A lot of questions

Hello. Pretty new to the game and the alliance, but need some help.

I am having a hard time figuring out a consistently profitable, and I am not sure what factors are causing this. I have a bunch of questions to try and figure out what I am doing wrong, and how I can improve my game.

I started my airline with 2 Fokker 70's with Atlanta as the home base. After some trial and error, I had two pretty successful routes going: 1 plane flying ATL to PIT, and another flying CLT to JFK. I was making 15-20K a flight about 60% of the time. On a daily basis, my earnings were 3-4 times the amount of my expenses. Since I joined the alliance, I am barely making 2 to 1 earnings to expenses. One thing I did different after joining the alliance was drop all but one of my purchased slots and began using alliance slots mainly, since most of my purchased slots were already alliance slots.

Some questions I had:

Do purchased slots versus alliance slots affect profitability?
What is the main factor in finding a profitable route (lets say for my Fokkers for example)?
Is there a certain number of times a day you should fly the same route?
What factors determine how many people are on my planes?

I would have thought as my airline rating went up, I would start seeing more consistent numbers. Not necessarily full, but at least some consistently. I seem to be getting under 10 passengers WAY too often.

Quote :

1. Do purchased slots versus alliance slots affect profitability?
2. What is the main factor in finding a profitable route (lets say for my Fokkers for example)?
3. Is there a certain number of times a day you should fly the same route?
4. What factors determine how many people are on my planes?

1. There is no difference between alliance and purchased slots.
2. The main factor in finding a profitable for just about any route is finding the shortest route possible. Sometimes it works when flying a long route occasionally. It also depends on the number of routes being flown to the airport. The more routes to that airport means there are less people and cargo to be placed on each flight.
3. It depends, if you fly short routes, it will only bring in income if you fly your planes frequently. But while you are sleeping or will be away, that is when you want to fly medium to long routes. I would go with medium routes with the Fokkers.
4. I will be honest and say I have no clue lol. But I think it has something to do with your rating. For every 10 or 20 rating points, your passengers increase by 5 or 10%.

I hope this helps a little bit.

P.S. The profits in this game are very random at different times of the day.

Your rating has an impact on the number of pax.

The Fokker 70 has a capacity of 71 economy class pax and 8 business class.

You get a percentage of this maximum amount based on your rating.

0-15 Rating = 40%
16-30 Rating = 30%
31-60 Rating = 35%
61-100 Rating = 40%
101-180 Rating = 45%
181-300 Rating = 40%
301-500 Rating = 40%
500+ Rating = 45%

Plane condition has an effect on pax and you add this percentage to the rating percentage above.

100 - 91 = 15%
90 - 81 = 10%
Below 80 = 5%

The number of airlines based in a city has a negative effect and you take away the percentage from above.

0 - 50 = -2%
51 - 100 = -4%
101 - 150 = -6%
151 - 200 = -8%
201 - 250 = -10%
251 - 300 = -12%
301 - 350 = -14%
more than 350 = -16%

So the formula is:

Maximum Number of Passengers x (Airline Rating % + Aircraft Condition % - Number of Airlines based in city %).

Hope this helps

Also any improvements you have will have a bearing on the number of pax.

Cargo plays an important part in $ earned on each route which is totally random, so when you are purchasing planes the higher the cargo capacity the better.

Hope this helps you out, but in reality the more you are online the better.

Thanks for the replies. This definitely helps.

How are minimums determined? Cause it seems like it is random and sometimes very frustrating.

For example, I have Boeing 757-200F, which is capable of hauling 51,700 KG. On one run, from Memphis (MEM) to Omaha (OMA), it only hauled 4.895 KG. That's around 9 percent of its capability.

Cargo On Board Passenger Aircraft

The cargo calculation without any improvements is a random number between 0 and the maximum amount of cargo that the aircraft can carry.

When you purchase improvements for cargo, the improvement increases cargo on your aircraft by the percentage for that improvement, on top of the original random amount of kg.

For example, if the systems original amount of cargo for that particular flight was 1500kg and you have an improvement that gives you a 5% increase, then your total amount of cargo for that flight would be 1500kg x 5% = 1500kg + 75kg = 1575kg.

Cargo On Board Cargo Aircraft

The calculation is different for cargo planes.

The game uses the following formula for the minimum amount of cargo on board.

Where X = Km you fly /1100

Maximum cargo load of aircraft x (X /100)

eg: Maximum flight distance is 4800km on an A300F with a maximum cargo load of 20,000kg, so if the route was at the maximum flight distance for this aircraft of 4800km.

X = 4800 / 1100 = 4.36

Therefore calculation is: 20,000kg x (4.36 /100) = 872kg.

The cargo on board for this flight would be a random number anywhere between the minimum of 872kg and a maximum of 20,000kg.

Any improvements purchased would then be calculated on top of this random number.

Hope this helps you understand how it's worked out.