Which passenger plane is the best one for overall profit?
Does anyone have an opinion?
From my point of view the more seats at an airplane/aircraft there are the more Wollars/W Bucks/W$ Dollars you get.
That’s not necessarily true. I can fly a 777 to a destination and earn a profit of around $7,200.
Same destination with a A350 earns me around $8,500. Plus the cost of maintenance. $7000 looks like a lot however when you get to the different levels of maintenance and some of the maintenance cost are in the thousands of dollars you have to think, did this plane generate enough revenue to cover that?. I’m new at this and I was wondering if anybody had any insight of maintenance cost versus profitability on the routes.
Most seat+least engine+highest fly speed = better aircraft
It is not real world simulator, you dont need spread sheet and calculator, just pick the aircraft you like and build your fleet from their.
Since you always has the option of AI income flight, thus it is impossible to go bankrupt or let the maintenance cost interrupt the cash flow.
B787 and A319. There are some charts prooving that.
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My recipe for making money is to buy initially the cheapest M plane and fly them to the nearest destination. This M plane has a lower turnaround time and can get off the ground quicker and return sooner.
My E190’s (10 at the moment) at MCT are still making money. For LEJ I use 13 757F’s. Flying to FRA is around W 2900.
After a while you are in the luxury position notknowing what to do with the money 
Drawback is that you have to play for longer periods to benefit from this.
Cargo planes are BY FAR the most profitable when I look at my fleet revenue per plane and obviously over the lifetime of the plane. This is because the most profitable route is also the shortest route and you can therefore get many more flights in on the plane between maintenance. First thing I do after unlocking all the passenger X/L slots to get AI planes. I then fill all of my medium cargo slots with AN-12 (or 734F) and then I work to get 747Fs for each X/L cargo slot. Note regarding the Antonov An-12: it is a bit expensive to unlock initially but it has a great price point for the amount of cargo it has and would be the best choice (IMO) for a first airport purchase.
After filling the cargo slots with your own planes, the most profitable thing is probably filling up the M slots with A319s to the point that will let you start getting your preferred routes unlocked. While you are working on those, gradually fill all the L passenger slots with 787s. Prioritize buying A319s as long departures are unlocked. As the A319s mature, I sell them for silver planes and replace them with 734s with the aim to eventually sell those and replace with 757s (at that point you are getting money so fast that runway and slot space becomes the premium and so therefore the more passengers the better). Only buy small cargo planes if the slot is S only - and then buy the B462F; you are going to be running that stupid thing A LOT and even though it’s double the cost of an AT75F, it’s going to have a lifetime profit much higher. Only fill S cargo slots after you’ve done M and XL as the B462F is unprofitable for its cost compared to the other planes and the AT75F, while profitable, doesn’t really make enough to justify the clicks to run it or the runway space or slot.
A380s are pretty underwhelming profit wise IMO. The fuel costs on long routes are ridiculous; only get them after you’ve done the above. Usually around the point my A319s are expiring I start turning off medium/small AI planes. Once the X/L AI planes start taking slots from my own planes, I disable them as well.
I am pretty sure this is the fastest way to go about things.
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Not sure what relevance lifetime profit has. I don’t have a full dataset, but on PRG-BRI…
- Return on investment
- AT75F: 4.10
- B462F: 3.10
- Net income per flight (after fuel, depreciation and maintenance costs)
- AT75F: 502.46
- B462F: 577.65
If I’d rather be spending my wollars on more profitable aircraft in other categories, seems like the B462F’s 15% higher income per flight doesn’t compellingly balance out the AT75F’s 32% higher ROI. So if my goal is to improve the profitability of my whole fleet, I’d go with the AT75F; if I’m trying to improve my airport’s profit per arrival, I’d go with the B462F.
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That’s for sharing
For your L comparison (depreciation includes purchase price and maintenance fees, but doesn’t account for the additional fuel and depreciation incurred by maintenance flights):
- PRG-BRI
- ROI
- A350: 2.14
- B777: 2.18
- Income per flight
- A350
- Gross revenue: 4266.00
- Fuel: -158.00
- Depreciation: -1306.79
- Net income: 2801.21
- B777
- Gross revenue: 4621.00
- Fuel: -316.00
- Depreciation: -1353.73
- Net income: 2951.27
- A350
- ROI
- PRG-IAD
- ROI
- A350: -0.32
- B777: -0.55
- Income per flight
- A350
- Gross revenue: 6704.00
- Fuel: -1018.00
- Depreciation: -8403.98
- Net income: -2717.98
- B777
- Gross revenue: 5953.00
- Fuel: -2032.00
- Depreciation: -8705.91
- Net income: -4784.91
- A350
- ROI
Thank you so much.
What? I just stumbled upon this thread but does this mean that PRG-IAD is heavy loss route?
When you adjust for all costs, yes. The break-even point is different for each aircraft but most L and X flights longer than about 3000 nm lose money.