Messages

1

General Chat / Concerning €1 Routes

« on: April 21, 2008, 10:06:33 pm »

My personal view is that $1 routes should be allowed because they hurt the airlines flying them.  If they want to lose money, they should be allowed to do it.  Their smarter competitors will take their planes and use them to make more money elsewhere.

If the airline using the $1 routes is doing so to try to force their competitors out of the market, they'll be in for a nasty surprise when their competitors jump back in as soon as the prices go back up.

My personal favorite was a competitor that ran 72.5 frequencies against me on a route.  He had 72 frequencies on one plane and 0.5 on another.  Not only had he bought a plane just for that one route, but he was also renting 8 gates at each airport just for the route.  It was the funniest thing I've ever seen in this game.  Sadly, he got smart and cut the route.

2

Bugs / Wrong planes in Research Route

« on: April 12, 2008, 02:46:06 am »

Looks good now.  Thanks!

3

Bugs / Wrong planes in Research Route

« on: April 11, 2008, 03:47:11 am »

I've still got problems here.

BUF-ORD

Research Route:

Code: [Select]


Competition Information
Airline                  Aircraft          Frequency Fare
Flying Badger Airlines   VardaxServ-Aero Hotter 1    €980
MAXAir                   Pilatus PC-6/B2-H4    1    €976
SoaringSpirit Airways E•S Let L-410-UVP-E       1    €1,000
Sunwing Airlines         Pilatus PC-6/B2-H4    1    €1,000
Totaljet                 CASA C212-300         1    €1,000


View Route (accurate, at least for me)

Code: [Select]


Competition Information
Airline                  Aircraft  Frequency Fare
Flying Badger Airlines   Dash-8-300A  1     €980
MAXAir                   Dash-8-300   1     €976
SoaringSpirit Airways E•S XAC Y-7-100  1     €1,000
Sunwing Airlines         CASA C212-300 1     €1,000
Totaljet                 CASA C212-300 1     €1,000


4

General Chat / World 4: Central America

« on: April 11, 2008, 01:28:29 am »

I loved being in Central America for the rounds I was down there.  It's a nice change of pace, but it tends to get boring after 1 round because there are so few good hubs.

5

Bugs / Wrong planes in Research Route

« on: April 10, 2008, 07:49:00 pm »

I've noticed that the wrong planes have been showing up in the research route screen.  Specifically, it says that everybody's using the CASA C212-300.

Example:

In the Research Route screen (for BUF-JFK):

Code: [Select]


Competition Information
Airline                Aircraft Frequency Fare
OliAir                CASA C212-300 1    €560
Pan Am                CASA C212-300 1    €569
Flying Badger Airlines CASA C212-300 1    €600
Air Transpacific      CASA C212-300 2    €480
Freedom Airways       CASA C212-300 2    €510
Air Phifam            CASA C212-300 1    €800
EazyAir International CASA C212-300 1    €806

But in the View Route screen for the same route:

Code: [Select]


Competition Information
Airline                Aircraft Frequency Fare
OliAir                ATR 72-200   1    €560
Pan Am                ATR 72-200   1    €569
Flying Badger Airlines Dash-8-300A  1    €600
Air Transpacific      CASA C212-300 2    €480
Freedom Airways       CASA C212-300 2    €510
Air Phifam            CASA C212-300 1    €800
EazyAir International CASA C212-300 1    €806

I think this happens on all the routes I look at.

6

General Chat / When Is plane swap coming?

« on: April 10, 2008, 03:20:37 am »

The answer, as always, is bound to be "when it's ready."

It can't come soon enough though.

7

General Chat / What's a VardaxServ-Aero Hotter?

« on: April 06, 2008, 03:39:58 am »

What's a VardaxServ-Aero Hotter?  I looked it up on Google and couldn't find anything.

8

Game Updates / Multi World Update Thread

« on: February 05, 2008, 04:07:14 pm »

Will the current round be extended until the multiworlds release date?

Saturation doesn't seem to be as big of a problem this time around as it was last round.

9

General Chat / Profitability on larger jets

« on: February 05, 2008, 04:49:00 am »

You're encountering the exact same problem that real-life airlines encountered when they first introduced the 747.  

