Which long-haul aircraft should I choose?

[SomedayTrijet]

Year - 1994

Hi everyone. My airline Liaoning Aviation will be starting Long-haul routes soon.

I will open two "Long-haul bases" at PEK and HND. I'm going to channel all Long-haul routes between those airport (PEK for Europe/ME/Africa and HND for the Americas.) Passenger will connect from flights from the long-haul routes on to flights to selected cities (I've got this clear in my head )

I've already bought some MD-80s for the Beijing hub that I'm soon going to open. I'm now saving up for the Long-haul aircraft (+ more MDs.)

However, I'm unsure of which long-haul aircraft I should by. Mostly I've been leaning to either the Ilyushin Il-96 or the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar.
I've listed candidates and reasons here:

Ilyushin Il-96 - Mostly because of it's range (7475 nm), which is enough to reach all places I want. I also have a soft spot for Russian aircraft, so I that's also another reason I'm thinking about buying it (After all, The B762ER is cheaper.) Seats 289.

The Boeing 767-200ER - This aircraft also has enough range for all my missions, and it's cheap. However, most of the another airlines that's have gone long-haul operates this type, which is a minus for me. I quite like having unique planes, that no one else operates (and the 762 is just so goddamn fat and ugly, I can't stand the way this type looks  Seats 290

Combination of Lockheed Tristar variants -200 and -500 - The Lockheed  L-1011-200 is a bit smaller then most other aircraft (it seats 250.) I guess this reduce the mx cost quite a bit, which is the main reason I consider it. However it lacks the range for some TPAC routes, so on those I'll buy the -500, which seats 300 passengers. Seats 250/300

Ilyushin IL-62 - I'm also considering this one, but I fear it's to small for PEK and HND. Seats 196.

The A310, A333, A340, 763, DC-8, 747 and MD-11 . I think those have to high mx costs or lacks the range.

I'm not so experienced as most of you other guys, and I've only operated one other Long-haul aircraft, the A332 which isn't out yet. I'm not totally sure how high Mx costs those the listed aircraft will have, so I've just tried to not go over 300 seats.

/SomedayTrijet for Liaoning Aviation.

[1993matias]

Ooh, good considerations you have made!

PEK and HND (Beijing and Tokyo for newbies) are quite big, 50+ million passengers.

I would choose a fast and far-reaching plane, that would be the TriStar. But if you want to operate a Russian aircraft, the Il-96 would be almost just as good.

The amount of seats won't affect maintenance, it is the value of all your aircraft and the average aircraft age that influences the maintenance.

The Il-62 may be a bit small for you, but you could operate it out of some of your smaller bases if you change your plans later.

All in all you have three choices:

For economics: Boeing 767-200
The most economic lr aircraft together with the A330-200

For realisticness: Ilyushin Il-96
Most Chinese airlines use (or have used) Russian/Soviet aircraft.

If you don't want the 767-200, the second choice would be the TriStar. If I were you, I would choose the TriStar

[SomedayTrijet]

Okay, I have decided to buy the Tristar when I get enough money. I'll also buy another long-haul plane to operate from my smaller bases in future, probably the Il-62. I did think about the Shanghai Y-10, but it lacked the range to do China-LHR/CDG.

Thank you for your advice

[1993matias]

Shanghai Y-10 is a downgraded, uneconomic and slower version of the 707.

But a good choice you did!