would be $1409 x (69x2)= $194,442. I have it set up in my planes for maximum capacity so I add in the cargo that fits after the 30/80/xxx but it’s pittance because most of my flights are over satisfied in cargo. And because all my passengers are very close to satisfied, I can’t bump up cargo settings without going in the red on passengers. I hope I’m making sense lol. I put a picture to show.




I added this picture to ask about ‘shuttles.’ I’m curious if an increase in domestic inbound flights will increase the passenger output for outgoing flights? For example, if I buy a couple shuttles (75-3’s set up in a 0/20/xxx config) for flights like BZE or CUN would that transfer over into more passengers on, say outgoing CDG flights, making it worth it to purchase the plane and have relatively low income from it with expenses? Or do you just ignore the rest? Some of my domestic flights (MEX) are 2k+ eco but 80-100 First so there’s no realistic configurations for such a spread.




I guess you could say I RP then as I put the long flights overnight and short in the middle assuming the airport closes or employees sometimes get to go home (although I’ve worked in the airline industry and I know that doesn’t happen often lol). Even shuttles are a realistic thing.

Thanks for explaining about the HUB. I was planning on building them one at a time but if I get benefits from it I’ll do it sooner. There’s still about 75 routes I want to add to this HUB that I’ve already written down in notes for the 100% plane utilization (I’m a nerd).

Do you know how to join an alliance? And how can I look at your airport?

Thank you.

[NHades]

Yes, the cargo price is about 3 times as much as eco individually but, for example, the 777-3ER can do 550 eco seats or 69 cargo tons. On my Atlanta flight it’s $769 x (550x2)= $845,900 in one flight. If it were cargo it would be $1409 x (69x2)= $194,442. I have it set up in my planes for maximum capacity so I add in the cargo that fits after the 30/80/xxx but it’s pittance because most of my flights are over satisfied in cargo. And because all my passengers are very close to satisfied, I can’t bump up cargo settings without going in the red on passengers. I hope I’m making sense lol. I put a picture to show.

I added this picture to ask about ‘shuttles.’ I’m curious if an increase in domestic inbound flights will increase the passenger output for outgoing flights? For example, if I buy a couple shuttles (75-3’s set up in a 0/20/xxx config) for flights like BZE or CUN would that transfer over into more passengers on, say outgoing CDG flights, making it worth it to purchase the plane and have relatively low income from it with expenses? Or do you just ignore the rest? Some of my domestic flights (MEX) are 2k+ eco but 80-100 First so there’s no realistic configurations for such a spread.

I guess you could say I RP then as I put the long flights overnight and short in the middle assuming the airport closes or employees sometimes get to go home (although I’ve worked in the airline industry and I know that doesn’t happen often lol). Even shuttles are a realistic thing.

Thanks for explaining about the HUB. I was planning on building them one at a time but if I get benefits from it I’ll do it sooner. There’s still about 75 routes I want to add to this HUB that I’ve already written down in notes for the 100% plane utilization (I’m a nerd).

Do you know how to join an alliance? And how can I look at your airport?

Thank you.

That's right it makes sense personally I threat cargo as a bonus vs passengers. I focus on passengers to never go red and then if my cargo goes to red I don't really care as I see it as bonus to fill each plane
To my knowledge there is no passengers transfer from inbound to any other outbound flight but I would recommend to invest in planes to reduce your demand there. This will bring you anyway some extra interesting revenues vs the investment
Haha I'm doing the same with my excel tables with most of my futures plan already in sight for my main HUB, this is exciting
Alliance pages are unfortunately not available on the App, only online through web browser
You can search & ask to join alliance online here http://www.airlines-manager.com/alliance/
You can also search online airlines and have a look to them http://www.airlines-manager.com/company/ranking/

If you want we just created a new alliance some weeks ago with some friends, mostly for fun and we've still lot to build on alliance level, you're welcome, look for Star United

[DonDebrito]

Hello all,

I’ve been searching for a lot of strategical and comparisons in discussion on the web but it looks like it’s rather limited in English since it’s so new. Hence I thought I would begin a discussion in English.

