Messages

1

General Chat / leasing

« on: December 11, 2007, 04:00:12 am »

I have a quick question about leasing as well.

When I first started the game I leased aircraft - obviously - so I could earn some revenue before plopping down the money to purchase a plane outright.  I now have 2 planes that the lease is about to expire on (1 and 9 days), and I would like to continue leasing as I'd like more money in the bank before I start buying.

My question is, is there a way to extend a lease period?  Or if I have to have the aircraft returned and then re-lease, is there a way to transfer the current route over to the new plane?  I just would like to avoid having to re-do all of my routes associated with those planes when the lease comes up.  Pain in the butt to begin with, but I also don't want to pay those marketing costs again.

Thanks for your help!

2

General Chat / Price cutting

« on: December 08, 2007, 04:36:07 am »

Thanks for the help - that pretty much clears things up.  I have seen that most of even the top airlines do not have near 100%, but my first line of thought was, "if it's not 100%, I could be making more money"...but I suppose that if lowering my price leads to a price war, I am cutting my own throat as well.

Anyway, thanks again for the input!

3

General Chat / Price cutting

« on: December 07, 2007, 06:56:43 pm »

Hey all, I just have a question about pricing.

First I should ask, does the demand for a route change over time -i.e. if the number of frequencies/passenger capacity/ticket prices remain constant for a particular route, and all planes are filled to 100%, will that stay at 100% as long as nothing is changed?  Or will loadfactor drop on occassion even though all the variables remain the same?

The reason I am asking is because I have a couple of routes that have seen decreases in loadfactor the last few days, which means less money.  I know that in an oligopolistically competitive market such as the airline industry, price cutting is generally not a good thing because when one airline drops their prices, others will have to follow suit or they'll lose customers - and since everyone drops their prices nobody really gains.

So my question is, if I have a route that is at 88% loadfactor (and I like keeping mine at 100%), if I lower the price to achieve 100%, will that lower the loadfactor of the competing flights on that route, causing them to lower their price and the cycle to repeat?  I guess, is it better to leave the loadfactor between 80-99% (for example) than to start a price war?

Sorry, I'm just not sure how the economics work in the game yet.

Thanks!

4

General Chat / Help with departures from new base city.

« on: November 27, 2007, 10:30:22 pm »

That just increased the amount of thinking necessary to succeed by about 10   .  Makes sense, though - thanks for the explanation!

5

General Chat / Help with departures from new base city.

« on: November 27, 2007, 08:41:52 pm »

I seem to be having a problem with availability of aircraft for departures from a new base city I have created.

I just bought 4 gates at Muncie-Johnson Field, and created a base there.  I have several gates that I have purchased but are not in use, because I ran out of room in Grand Rapids.  

When I go to create a route departing from Muncie, I do not have any aircraft available for any of the destinations that are not yet in use.  I even tried a destination that was already in use and only 115 miles away, and still none available.  All of my aircraft have more than enough range for that, and they have between 5-9 hours available.  

However, if I create a route that departs Muncie and arrives in Grand Rapids (the airport where I originally started the game), all three of my airplanes are available - but this obviously does me no good because I do not have gates left in GR.  Is there something I missed in creating a base city that is causing me not to be able to go anywhere but another base city from Muncie?

Thanks for the help!
Jason

6

General Chat / Gate Usage Warnings?

« on: November 25, 2007, 07:27:05 pm »

That must have been what happened - not sure exactly how long those messages were there, as the new message notification wasn't very obvious (in IE at least).  But my gates have not been returned and all is well.

Thanks for the help!

7

General Chat / Gate Usage Warnings?

« on: November 24, 2007, 03:36:45 pm »

Hi,

Just started playing this sim a couple of days ago, but I have today received two Gate Usage Warning messages.

One is for Grand Rapids, and says "Due to lack of usage, a total of 1 have been flagged as disused at Grand Rapids. This means unless they are used, they will be automatically returned at the beginning of next month".

When I go to View Gates, I have 2 gates in GR, 6 slots, and utilization of 70%.  How, then, is one of my gates not being used?

I also got one for Springfield, IL.  Again, when I go to View Gates, I have 1 gate there, 8 slots, and utilization of 20%.

Does gate utilization have to be above a certain level or something?  

I don't want to lose the gates, but unfortunately I have a football game and I don't know that I will be finished before the end of the game month; I would greatly appreciate any help!

Thanks!