THE AM4 GUIDE

By Scuderia Airlines (Star Alliance)

Here’s something I’ve been working on and off on for a while. It’s taken a while but this is
everything you need to know to get yourself started in this fun and complex game.

BUYING AIRCRAFT

For the more profit-oriented individuals, this is a rather confusing thing to do. Is that flashy
Airbus going to make me the best profit, or is that rickety 40-year old McDonnell Douglas
from the bankruptcy auction a better choice?

There are a few factors to be looked at to choose an aircraft that would fit in just right into
your ambitious airline:

1. Price

Kind of basic, but surprisingly ignored by players a little too eager to grow. No, that
$20 million plane carrying 350 passengers will not make you more money than the
$5 million plane carrying 140 passengers. Why? Because you can buy 4 of those for
$20M and carry 560 passengers, as opposed to 350. There are nuances to this, of
course, but this a good rule of thumb to understand the logic here.

You may argue that buying 4 planes instead of just 1 will fill up your fleet slots quickly.
Well, that is exactly the point. Get to the fleet limit as soon as you can with quality
cheap planes, and then start switching them out for better and bigger aircraft.

2. Efficiency

This is a factor quite important to those with default or slightly upgraded tanks. AM4
has two points of relevance for efficiency – Fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

Fuel consumption is measured in kg/km. If the fuel consumption value for an

aircraft is 25 kg/km, it means the aircraft consumes 25 kg of fuel every kilometer
flown. So on a 10,000 m trip, the plane will consume 250,000 kgs of fuel. If you buy
fuel at an average of $800, that’s an expense of $200,000.

CO2 Emissions are measured in kg/pax/km. Say an aircraft is carrying 100

passengers, on a 10,000 km trip, and has a CO2 emission value of 0.20 kg/pax/km.
This means the aircraft will emit 0.20 X 100 x 10,000 = 200,000 kg of
CO2. At an average buy of $120, that’s an expense of $240,000.
3. Speed

From all I know about this game, speed is the single most important factor when it
comes to profits earned per day. BUT – it comes with some caveats. A fast plane is
great, but it needs to fit your real-life schedule. So, a fast plane with very long range,
such as the B747-8 or the A380-800, can be astoundingly profitable – with a price tag
to match. But planes with speed but a lower range, such as the MC21-400, need to
be chosen with some forethought about your real-life schedule and how frequently
you can log in to the game to depart your planes.

4. Capacity

The more the merrier - not much to say here.

5. Starter Aircraft

I’m not going to go into the math involved here, but suffice it to say that these
recommendations come after some very thorough calculations. That said, there is no
compulsion to stick to this beaten path, maybe you prefer the road not taken.
Whatever floats your boa…err – flies your planes.

§ McDonell Douglas DC-9-10 --- $659,657

§ Fokker F28-6000 --- $707,020

§ British Aerospace Bae1463-300 --- $527,912

Beyond this, there are more than enough recommendations on the Boards in the
forms of player guides and tools to help you in the next stages. I will point out some
of the MVP, though:

§ Boeing 727-100

§ Irkut MC21-300

§ Boeing 727-200

§ Irkut MC21-400

§ McDonell Douglas DC10-10

§ Ilyushin IL-96-400

§ B747-SP

§ Airbus A330-300

§ Boeing 747-8
 § Boeing 747-400

§ Airbus A380-800

These aircraft cover a range of price ranges and will get you to the A380-800
endgame stage very quickly all by themselves. If your favorite aircraft isn’t on here, it
probably isn’t as good as you think it is.

CREATING ROUTES

This is most likely the part that is most player-specific, so I’ll keep my advice generic.

You’ll have to decide the length of your flights based on the frequency at which you can log
on to AM4 and depart your aircraft. Ideally, the shorter the route – the more it earns per hour.
This is based on the ticket price formula which is in the form Ax + B. The constant term
makes shorter flights more profitable.

Every route has a set amount of demand for a day. Say, the demand for a certain route is
Y1000 – J400 – F 300 and the route length is 5000 km. Let the aircraft have a capacity of
200 passengers, 5000 km range, and 1000 km/h speed. This aircraft, in a 100% Economy
configuration, fly 5 trips on this route every day before the demand is all up.

Use the Seat Configuration Tool on my website to get the configuration for this aircraft and
route. You’ll then be able to see how many trips you can make on that route in a day.
Demand resets at 00.00 UTC.

Find a sweet spot, make your routes, and you’re good to go.

Route Pricing

The choice to auto-price or not is dependent on your willingness to spend an extra 30s to
calculate/find more profitable prices.

For Economy, multiply auto-price by 1.1, then round down to nearest 10 to be safe. For
Business and First class, the factors are 1.08 and 1.06, respectively.

Stopovers

Stopovers are a good way to increase (potentially, double) the range of your existing aircraft.
This enable you to fly farther – making the frequency of your departures lesser and making
you more money along the way.
Even though your plane flies farther, the pricing for stopover planes is still based on the
distance between the origin and destination airport. Thus, a flight from Los Angeles to San
Diego via New York City will net you very little money – because your price is based on the
small distance between LA and San Diego. So, key to optimizing your stopover routes is to
keep your flight path as straight as possible to avoid any extra distance flown.

MARKETING

Routes not earning you enough money due to your measly 49% reputation? Well, run some
ads! Marketing increases your reputation, which has a direct correlation to the number of
people who buy your tickets.

As you’re starting out with primarily regional aircraft such as the DC9-10, it is recommended
you ONLY run Eco marketing. The reputation of 59% is a good trade-off between increased
profit and saving costs.

Once you start to see decent cash flow, also add Airline Marketing. In my experience playing
the game, the most expensive Airline Marketing category is your best bet. But it is a bit of a
gamble with its 18-40% range. So choose Category 3 if you don’t want to take the chance –
this, of course, will limit your profit potential.

