Part 34: - Connections
1968 - Connections
Q1 1968
Our Nautical experiment comes to an end, as we liquidate our business in Hong Kong. The money is put directly to new experimental ventures as we sample both extremes of the current jet market - America’s fattest skywhale and Russia’s cut-rate communal jet.
Similar turns out of blue and black - adding lines to Oceania and fishing for time in Asia.
Still going, still hardly feeling it.
Steady as she goes.
Q2 1968
Always nice to see a red line on our enemies. That big one’s their link out to Tahiti.
Con’s kept their books clean, and their head down.
The first wave of substitutions. Newcomer, “Big D.” subs in for Douglas on the transatlantic line, boosting its capacity by 40%. Good friend-family Доуглас goes east to make business in Japan.
Two actions which free a lot of planes to cascade through our network. Douglas migrates to THR’HKG, Freed Dougs upgrade service to Germany and China, and an IL14 hops on to the wartime line to Egypt.
THROM is fed. Either jet would have been worth 2-2.5 flights each to THROM, not enough to overtake current Doug-volume. I’d like at least a pair of planes on hand before making the jump here.
Advertisements continue to flow from beyond the iron curtain.
Our many sudden changes bring home mixed results. Revenue and passenger totals are way up, but our margins remain slim.
Q3 1968
Looks good on the scoreboard, not so great at the bank. Let’s find out why.
Things are going fine on our connectors. Discounts here and there (and the eventual end of the war) will put these up to capacity.
There’s the problem. While Tokyo can generate enough passengers to fill the route, it’s at a fare too low to keep up with Доуглас’s operating costs. (Which are quite close to those of our other large jets) He needs a longer line or stronger cities to really flourish. Something medium-range like a 727 could make good money here.
The China-Dougs are doing fine, putting more of our idle slots to work. Their performance leaves me confident that we can squeeze some more tickets out of Beijing. I’ll keep easing in to our capacity in Shanghai until I find their limits.
Tapping into these will put us firmly back in the lead in Asia.
Europe remains an odd beast, and with Rome refusing to grow we’ll need to seriously rethink our approach to the region if we want to expand business there. Fewer flights in larger planes to more cities.
A slot is skimmed from Paris to feed THROM.
ConAir keeps their eyes east with more work in Australia, and a new line to Korea.
This is a concern.
Every time an outsider has competed with one of our lines in the middle east, we’ve been able to use tight pricing and the performance ratings of our IL14s to keep them underfoot. So instead, they’re going around us. American flights to India and Pakistan are collecting enough passengers to challenge our totals in the region. We’ll need to do something about this or it may cost us the lead in our home zone.
Peace returns, for now.
And the ‘68 Olympics come and go, to the benefit of people who aren’t us.
More of the same hit-or-miss equilibrium.
Q4 1968
THR’HKG, brought to capacity and compared against its main competitor. 300 weekly passengers against 450, at lower fares. Going by that, we should be able to fit another plane, and thus another flight or two, along this route.
Confirmation that our customers in Japan will need a change of plane. This route can’t fill a jet at anything but the lowest fares.
And confirmation that our customers in China are quite comfortable with their current Doug-based service.
Business in America continues to go well. New York and Washington continue to fill seats, and Miami here tops off at a healthy 80% load. With these three route we account for 19% of air travel in North America, against Air’Murica’s leading share of 49%
Someone else is finally trying something in Africa.
More stepping up in the mideast by linking Bombay, and another round of bidding on another pacific isle.
Jamaica.
The Americans are close.
1968 Year-End Review
They mostly buy planes.
Quite a mixed bag of a year. Our new planes added 11,000 passengers to our quarterly performance, but didn’t translate well to financial gains. This was primarily caused by misapplication of Доуглас. Recognizing an aircraft’s role is very important to succeeding in the Biz. Replacing Доуглас with a proper midrange solution and relocating him to a jet-friendly environment will do wonders for our bottom line.
We have $50,680K in profit from this year to put towards our goals.
Budget Carryover:
pre:
Routes Planes Biz Flex Bank
------ ------ ------ ------ ------
0 0 0 19,592 0