Beginner's Guide
From AirlineSimPedia
This article provides some basic theories regarding starting a new airline. For a more technical look at the process, try the Tutorial!
Contents |
Complete Beginner's Guide
Where should I base my operations?
The first and most important decision to make here is picking a country; your rights to fly to various destinations, regardless of where your airline itself is based, will depend on it insofar as it will limit your options as regards establishing airlines. Generally speaking, passenger flights can only take place within, to or from the country your airline is based in; the two exceptions to this rule are the European Union (which maintains a common aviation market - meaning you can fly 'from' anywhere in the EU 'to' anywhere in the EU) and the Yamoussoukro Decision countries in Africa (which operate on a similar principle - although not all African countries are part of it!). Cargo flights have a little more leeway - you can fly cargo anywhere you like, as long as there are no active restrictions (like those applied to USA-Cuba and Israeli-Arabic flights) preventing you from doing so.
To answer the actual question, then; your primary instinct will, naturally, be to find an uncongested market, and there are a few tools which can make this fairly easy. A quick look around the major and minor airports of your chosen country should suggest some general trends - use the airport flight schedule page of an airport you're considering as a hub to see if many of the local airports are served, and check the slots page to establish whether you'd be able to do much flying out of the airport in question - a lot of orange or red in there means you're likely to have a lot of trouble timing flights! It's also important to remember that you need to base your operations out of, at the very least, a 'small airport' - transfer passengers may be the only way you're going to fill some flights, particularly from small airports, and if your home base doesn't have the facilities to do so you might not get far.
Airline Planning
What sort of airline should I try to run?
Your goal, fundamentally, is to fill your aircraft up and make enough money by doing so that you can pay your staff and contractors. This is not necessarily an easy task. Just like in real life, virtual passengers in AirlineSim have a good idea of where they want to go, but they can be picky. Passengers will choose who to fly with based on several variables - the time their flight takes, how much it costs, the inconvenience of the connections, the service you offer and the aircraft they're flying on, both with regard to seating comfort and the age and type of the aircraft itself. Freight uses similar variables, although a box is, naturally, less picky than a businessman! The problem for new startups lies in interesting enough passengers or freight in their own flights. A route between two very large airports is likely to have a lot of traffic, but it's also likely to have a lot of competition - on the other hands, routes to or between small airports might not have enough of a customer base to fill your aircraft up even without any competition at all. This is where Interlining comes into play. If you have an interlining agreement with another airline, your passengers can freely transfer to their flights and vice-versa, which has the potential - if you can time things right - to open up far more travel opportunities than a startup airline can provide by itself. This sort of hub-and-spoke model is recommended for a startup; flying from a larger airport to several smaller airports will at least get you a reliable market on one end of the flight, using smaller aircraft to establish an initial feeder network will, at least, be cheap, and once you have it up and running you can dive into the bigger Airbuses and Boeings without [as much] risk.
Spreading your Wings
Tempting as the prospect may be, running a long-distance airline is very difficult. It is of course possible to fill an aircraft with three hundred seats, at least in theory; the problem is that on the routes where that's possible you're going to find a large amount of competition. You've also to bear in mind that leasing large aircraft will, obviously, tie up a large amount of capital, and you'll be paying very high costs just for the privilege of running it. Cash on hand can, therefore, be hoovered up astonishingly quickly by this method.
Freight-only airlines are another tricky subject; they can work, particularly bearing in mind that you're likely to find less competition for freight, but you will have less options for flights (not every airport needs eight tons of heavy machinery delivered every day, after all!), freight demand is less regular than passenger demand, and on short flights flying may not even be competitive with ground transport.
Which aircraft should I use?
Your choices here will - or, at least, should - depend on the airports you're serving. Every airport has a particular passenger and freight supply and demand, indicated by the green bars on the airport information page; the longer the bar, the higher the demand. For airfields with very low demand small turboprops like the Cessna 208 will usually be big enough. At two or three bars you may want to consider larger props like the Dash 8 or ATR, or even regional jets if the market on the other end of the line is large enough. Fuel and landing costs can be calculated with the performance tool on each aircraft page - play around with them and see what your costs would look like! The present fuel consumption model can lead to results which seem a little odd on the surface, but remember that fuel costs aren't everything - there is maintenance to consider, along with leasing and staffing costs. Generally speaking, you're better served with smaller, lighter aircraft that you can reliably fill than with large aircraft - flexibility is the key to a startup airline's success.
If you're lucky, there may be some older examples of the aircraft you're looking at available to lease; this will save you money on leasing costs, though it does imply increased maintenance costs. Buying aircraft outright is not recommended for a start-up airline - or even practical, in many cases; leased aircraft can be returned if you can't find profitable uses for them, but you're stuck with anything you buy unless you can find someone to take it off your hands. One last thing to consider is that aircraft are assigned to particular maintenance groups (Bombardier CRJs of all models fall into one group, for example); it's in your interest to operate as few groups as possible, as after the fourth group you'll start to incur maintenance cost penalties.
So where should I fly, after all?
Generally speaking: trunk routes (London - Frankfurt, New York - Boston, Sydney - Melbourne etc) are extremely competitive, particularly as entering these markets late in the game can be challenging due to airport slot shortages. Secondary airports in major cities (Paris Orly, London Stansted, Dallas Love & similar) may be a better option, but they're likely to fill up pretty quickly too. So, what's left? Well, if you've picked a reasonably open market, you can probably find some fairly large airports that aren't very well served at all. If you've got a base all to yourself, start connecting close-by airports to your own hub to provide local passengers with some options, and then go looking for a reasonably established Interlining partner somewhere else. Once you've signed an agreement, connect your hubs to theirs. This should get people flowing through your network - transfer passengers being particularly sought-after here in that they can essentially be charged twice! From here, the sky's the limit - go slot-hunting at major airports to establish your own passenger streams, develop your local network, and add capacity - or raise prices - as necessary for your growth.