They were doing fine on routes with smaller aircraft, and they figured they'd be able to sell lots more tickets for the 747 without dropping fares that much.  They were wrong.  There simply wasn't enough demand to fill big fleets of 747s, and the airlines flying them started bleeding red ink.  On a few select routes it did brilliantly well, but for most airlines the 747 was a financial disaster.

Back in the 1970's a lot of airlines bought a few 747s each.  Pretty much any airline worth the air in their tires had to have one, and some went broke because of it.  Eventually most of them were forced to get rid of their 747's because they simply couldn't fill it, and it was too expensive to fly around half-empty.  Today most 747's are operated by a fairly select group of airlines who have a lot of them.

It's neat to see the same thing occurring in AM.  Airlines think they have to have a 747, they spend vast amounts of money to get one, and then they find they can't make money with it.

10

General Chat / Airbus A300B1

« on: February 03, 2008, 04:26:18 am »

I ordered a handful of them, just to try them out.

60 widebodies is only a "handful"?!?!

Oh, to be a rich airline! :wink:

11

General Chat / Airbus A300B1

« on: February 03, 2008, 12:29:19 am »

[
If the people are smart enough to hire them, they would not be dumb enough to fire them. (doesn't this sentence sound strange? )

Other way round, isn't it?

If the people are dumb enough to hire them, they wouldn't be smart enough to fire them.

12

General Chat / Airbus A300B1

« on: February 02, 2008, 04:06:46 am »

I think they'll find the plane to be of limited use, given its slow speed and long turn times.  That means fewer sectors per plane, which means pretty low per-plane profits.

For the same price you can get two Mecures, which can carry the same number of people when you double the frequency (although its range sucks).

13

General Chat / Re: Your goal for this round

« on: February 01, 2008, 03:53:23 pm »

No.1 in Central America (currently 3rd but probably the highest DOP on that continent: >24M EUR)

It appears we share the same goal :wink:

Should be fun though.  You fly more flights, I fly bigger planes.

14

General Chat / What happened to HAMPO!!!!!!!!

« on: January 31, 2008, 04:09:58 pm »

First off, I must say that I enjoy iranair's unintentional comedy.  Top marks to dktc for managing this perfectly well.

Secondly, I've found that orders via in-game brokers take time.  Lots of time.  You never quite know when the plane is going to show up, and you usually don't know how much it's going to cost when it does.  It's annoying, especially when you've got a chunk of cash set aside for the plane, but it's worth it in the end for the deals you get.

Third, I'm in Orange's alliance, and he's been noticeably absent for a while now.  That tells me that he's got one of those weird things known as a 'real life' that's probably taking priority over satisfying an irrationally angry webgame player.

Fourth, why a Middle Eastern airline in this game would want a 747 is beyond me.  The turn times are so long that you can't use it for lots of short-haul routes, since the plane ends up spending more time on the ground than in the air.  That means you can only do long-haul with it, and there aren't many long-haul routes that you can make enough profit from to justify using a 747.  I'm a small-continent airline myself, and the biggest thing I can use is a 727.  For us, the only thing a 747 is useful for is leasing out to people who are stupid enough to take it.

15

General Chat / Boeing 737-200Adv vs. SE 210 Caravelle Super 10B

« on: January 26, 2008, 05:33:26 pm »

Most of these aren't routes with overcapacity.  The vast majority of my routes have reached equilibrium.

After the Caravelle 12 you also reach diminishing returns, since there's a huge gap in price to get a bigger jet.

- Caravelle 10B -> 732 Adv. is an increase of 11 seats for about $13 million.  I don't think it's worth it, but I can see how others think it is.
- 732 Adv. -> Caravelle 12 is an increase of 13 seats for about $4.5 million.  In my opinion, that's worth it.

After the Caravelle 12, the next cheapest jet that's bigger than the Caravelle is the HS121 Trident 1E-104.
- Caravelle 12 -> HS121 Trident 1E-104 is an increase of 11 seats for over $30 million(!).  Clearly not worth it.

All these planes have similar range (with the exception of the Caravelle 10B, which has shorter range) and similar speed (with the exception of the Trident, which is faster).