ECON flight 600009 PAKT to PAWG

Hello Oswald,

Mike will probably weigh in (pun intended), but I'm guessing that it was a combination of things including the Max. Takeoff Weight of the aircraft. The Cessna 336 is heavier and has a much higher max takeoff wgt than the lighter Beechcraft A36 (4630 vs 3400). This is an important factor in many calculations. Additionally, flight time and fuel burn has some affect. Your flight was shorter (. than mine (.9). So you flew shorter distance and burned more fuel. I flew longer and burned less fuel. All of these things probably combined to cause the difference in revenue.

Mike will likely be able to give you a more detailed and definitive response when he gets a chance.

John

Oswald,

You are very perceptive to have picked up this feature of our Econ model; I think you are the first pilot to have commented on it. You are correct, there are both revenue and cost differences between flights carrying the same passenger and cargo loads flown in different aircraft. The basis for the cost differences are probably apparent: heavier aircraft cost more to buy, operate and maintain. In general the total operating costs increase more-or-less linearly with aircraft size (MTOW). Since heavier aircraft can carry more passengers and/or cargo, this allows approximately uniform ticket pricing per passenger mile or cargo ton mile. However, for light aircraft, the increase in total operating cost with aircraft size is steeper than it is for heavier aircraft. As a result, applying the same ticket pricing to light aircraft will generally result in a loss. To compensate for this, our model sets ticket prices per passenger mile higher for lighter aircraft. This is why John's flight yielded higher revenue than yours; he flew a lighter aircraft. This is not unrealistic. If you look at the real world data for ticket price (cost to the consumer) per seat mile versus flight distance, you will see that it is almost flat (small negative slope) for flight distances greater than about 800 nm (larger aircraft). However, for shorter flights (smaller aircraft) it has a large negative slope. That is, higher per seat mile price for shorter flights. This reflects the fact that the operating cost per seat mile is lower for larger aircraft. You can think of this as an example of the "economies of scale"; the cost of hauling a passenger a given distance is less when there are 400 of them, than when there are four. This fact is incorporated in our cost model. To offset the higher operating costs per seat mile of short flights in light aircraft we built in a revenue (ticket price) boost for light aircraft. So, there ae two reasons to fly Econ flights in a full, or nearly full aircraft: (1) The total operating costs are proportional to aircraft weight (MTOW), whereas the revenue depends only on the number of passenger-seat miles and cargo ton-miles, and (2) Particularly for lighter aircraft (<30,000 Lbs MTOW), heavier aircraft generate less revenue per passenger seat-mile and cargo ton-mile. So, using a larger aircraft where a smaller would do gets you coming and going.

Mike