After 8 months of not really understanding how to effectively generate a strategy, I really want to learn more about this game. Just recently I found the differences in the R&D categories (Ie: ‘comfort’ and ‘punctuality’). I couldn’t get refunds on the wasted R&D (from paying for researches I won’t use for my strategy) but I retired 1200 employees and rehired them into the correct categories. Now I see how people go different ways with their airline (luxury, economy, INTL, Cargo, etc).

I used to base which airplanes went to which routes by the price of the ticket. <1000 would get a 737-MAX9; 1000-1500 a 75-3; >1500 a 777-3ER. I don’t know what gave me that idea but it was horrible. I’ve since sold all those and bought mostly 777-3ER’s (I’m a little partial to Boeing). I bought routes according to their time frame based on what space was available on the aircraft, not which ones I wanted, so that each plane would be at 100%. For example, I would buy 2 10-hour routes and a 4-hour route that all needed 3 flights to fully satisfy then buy 3 planes so everything was 100%. Right now all my planes are at or near 100% (+/- 1hour) and all my routes are fully satisfied. My 777’s are set up in a 30/75-80/xxx, my A380’s are 40-50/120/xxx, and my A300-600 R’s are 20/50/xxx. I’m buying all the routes divisible by 24 (12X2, 6x4, 8x3) first then start with the 5:45’s and the 7:15’s buying them all in line to add up to 24 hours. I went with the 777 because 550 seats and its ‘8’ ranking covers every major airport. For all airports under 8 I use the A300-600R, that I hesitantly chose due to its wear and fuel but has a bit more seats than the 75-3. This keeps me from bouncing around seat arrangements. After auditing the route and seeing how many seats are available I know exactly how many flights will be needed. In the end I envision having 1 hub on every continent with each hub flying, at least, to every country’s capital and each domestic airport down to a ‘4’ ranking.

My ranking went up 2,000 when I was reorganized. My daily revenue went from 41M to 89M, I went from leasing 16 planes to 1 A380 that will be gone in a couple days, although my debt went to 2B. I’m right at 344M weekly takehome, 496M pre-expenses. I’m hella in debt because of the switch from lease to own. I don’t pay any repair expenses because once a week, while I’m cooking dinner or something, I “watch” all the ads (lol) needed to play the game until they’re at 0%. I haven’t ‘needed’ to do an A or D check yet so it must be rare, although I just learned what they were for last week, and although I used to do them as soon as the plane got to 9% thinking that was how you repair. Yes, I stumbled a lot and wasted millions in the first few months of this game.

I know this isn’t much but it’s a start. I read about someone purchasing x50 a380’s at one time the other day and my jaw hit the floor. One day...

Anywho... please leave some comments on your strategy, things you’ve learned, or what you know. It’s difficult to learn about when the majority of the forums are in French. Everything I’ve stated here is just thoughts, it’s not facts nor is it presumed to be factual. If I’m wrong in something, please share with everyone.

Thanks for reading!

What do you mean by My 777’s are set up in a 30/75-80/xxx, my A380’s are 40-50/120/xxx, and my A300-600 R’s are 20/50/xxx. Do you config your planes with other seats then econemy?

[Air_Americas_1707456]

That's right it makes sense personally I threat cargo as a bonus vs passengers. I focus on passengers to never go red and then if my cargo goes to red I don't really care as I see it as bonus to fill each plane
To my knowledge there is no passengers transfer from inbound to any other outbound flight but I would recommend to invest in planes to reduce your demand there. This will bring you anyway some extra interesting revenues vs the investment
H

Those links don’t bring up any alliances, just the main AM Page. I’m still trying to find your airline or any alliance.
I got rid of the leased plane, paid back 1B in loans, and bought new planes and my ranking dropped another 1k and my daily is now 104k with a weekly of 580k. I’m halfway to a new HUB.

What do you mean by My 777’s are set up in a 30/75-80/xxx, my A380’s are 40-50/120/xxx, and my A300-600 R’s are 20/50/xxx. Do you config your planes with other seats then econemy?

Up until a few days ago, yes. But I just realized that economy is priority and am re calculating the new ones now. Do you do all economy only? I was contemplating that as well, economy for the income and cargo for the income tax break and skip business and first.

Still trying to figure out an alliance as well. Can I join an Alliance on mobile?

[DonDebrito]

I am doing all economy on my planes.

