What am I doing wrong?

[embe]

I've been playing this game for about a week now and had my account reset once after I completely messed up the first time, due to a lack of understanding of how the game works. However, I still can't manage to understand how on EARTH i'm supposed to actually make my airline profitable. Let's look at the finances:

I start off with the default DHC-6-300, which costs 150.000 per month in maintenance. Add to that three gates, one at the base and one each at my two destination airports. These gates cost a total of 400.000. Add to that the other expenses of a few thousand euros. This comes down to a little over 550.000 per month in expenses. My question now is; how the HELL am I supposed to make that kind of money on two routes? At the moment I'm flying between three major metropolitan cities (hence the high gate costs) and bringing in 125.000 per month in total revenue, which is obviously not enough to break even. I've also tried flying exclusively between smaller airports with much cheaper gates an no competition, but that didn't work either - I was in the same financial situation as I am now, only on a smaller scale. This all seems like a big Catch 22 to me; I need to rent gates in order to add new routes and make more money, but the money I make on each route is always less than what I pay for each gate.

Obviously(?) I must have missed some vital, vital aspect of the game, or I'm either doing something completely wrong here, so could someone PLEASE point out to me what it is that I should be doing but isn't in order to break even?

[yourefired]

You're supposed to max out your plane. And don't do more than 1 frequency, you don't make that much more money.

[Dan380]

Yes, you've missed a few vital things.

-Route profit is per game day, your expenses (gates, Maint' etc.) are per game month. So multiply your route profit by 24 then take away expenses.

If you're still in the red:
-A lot of new players expect (understandably) that flying 3/4 times a day on the same route is good. Unfortunately due to the game mechanics, flying a frequency of 1 to lots of destinations is actually far more profitable.
-Buy Big ASAP. As soon as you can afford a 50 seat prop, go for it!
-Remember flying to places closer to your base (e.g LHR-CDG) is often profitable than flying to further away places with better passenger numbers.

[zkvac]

Fly a 1 frequency or 0.5 frequency flight to the closest airports to your base, regardless of size (Just because an airport has 30,000,000 yearly pax DOES NOT warrant a frequency higher than 1, you can just charge a higher fare). Keep making flights until your plane is out of hours. Make your fares as high as possible while still maintaining a 100% Loadfactor. You should be alright if you follow that advice .

[Chavaquiah]

the money I make on each route is always less than what I pay for each gate.

Unlikely. Bear in mind that the profit shown for each route is per day, while gate costs are incurred per month. So if, for instance, you're making 20,000€ in one route, that amounts to 480,000€ in a month.

Also, read some threads on multiple frequencies. You'll probably learn that they're not always a good idea. Indeed, most times they are a terrible idea. :wink:

[zkvac]

Fly a 1 frequency or 0.5 frequency flight to the closest airports to your base, regardless of size (Just because an airport has 30,000,000 yearly pax DOES NOT warrant a frequency higher than 1, you can just charge a higher fare). Keep making flights until your plane is out of hours. Make your fares as high as possible while still maintaining a 100% Loadfactor. You should be alright if you follow that advice .

[Steeler83]

Some additional advice:

Do not save up for the larger planes!  I did that in the past and it pretty much ruined me.  By the time I got around to ordering, say, a 727 or even a 737, the competition was ordering such aircraft and larger by the bulk pretty much, dumped all of those aircraft on my routes, and dropped my LF and profits down into the cargo hold.

What world are you in?  I am in world 3, and if you're in that world, I would suggest a Canadair CL 215-102.  At one point, that was my most profitable plane making somewhere between 250k and 300k.  Antonov AN-2Ps and BN 2A-Mk3s are also a pretty solid bet.  Then, as already posted, purchase a 40-50-seater as soon as you can.  I went with Fokker F27-100 and -500s.  Others have purchased ATRs, and I guess it depends on preference as well as world.

When you get enough for a jet, I recommend starting out with something in the 60-80-seat area, like the Fokker F28s.  I would go with the F28-1000 due to its range and speed.

I pretty much bought a crap load of smaller planes and flew to markets within about 500 or so nm from my base in order to maximize my DOP.  I actually leased gates from big airports and put myself in the red.  I have seen many other airlines first do this when starting out.  I think that is how they were able to grow so rapidly.  I went some 500k into the red earlier on by renting gates from markets like PHL, JFK, etc, but the DOP more than made up for it in the long run.

[yourefired]

For the first 6 months or so, if you don't constantly have a plane on order, and are falling into the negative every monthly rollover, you're doing something wrong.

I wouldn't buy too many jumpstart 700k planes though. You have to eventually get around to replacing them, and that's a pain in the butt. Start buying planes in the 3-5 million range rather than those 700k planes.

If you're entering later in the game, then just lease those tiny planes, make some money off of them (when you lease you only pay for gas), and then use the money to move on to bigger planes.

[embe]

Thanks a heap for all the replies, I was hoping it would be something as simple as that! I just logged in to my account a short while ago only to notice that my finances are indeed in the black, and with a good margin to. I appreciate all the strategy tips too, they will certainly come in handy.
Thanks again everyone.