INTRODUCTION



Which manufacturer, what model/type?

First of all, it really depends what is your goal, what is your strategy.
However, if you are aiming for the best turnover, you will be aiming into old plane.

Wait, old plane? -- We'll get back to this one in a second.

What is the "best turnover"?
An Airbus A380 can bring 50M a week no problem; while the old IL-963 can do 17M a week with ease.

The answer is partially tied to their "return on investment" ("ROI") related to cost per seat; and partially on game mechanic.

Investing 403M on an Airbus A380 can bring 50M; fair.
But investing 403M on Il963 would give you about 4 planes at 17M each (68M).

Looking specifically into "cost per seat" ("CPS"):
The Airbus A380 - at 403M and 853 seats - has a CPS of $472,450
The Ił-96-300 - with its lille 110M price tag and 300 seats - has a CPS of $366,666
Like in the real aircraft industry, lower the CPS is, the better.

[MAKE TABLE]
Investing 4.4Bn, assuming a route price of $8000 in economy (ex: MPM-PEK)
Airbus A380: 11 planes | 9383 PAX | potential ROI: 75.0M/day
Ił-96-300: 40 planes | 12000 PAX | potential ROI: 96.0M/day
[/MAKE TABLE]

Basically, with the same investment, your return (income) will differ a lot, from one plane model to another.

Among the best planes of the game are:
DC-3 (CPS: 234375)
Ił-96-300 (CPS: 366666)
747-200B (CPS: 445378)

While the worst ones are:


The second point is less known, but rather part of the game mechanics:
For each flight, there are turnover generated by the sales of your flight tickets, as well as extra ancillary revenue.
There are also expenses (fuel, airport tax), but also, "other costs". This is directly tied with the game mechanic that influence the performance of a plane.

The "other cost" can be minimized by reducing the airline charactheristic "expense". For some aircrafts, such as the DC-3 and 747-200, this line item can be reduced down to zero.
For some other planes, like the Airbus 380, this can be reduced, but nothing compared to some older plane - hence why "older plane" perform better in the game.

Does it apply to all old plane? No.




Naming Convention

Now that you have settled on your plane make and model; how to name them?

This is highly controversials,


Seat Configuration

How should you configure your seat in your aircraft?
What propotion should be economy seats ("eco")?
How many seats dedicated for business ("bus") vs first class ("first")?
How many tonnes ("T") of cargo would you carry?

The theory

Part of the game mechanic, you can swap 10 economy seats for 1 tonne of cargo in a plane; they have the same "weight".
Unless you have a full cargo airline, normally the income of "10 economy passengers" will be "much more" than 1T of cargo.
It is much more profitable to carry the economy passengers instead of cargo.

How about Business and First Class?

Well, sort of the same. Each Business class seat takes about the space of 2 economy seat; but their tickets are not twice as expensive.
Similarly for first class: their seat takes about 4 times the space of an economy seat, and they will never bring you four times the income.

In all cases, economy seat must be your main focus; while minimizing business and first class seat.
It doesnt mean you must not have business seat nor first class seat; but they should be minimized.


The practical solution

Use the Perfect Seat Configurator.

To put simply, the tool searches among all seat configuration the ones that brings you the best turnover based on the audit of your route(s) for a given "wave".
Additionnally, the tool will tell you what price to set for your route(s).
[Read also: CIRCUIT, WAVE, Link to Seat Config]

Often, having a single (or very few) business seats, may give you a better income as their price will be highly increased.