Route Frequency: 1 vs. 2, 3, etc.

[danielpioner]

It`s been said.

It`s all about financial return. If you fly 0.5x and get 40K.. and fly 1.5x and make 49K.. and maybe try 3x in order to get 65K...
You`re still losing money.

Cause in the same time you could be flying 0.5x to make 40K and another 0.5x to other destination making.. 30K.. and maybe another 1x to a third city and make let`s say 42K.

Just do the math =P

But the real money you make after creating focus cities. You start flying to gates you're already paying for.

[CornField]

Okay... this is the official statement from the management...

The original OP asked to have the topic reopened.  After carefully looking at the subject and posts, we decided to reopen it minus the stupid inflamatory comments by more than one poster.  As long as the topic remains on topic and doesn't degenerate in to blatant stupidity AGAIN it will remain...


For those of you responsible for the inflamatory posts, consider this your fair warning... Use your head before hitting the post reply button.

[TheSixCents]

But As i start up i need high Frequency to claim the market left out there b/c i have small planes with 10-30 passengers,

[yourefired]

Well you don't have to have a big market share to make a lot of money. You just have to find the most profitable markets and pursue them. Plus you make more money doing 2 1xs than doing 1 2xs.

The optimal seems to be 0.5x actually. The real profits come when you join an alliance because you can daisychain a whole bunch of 0.5xs and cover a whole lot more routes.

[JayP]

Thank you, CornField.

Thanks to everyone who has made such great, constructive comments.  Please feel free to add more comments.  I look forward to hear from the veterans.

As I am new to this game, I would like to know if it makes sense to add larger and larger aircraft to a route.  This might seem like a wierd question, but I've noticed you can raise the price very high with a low capacity aircraft (even in the face of much lower ticket prices on the same route!).  Obviously, if you put a much higher capacity aircraft on the route, you would need to significantly lower the price. Also, you would pay more flight expenses (more fuel and bigger crew).  You may also spark some kind of minor (or major) price war, reducing your profits even more.

So, to you veterans, what works better: smaller capacity aircraft with higher prices or larger capacity aircraft with lower prices.

As an aside, does the passenger demand model take into consideration that passengers may prefer to get to their destinations faster (turboprop vs. jet)?

Thanks!

[yourefired]

Smaller capacity (less than 30 seats) for smaller capacity routes and larger capacity for high capacity routes. The key is to rightsize, not upsize or downsize.

[Steeler83]

You know what I am noticing?  Some routes that have "good traffic, more than 1000 daily pax" still require a lower fare depending on aircraft.  So, it might not be the best idea to use larger aircraft on some of these routes.  I put a 737-100 on a route like PIT-Jackson, MS, at 500 Euros, and the return was only about $25k with a LF of not even 25%.  A sonewhat smaller aircraft, like maybe a F28, would likely have a return of about 50 or 60k and a full load at that given fare...

[yourefired]

Perhaps the availability of alternate transportation vs. flexibility and different crowds going places? I mean, you're obviously going to have a different crowd flying JFK-LAX (lots of business travelers who can't travel any other way-if they don't get to a meeting at NYC TOMORROW they'll get fired or something) vs. PIT-Jackson, Miss. (lots of families, a much more price sensitive crowd).

Like West Coast-Honolulu will have more vacation travelers vs. San Jose-east coast and things like that. But Hawaii fares are expensive anyway because there's no other reasonable alternative.

Bottom line, I think it's a function of price elasticity of demand.