Airline Mogul Forum
Airline Mogul => General Chat => Topic started by: s2cmpugh on September 05, 2007, 04:11:44 am
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Hey Everyone! I just started playing this game today and am already addicted. However, I am now over $5 million in the hole!!! What did I do wrong?? Does anyone have any tips or suggestions? I thought I was doing good and had it down, but when my gate rental and airplane leases it, I am severely in the red!! Help!!
Thanks,
Cris P.
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Ok.
Simply put, you had too many gates, and too many lease-in's, which when combined with a low DOP & a month change will cause a negative cash amount.
It should be all fine in a couple of RL hours.
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Month end expenses are likely the cause, if you have a positive DOP that is.
on the 1st of every game month (the time of day fluctuates a bit now and then) maintenance, gate rental, lease revenue and expense, etc. all happen. If you're 5m in the hole cashwise, you may be just a little gate heavy (which in most cases just means a few hours of waiting for positive cash again) or you may have some oversized leases. Finance should help you figure out in general where you're high/low.
Don't forget, leases you pick up from the used market will charge that rate monthly, it's not a one-time payment. (not to insult you, just a common misconception).
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So it sounds like I just bought gates, then only used them maybe 10% of the time, when I should have used them more? I just cancelled all my leases, closed most of my routes, and the only plane I have now is the one they give you when you start. Is there a way I can get a reset? Does anyone have any tips I could use? I would prefer to not keep failing...
Is there a way to see how effeciently I am using my airplanes? Is it good to have a higher frequency or not?
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Theres really no tips to the game.. its all about patience! You start out small, and you spend time looking for the most profitable routes, and slowly(I mean really slowly), you grow to become a major airline. Since this round has already started for a couple of months already, its unlikely you will catch up with the leading airlines. So this is my suggestion, stick to the game, try different things out, and prepare for next round(according to D Express, in 28 real life days)
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-thwack-
Don't try to call me DEX. :lol:
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Theres really no tips to the game.. its all about patience! You start out small, and you spend time looking for the most profitable routes, and slowly(I mean really slowly), you grow to become a major airline. Since this round has already started for a couple of months already, its unlikely you will catch up with the leading airlines. So this is my suggestion, stick to the game, try different things out, and prepare for next round(according to D Express, in 28 real life days)
How do I go about finding profitable routes? Since I have negative cash right now, I can't even lease planes or anything....
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Ahhh, but you can do something.
You are still able to rent gates & create routes.
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Usually. low competition routes tend to be decently profitable, but depending on who you're competiting with and what route it all varies.
Basic trend to keep an eye for: Higher populations tend to mean higher profits, higher competition almost always means lower profits, and of course, the trick is finding a place where you can pull off a good balance of the two (relatively high pop, relatively low competition) and periodically accept Loadfactors in the 80s rather then spur on price wars to the teens.
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but should I maximize my frequency or look for more routes? For example, since I only have one plane, I have a frequency of 10 from RIC to Raleigh and am making about $75k, and then I have a frequency of 1.5 from RIC to Chicago Midway or about $70k. So what should I do????
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Maximizing frequencies usually equal lower profit per aircraft.
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So it sounds like making the frequency 1 or 2 will yield better profits?
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Yes, if you create more routes.
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Yes, if you create more routes.
Thanks for your help! But, how do I find profitable routes? The only way I know of is to just pick a city that is somewhat large, look to see if anyone else flies there from my city, and see what the market guess is (ie: average, good, etc.). That costs money though, so is there another way?
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the market research tool is handy, if you know some airports around where you're based. Shows competition, distance without having to rent gates.
For this age at least, you likely want lowish frequencies (say 1-3 freq) so the plane can serve more places, then rather high frequency flights. next age will have a correction to the overly flat rate of return on routes (i.e. ticket rev from 1 freq vs 10 freq).
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the market research tool is handy, if you know some airports around where you're based. Shows competition, distance without having to rent gates.
For this age at least, you likely want lowish frequencies (say 1-3 freq) so the plane can serve more places, then rather high frequency flights. next age will have a correction to the overly flat rate of return on routes (i.e. ticket rev from 1 freq vs 10 freq).
From all this debt I have, there is NO way I am going to be able to lease or buy anymore planes. I guess my question is how do I find good airports that have a high growth rate? is there a tool for that?
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rent gates, go to your home continent, you can sort by population, available gates.
There's a tool in progress (which isn't going well, unfortunately, and is outranked at present by more pressing matters) which is designed to help you find airports you don't serve yet with X, Y, Z constraints (population, continent, that sort of thing)... but yes. at present, Terminals > gatesearch.
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rent gates, go to your home continent, you can sort by population, available gates.
