Airbus A300 Range

[clarkjordan12345]

I'm currently in Private World #2245 and it's August 1990.  I was just wandering about the Airbus A300 range (the A300B2-200 in particular). I've bought 10 of these and I want to know if I've made a good decision as I just read a forum post saying "2 rules: 1, don't buy anything over €300,000,000 and 2, don't buy anything with more than 300 PAX.  However, the A300B2-200 has 336 seats yet it's only €130,000,000.  I use it between my hubs (Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, Brussels, Prague...) to places like London Heathrow and Paris Charles De Gaulle.  I currently have 6 in operation and they are all making in excess of €450,000/day.  I will only use them for short haul routes inside Europe so the only downfall I can see is the turn around time which is 1.34 but will the maintenance costs dwarf the profits made?  I need some advice.  Thanks in advance.

[danio100]

i don't think they will be profitable. When you use them at routes from prague etc.. When you have a hub in LHR or CDG you can use them on routes to AMS, FRA, MUC, MAD but only with no competition on these routes!! So i just would use smaller aircraft they will be much more profitable!

[1993matias]

The maintenance costs are calculated from the value of the plane. If the plane costs €130,000,000, the maintenance wil be relatively low for a plane with 300+ seats.

The range of 2128nm is not really good for anything else than intra-continental routes. The size of your hubs don't really justify the use of a 300+ seater plane. If you were to buy another A300 (which isn't the best aircraft), I would choose the A300-600R with a range of 4735mi. It can reach the US and part of Asia from Copenhagen.

The profit of the routes before you put the A300 on it might be higher than after the A300. The high capacity of the plane lowers the prise so much that it affects the price.

Try to sell the planes to somebody else instead of scrapping!
For a high-capacity plane for big routes in Europe, choose something with max 250 seats. For example B757-200, MD-80 series or A310.

I hope this helped you; have fun!

[clarkjordan12345]

Thank you very much for your advice and I take it all on board, but as I mentioned, they're all operating between my medium hubs to LHR CDG etc.. one is actually making €580,000 a day.  Obviously I'm only going to use a small amount of these planes.  They're just to put up with competition from the giants.  I thought that putting a Short Range 747 on those routes was a bit too far xD Any airport below 25,000,000 has an MD-81 on it btw.

[danio100]

on airports between 20 and 30mil pax i would use a 757-200/300.... MD-81 are nice, I used a lot of them  but later i used 757 because they were more profitable.

[1993matias]

The disadvantage of the MD-80's is the speed. They are so slow. A big 737 or 320 would earn more because of the ability to fly more routes. But if you'd like a nice fleet using MD's, the MD-80 is acceptable.

[Virgin Serbia]

The disadvantage of the MD-80's is the speed. They are so slow. A big 737 or 320 would earn more because of the ability to fly more routes. But if you'd like a nice fleet using MD's, the MD-80 is acceptable.

In real world, the MD-80 should cruise at 0.02 mach faster than the 737 classic

[clarkjordan12345]

Well I like the MD-81 because it is so cheap and I do have quite a big soft spot for it.  I suppose you could call me a hipster for not going with the 737 or A320 xD The speed however, is not a huge problem for me as I only fly within Europe around Scandinavia, the Baltic and Northern Europe so there's not much distance between my destinations. I should also add that I have just put my last A300B2-200 into service and it's making €640,000 a day!