[NHades]

Those links don’t bring up any alliances, just the main AM Page. I’m still trying to find your airline or any alliance.
I got rid of the leased plane, paid back 1B in loans, and bought new planes and my ranking dropped another 1k and my daily is now 104k with a weekly of 580k. I’m halfway to a new HUB.

You should login first to website with your login/password of AM. Then follow alliance link. Unfortunately alliance are note possible to play on mobile
Nice improvement

[Nelis]

Quick question:
The demand of all the routes doens't go up if you offer more routes right?

[Air_Americas_1707456]

Quick question:
The demand of all the routes doens't go up if you offer more routes right?

Although that is much better worded then I put it, I believe she said no, it doesn’t make a difference. I figured it would as well.

I am doing all economy on my planes.

Yep, I converted all mine over to only economy and was able to open up 4 new routes and increase daily to 110k. Good strategy. Now I see why people have many different types of planes.

[DonDebrito]

Quick question:
The demand of all the routes doens't go up if you offer more routes right?

Although that is much better worded then I put it, I believe she said no, it doesn’t make a difference. I figured it would as well.

I am doing all economy on my planes.

Yep, I converted all mine over to only economy and was able to open up 4 new routes and increase daily to 110k. Good strategy. Now I see why people have many different types of planes.

I have change my strategi a littel bit. My first planes on the routes er full eco, then i try to find one plane that can handle the rest demand of eco,business and first class. Then after that i start to look for a new route, i use http://airlines-finder.ovh/destination-finder.php to find new routes/planes

[Stephen Humphrey]

Hey guys, I kinda face the same issue! I did some very long calculations hoping to find that business or first class throw off more money than economy seats would yield over the same space equivalent. I was disappointed with my results and found that the cargo factor was missing from my calculations. After improving my calculations, I still got the result that cargo wouldn´t help to cover the loss in earnings which results from a potential more premium cabin product. All of that was interesting but did not quite suggest to get rid of economy only configurations on my aircraft. The tax bonus which comes from cargo is still mysterious to me. Yet I´ll adapt in close future: I already perform researches on the cargo improvements which cost me passengers and implement those. At the same time, one category of the ground services under staff gives me back the passenger demand I lose to the cargo improvements. I will later buy real cargo planes to put on my current routes additionally once I have served all thepassenger demand. At this time, my focus still is on passenger transportation. I fly probably 200 tons of cargo every day and I only get a tax relief of 800,000$. It would just not be worth focusing on increasing the tax reliefs just yet.
Currently I discuss the issue of further development. My hub is DXB and I operate a fleet of six748is (2 owned, 4 leased), five A388s (all owned), two A351s (owned) and around five minor aircraft which I already have owned prior to my restructuration. My 747s and A380s only fly the same route once in a week. I built schedules which add up perfectly to 168 hours which I then timeshifted for the other aircrafts. The 747s and A351s fly on the same routes. I will however take the A351s off of these routes as soon as I find a way to schedule them on other routes. The routes they serve are (ultra) long haul routes (e.g. DXB - LPB back an forth 33 hours). I found this more helpful. Buying fewer but longer routes was a lot cheaper for me. The A380s serve all the routes I already had established previously, a lot of my destinations are in Europe and some in China. On short term view, my expansion strategy is to buy the missing two A388s so that all destinations are served at least daily. Then, the leased B748is are going to be replaced by purchased ones. Maybe I find a way to put exactly one A351 and one B748i on my routes for every day - in this case, I am set to buy some five more A351s. An alterntive would be the A359 because most of the dreamliners do not have enough range. I am not yet sure.
The new Hub is the most critical point to my expansion plans. Keflavik is interesting because many flights could be operated with a stopover there. Unfortunately this is not implemented in the game but for realism purposes I would like to operate from this airport. One bonus is that it is cheaper than ATL or DFW or FRA, MUC and so on, on the other hand side KEF does not have that much demand. My hope is that the new Istanbul airport will be implemented soon and have big demand - there may be a special discount on it for which I hope. No matter where the new hub will be, it shall be the operational base for seven more A388s on a weekly schedule. Since I am generally poor, I will use ultra long haul routes because I do not have to purchase as many of them. Can you recommend any hub? I even consider AUH and DOH because I like that you almost can fly to any destination in the world from the arabian peninsula. Does it make sense to pay the extra 400,000,000$ for a better hub when I get more demand out of it? Haven´t really made any Experience with it yet...