There's a tool in progress (which isn't going well, unfortunately, and is outranked at present by more pressing matters) which is designed to help you find airports you don't serve yet with X, Y, Z constraints (population, continent, that sort of thing)... but yes. at present, Terminals > gatesearch.
I don't know how to sort by population, continent, and gates...can you tell me how? And what's a good profit per plane? I'm only using the ATR they give you when you start out..
Thanks,
Cris P.
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Good profit can range, simple rule of thumb is figuring out about how many game days it takes to either pay for the lease (if it's leased) or game days that it takes for your airline to pay for its focus cities gates' (as they'll usually amount to a large portion of your gate fees at the end of month). If either is around game 20 days, you're probably not getting a good contribution margin from your aircraft, but it's likely still viable. if either is over 24 game days (aka. one game month) you're losing ground.
To sort by stuff in gates, simply select the continent or country you want to look in. you'll see a nice long (or short) list of airports come up, sorted by their name. you'll notice that the header for each column of data is a link. simply click "gates" to sort by gates ascending, click it again and you'll sort it by descending. click country to sort by country, or passengers to sort by passengers asc/desc. There's similar links on a few other pages (buy/request ac, aircraft), so just keep an eye for some little links like that throughout.
Handy stuff it is. :D
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Good profit can range, simple rule of thumb is figuring out about how many game days it takes to either pay for the lease (if it's leased) or game days that it takes for your airline to pay for its focus cities gates' (as they'll usually amount to a large portion of your gate fees at the end of month). If either is around game 20 days, you're probably not getting a good contribution margin from your aircraft, but it's likely still viable. if either is over 24 game days (aka. one game month) you're losing ground.
To sort by stuff in gates, simply select the continent or country you want to look in. you'll see a nice long (or short) list of airports come up, sorted by their name. you'll notice that the header for each column of data is a link. simply click "gates" to sort by gates ascending, click it again and you'll sort it by descending. click country to sort by country, or passengers to sort by passengers asc/desc. There's similar links on a few other pages (buy/request ac, aircraft), so just keep an eye for some little links like that throughout.
Handy stuff it is. :D
Thanks! Is there a way to see how many flight hours my aircraft has left to use up, and how many flight hours it is for a certain route, BEFORE I rent a gate?
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Thanks! Is there a way to see how many flight hours my aircraft has left to use up
Yes, it displays it on the aircraft page and also on any view aircraft page.
and how many flight hours it is for a certain route, BEFORE I rent a gate?
Currently, no.
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and how many flight hours it is for a certain route, BEFORE I rent a gate?
You could use great circle mapper to find out the distance, then divide it by the speed of the plane, then add in the turn time. It should be reasonaly close.
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Thanks! Is there a way to see how many flight hours my aircraft has left to use up
Yes, it displays it on the aircraft page and also on any view aircraft page.
and how many flight hours it is for a certain route, BEFORE I rent a gate?
Currently, no.
Where at on the aircraft page?
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and how many flight hours it is for a certain route, BEFORE I rent a gate?
You could use great circle mapper to find out the distance, then divide it by the speed of the plane, then add in the turn time. It should be reasonaly close.
And where is the "great circle mapper" located?
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Aicraft Hours available:
http://www.stephenm.org/StephenM/aircraft_hours.PNG
Great Circle Mapper:
http://gc.kls2.com/
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There is actually a column labelled "hours" in the view aircraft page if you look closely.
http://gc.kls2.com
*edit: Stephen, stop posting and the exact time and location I post already! :P *
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He's basically your boss, so that sounds a little weird :)
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He's basically your boss, so that sounds a little weird :)
It is meant to sound ironic :wink:
*changing to the voice of a consultant* Delegate, delegate, and delegate. With such a booming business of yours, you can't micro-manage. You have to empower your team to make decisions on their own and help you out. You have got so many capable sub-ordinates here, you could just let them answer all those questions out there. Get on the important things. Manage. Don't work your behinds off.
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*changing to the voice of a consultant* Delegate, delegate, and delegate. With such a booming business of yours, you can't micro-manage. You have to empower your team to make decisions on their own and help you out. You have got so many capable sub-ordinates here, you could just let them answer all those questions out there. Get on the important things. Manage. Don't work your behinds off.
:roll: It's a forum, not The Office :wink:
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:roll: It's a forum, not The Office :wink:
Still, I have to earn my keep :P :lol:
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He's basically your boss, so that sounds a little weird :)
Hes just a mod for the moment. He has limited powers. :P
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@ dktc: But you just don't :wink:
@ Stephen: Maybe you should remind him :lol:
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@ dktc: But you just don't :wink:
@ Stephen: Maybe you should remind him :lol:
:cry: