Route Planning and Strategy discussion

[kwilson92]

I know we all like asking question's to Tomcatter and Tjoeker about the game, but now i want to ask our members something.

How do you work where you wanna fly to?

I use a website called anna.aero which has an area called route shop on it and see what real world airports want as destinations.

I also use the Norwegian Strategy of flying long haul to secondary destinations, for example: (Yellowknife) YHZ is a domestic airport in Canada, It can become an International Airport with 4 International Routes. MAN-YHZ, STN-YHZ, GLA-YHZ AND EDI-YHZ all have decent demands and can handle daily flights with a Boeing 737MAX7.

One bit of advice, Just because its a domestic airport, don't discount it!!

Now, Discuss!!!!

[AirBerliner]

You can say my strategy is to have no strategy.

My home airport is Berlin - Tegel and in the future it will be Berlin Brandenburg International. With my main Airline I only fly longhaul missions. 
I have 68 international routes to e.g. Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Johannisburg, Dschidda, Toyko (both airports), Doha, Los Angeles, New York (2 airports), Dubai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur. I create routes that I want to. I only look at the demand.
If I had two airports at the destination, one flight goes in the morning to one and the second in the evening to the other airport.

All international routes have an 4-class layout. Airplane: Boeing 787-9 or A350-900

If codeshare is possible again in the future, than I can start with my big german and european business plan.

A321neo for connections between Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt/Main and München (6 routes at all and every hour one flight)
A320neo and A220-300 for city connections for Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Nürnberg, München, Stuttgart, Frankfurt/Main, Köln, Düsseldorf, Hannover (via routing needed, Berlin via Nürnberg to Düsseldorf)
A220 for business routes to London City Airport from Berlin, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, München, Frankfurt/Main, Köln, Hamburg or Hannover


Routes to NewZealand and Australia from germany are to long, so I had to build up an asian flagship partner. Airplanes A350-900 or A350-1000

[kwilson92]

Your "I will look at demand" approach for large airports would'n't be far from Lufthansa's approach anyway. Though about using an Airbus A350-900ULR for your NZ and AUS routes. My Cargo Airline (Global Cargo Solutions) uses a converted Airbus A350-900ULRF on its STN-SYD Route, It has a range of 16.000 miles so it would make it.

[AirBerliner]

Yes, I though about using the A350-900ULR, but for my plans it isn't the best airplane, because of the load restrictions.

With my future Yàzhōu Airlines, I could fly A350-900 and -1000 from e.g. Bangkok, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur to AUS and NZ as connecting flights for my Germani Airlines. It also gives me the possibility to fly from these asian cities to other european, american, african and middle east cities to get more connecting passangers.

[kwilson92]

Load restrictions??

[Tjoeker]

Yeah, every aircraft has a maximum take off weight (MTOW) meaning that you have to make a trade off between either payload or fuel (thus range). The A350 ULR is mainly that: extra fuel tanks, thus increasing its range. But it can't carry as much passengers/freight as the standard version. They probably made some other improvements as well. This is why Signapore airlines runs it in a premium configuration only, it simply cannot carry the weight of a full 200 seat economy class.

For this reason, your A350 ULR Freighter won't be so profitable in real life, as you can't fill it effectively. This should be implemented in the game at some point. But for now it does work in the game. ^^
I mean, I'm not judging. Whatever works in the game works.

--

My strategy differs from game to game depending on where I'm playing and what kind of airline I have in mind.

My favourite option is of course my home airport Brussels as a base.

In this case I start with short haul.
My airliner of choice varies a lot between different plays.
But as a rule of thumb I start with an A319 sized airliner and add frequencies as long as there is demand for it.
If the frequencies are saturated (3 - 5 flights a day), or slots start running out (never happened ^^), I start upgrading to larger aircraft.

And when I have a decent short haul network, I start long haul. Usually JFK first.
Depending on what the AI is doing, I start a strong transatlantic network or I go the SN route: Africa.


My other plays tend to be in either Germany, UK, France, India, Japan or Brazil.
In these cases I have several bases for domestic flights and occasional short haul international flights.
And then a hub or 2 for short and long haul flights.

[AirBerliner]

Load restrictions??

Yeah, every aircraft has a maximum take off weight (MTOW) meaning that you have to make a trade off between either payload or fuel (thus range). The A350 ULR is mainly that: extra fuel tanks, thus increasing its range. But it can't carry as much passengers/freight as the standard version. They probably made some other improvements as well. This is why Signapore airlines runs it in a premium configuration only, it simply cannot carry the weight of a full 200 seat economy class.

The A350-900 can carry 36 passangers more than the ULR with the same layout.
48 business, 21 premium and 243 eco seats is the standard layout for the A350-900. The ULR Version has 84 business and 105 premium seats as normal configuration. If you want to change it to a three class layout, you get 207 eco seats with big space at the rear.

If I now reduce business/premium seats, the eco seat difference between normal and ULR version will be bigger. Thats why the ULR version isn't the best airplane for my plans.