CARGO

The Basics:

The basics of operating cargo aircraft remains the same. But here are some pointers about
Cargo:

1. Large Loads are preferable, but only by a very small margin. Not like First Class on pax.

2. Ticket multipliers are 1.1x for Large and 1.08x for Heavy. Ticket calculator for Cargo has
been added to the website.

2. Large : Heavy ratio is 1.428. A plane configured with 100% Large load will have capacity
70% of that of the original aircraft spec.

3. Configuring Cargo planes is a little janky, not much to say at the moment except be
careful. Configuration tool will be up on the website as soon as possible.

4. The An225 poses a lot of operational problems, and may not end up justifying its
acquisition and operation ($11M A-Check every 4 hours + 69 lbs/km fuel consumption)
costs. Stopovers should help make it more practical.
5. For now, the best Cargo plane seems to be the A380-800F. It doesn't earn as much as the
An225, but you can actually fly it smoothly.

6. The demand for Cargo is in direct proportion to Passenger demand.

Large Demand = 500 x Economy Demand

Heavy Demand = 1000 x Business Demand

Cargo Aircraft Analysis:

NOTE: The calculations here are in very ideal circumstances:

1. 100% Large load.

2. 24-hours running time.

3. 100% reputation.

So while the profits you'll earn will be less than what the numbers here show, the
relationships between every aircraft will remain the same.

$0 - $1.2M

No feasible aircraft. Both the DC3 and DC9 Cargo aircraft make a loss.

DC3 Cargo

Price: "0.85 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$-103,088"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$-142,154"

DC9 Cargo

Price: "1.10 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$-351,097"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$-452,120"

Best Starter Cargo Aircraft

A310-300F :

Price: "7.94 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$911,629"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$1,732,459"

$10M - $20M

Best: Airbus A400M :

Price: "12.82 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$1,366,581"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$2,513,947"

NOTE: The other option, The Ilyushin IL-76D, is more expensive but earns about the same.

$20M - $30M

Only one option.

Boeing B757-200F

Price: "22.55 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$2,137,722"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$4,008,724"

$40M - $60M

B767-300F

Price: "50.65 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$5,141,683"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$9,127,477"

Alternative: The A330-200F earns about 2-3% more profit for $12M extra price.

$100M - $150M

B747-400F

Price: "126.60 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$5,999,118"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$11,064,246"

Alternative: The B747-8F earns the same, but is $9M more expensive.

$150M and Above

Every plane in this segment earns LESS than the B747-400F/B747-8F.

The An-124 and A380-800F are duds for their price.

An-124

Price: "196.57 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$6,010,748"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$10,999,818"

A380-800F

Price: "298.77 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$6,276,350"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$11,541,102"

The An-124 can't surpass the B747s while being $60-70M more expensive.

The A380-800F, while showing some meagre gain, also costs 2.4 times more than the
B747s.

Here's the one you've been waiting for, the Mriya.

An-225

Price: "659.92 million"

Profit per Day ('Realism'): "$10,146,542"

Profit per Day ('Easy'): "$18,319,700"

Don't get too excited, though. The plane costs almost $700M dollars and will never show the
profits it brags on paper. Good luck finding routes to run this sustainably.
MAINTENANCE

A-Checks

In an aircraft’s details page, you can see the flights hours it can do before it needs an
A-check. A-checks are important because flying your fleet into the negative A-check
hours means you can be hit with an Audit at any time – which has the potential to
bankrupt your airline. A-checks can only be done at a hub.

Repairs

Repairs are not something you need to worry about, since aircraft get repaired when you do
an A-Check. You will be unable to fly your airplane if it reaches 90% Wear, and you’ll need to
repair it to have it off the ground again.

BUYING HUBS

Buying the right hubs is important. Ideally, you should have at least 7, one in each continent.
But I’d recommend at least 8 – 2 for Asia because of its sheer size.

These are the hubs you should choose from:

Note that I’m not going to make a mess out here with 30 hubs listed with no formatting.
These hubs are being recommended from experience and by looking at their demand data
for various route lengths. You can take my word for them or verify the demands yourself
before buying.

1. · Asia
a. Singapore (SIN)
b. Mumbai (BOM)
c. Beijing Capital (PEK)
d. Dhaka (DAC)
e. Hong Kong (HKG)
f. Dubai (DXB)
g. New Delhi (DEL)
2. · Australia
a. Sydney Intl (SYD)
b. Canberra (CBR)
3. · Europe
a. London Heathrow Intl (LHR)
b. Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG)
c. Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS)
d. Frankfurt Intl (FRA)
 4. · North America
a. New York John F. Kennedy (JFK)
b. Atlanta Int (ATL)
c. Los Angeles (LAX)
5. · South America
a. Buenos Aires Intl (EZE)
b. Brasilia (BSB)
6. · Africa – Buy something cheap for easy A-checks.

The hubs listed are way more than you need. So pick and choose, but have at least one in
each continent.

AFTERWORD

I’ve done my best to cover the basics here, so you can start your new airline without
feeling too lost. There is more to the game though, and any questions you have will
be answered on the Boards. Do search the Boards to see if your question has
already been answered, before creating a new topic.

Hope this will be helpful to new airlines.

HELPFUL LINKS

1. Tools Website – https://scuderiaairlines.github.io/AM4-Guides-and-Tools/

2. Highest Demand Routes -

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12FcP--Ztl4CDyltZrJ9_Kj2Y5xixsl8ZXalHrtv
VBOE/edit?usp=sharing

3. High Market % Airports -

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RhXeCtxS8zoHH9qdD43nD6inCHr2K4oae
Pdu5VqH9So/edit?usp=sharing