Tutorial/1.5/First Steps/Take-Off

From AirlineSimPedia

Contents 1 Aircraft page 2 Schedule your first flight 3 Schedule the return flight 4 Filling the schedule and maintenance ratio 5 Activate the schedule 6 Schedule a transfer flight 7 Wait for your first passengers

Aircraft page

Select "Fleet Management" -> "Fleet" and choose the fleet your aircraft is assigned to. If you did not changed the fleet assignment you may find the aircraft in the fleet "default". All the aircrafts belonging to the fleet are listed here. In the row of each aircraft you find three symbols:

• Scheduling
• (current~) Flights
• Settings

Click on the symbol for scheduling.

On the top of the page you find some general information about your aircraft. Below are three tabs marked "Schedule", "Flights" and "Settings" (Those can be directly accessed through the three symbols mentioned above).

Schedule your first flight

Let's schedule your first return flight!

Being on the tab "Schedule" a form to enter new flights and the schedule, which is of course empty right so far, is displayed.

To schedule a new flight:

1. Enter a new flight number (without the airline-code!)
2. Select departure airport (From:)
3. Select departure time
4. Choose price level and service profile (Can be left on default if you choose to manage the prices and service through the Route Management. See also Service Profile)
5. Select arrival airport (To:)
6. Click on the button "Create new flight number"

Note: If the departure or the arrival airport of your choice is not listed, make sure you opened a branch office at this airport.

Now, a planning section will appear. For all days of a week the planing section informs you if the flight is possible or not. If not, you can see what is wrong (indicated by red cross ). For scheduling a flight all fields must be indicated by a green check mark ().

In most cases you may have to change the departure time (see below). Initially a daily flight is selected (you can change that in the game settings). If you don't want to operate on a daily base (or can't because of slot problems), you can select/deselect each day of the week. If every check is green, clicking on "Apply Schedule Settings" will create this flight and assign it to your aircraft.

The empty schedule

Schedule the first flight

Control the settings

Schedule with the first flight

Schedule the return flight

The first flight will be displayed red, because we only planned the flight in one direction. Without a return flight, the aircraft will be stucked at the destination airport and might not operate further flights. You must not return to the same destination immediately also roundtrips (e.g. airport A to B to C to A) are possible.

By default, the scheduling form is now automaticly filled in with a new flight number, the airport selection for the return flight and a new time suggestion based on the flight before. You can change these settings if you want to fly to another destination or earlier/later. To schedule the return flight click on "create new flightnumber". Like before the flight planning section appears. After checking the conditions (indicated by a ) you can apply the schedule settings.

A common mistake is a insufficent time window. In this case the the departure time is set before the time the airplane will be ready for departure. You can see in this in the planning section, that the flight is marked in red in the schedule and there are red crosses () for the time window. Change the departure time that the flights will not overlap to solve the problem.

Schedule the return flight

Control the return flight

Time changed for return flight

First and return flight successfully scheduled

Succesfull scheduling the return flights will result in yellow marked flights in the aircraft schedule. It indicates that your schedule is correct (no missing/broken flights).

Congratulation on your first flight schedules! Before you approve you flights and allow the booking system to book passengers or freight, you can add further flights. Only a flying aircraft will earn you money.

Filling the schedule and maintenance ratio

On the aricraft's information bar you find a maintenance-ratio (see example on right). The maintenance ratio is the ratio of maintenance to flight.

Maintenance:

• is automatically scheduled indicated by a light blue background in the flightplanning schedule
• requires the the aircraft to have a gap of at least 2h in its schedule.
• is proceed on every airport

If the aircraft has no scheduled flights the maintenance ratio is 100%. After scheduling the first return flight, the maintenance ratio is i.e. 2146.6%. You can schedule more flights until you maintenance ratio is arround 100%. If the maintenance ration is below 100%, there is not enough time in the schedule for the maintenance. The condition of the aircraft will descend day by day. If the condition is below 50% the aircraft will be grounded and is not allowed to operate flights until it's repaired. Depending on age, aircraft model and schedule, you should leave some maintenance windows during the week.

Hints:

• The maintenance ratio is also an indicator for the aircraft's efficiency. Generally speaking, the higher the ratio the less money you can earn with your aircraft.
• For short- and medium haul scheduled services you should allow a daily maintenance. Customers appreciate a well maintenained aircraft.

Schedule more flights - our example is showing a maintenance ratio of 125.7% (may differ depending on other maintenance provider). Four return flights per day to two different destinations and a daily maintenance period of about four hours.

Activate the schedule

Now that you planned your schedule, it is time to allow the reservation system to book passengers and freight on your flight. At the moment your flights are not activated. This means you successfully blocked the necessary slots, but no one can book your flights. Not activated flights will be deleted after some days to prevent cheating (slot blockade).

So if you are satisfied with your schedule, select "Activate Schedule" below the schedule box. The option "3 days delay" is valid for changed schedules to avoid mixed up schedules, if the aircraft was flying recently with active fligts in your fleet. Already booked flights of the old schedule will be completed before the new schedule will be booked into the reservation system.

After a successful activation, your scheduled flights will be marked in green.

Schedule a transfer flight

Change to the tab "Flights". At least 30 minutes after activating the aircraft's schedule, the first flights offered for the reservation system appear. All flights listed here can be booked by the AirlineSim's passengers or freight.

To operate these flights, your aircraft has to be at the first departure airport on the list. If your aircraft is located somewhere else, add a tranfer flight: Select the airport you will transfer the aircraft to and click on the button "Book Transfer Flight". The aircraft will be transfered to the new destination - there is no need to look for slots. The transfer flight appears in the list of flights. After it is completed it will disappear.

By now, the transfer flights are free of charge but they need some time to be completed.

Wait for your first passengers

Congratulations! You now have scheduled your first aircraft.

Now you can repeat this with other aircraft or sit down and wait for passengers/ freight. Each airport will book once a day it's ticket demands to the available routes. The specific time for each airport can be found on the airport detail page.

Each passenger/ freight in AirlineSim has a destination. If you are lucky, they will book you, because you have a good offer for this destination or you can provide a good connection flight. The tickets will be booked up to three days in advance. So you can only tell at the departure time how many passenger/freight will really be booked on this flight. At the moment your aircraft is taking of, all revenues and expenses for this flight will be charged to your account. Maintenance will be paid, wenn it's done. staff/ leasing/ loans will be paid on weekly base.

Welcome to the airline business! You know everything you have to know to operate your airline. For detailed information refer to the Advanced Concepts and Expert Knowledge!