Part 17: - Living Within Means
1960 - Living Within Means
Q1 1960
First things first, Doug needs a home. Adding him to Beijing would give us up to 4 new flights, but we only have time for 2 and can’t get more until their airport grows.
Subbing in at Shanghai, he could take up all five flights from our IL14. This adds 250 seats to our schedule, vs the 160 we’d get from adding to Beijing.
And frees that IL14 to hop into one of our other routes. Another 60 seats added.
Hmm...
Jerry’s handed $700K to endorse art in Europe. If he succeeds, he’ll be out for the rest of the year running the campaign.
Growing east and going south both take time in Hong Kong, so I reach out and claim 8 slots from their recent upgrade.
Blue is after their share in Tehran, and they buy a lot of B707-320s.
Pity the Russians. They’ve managed to develop a few routes where the Tu104 can pay its ridiculous operating costs, but those things are never really worth it.
Still hasn’t gotten old.
Jerry fails to generate any buzz.
ConAir continues to pull ahead of us. Worth it, as Air’Murica shows clear signs of facing competition. While still quite in the lead, their growth this turn was way down.
Q2 1960
No word from Moscow.
They continue to upgrade their fleet, taking a liking to Boeing.
Scrambling for slots in the Middle East. As long as we keep our foot down in Tehran, there’s no real risk of being overtaken in our home region.
Speaking of, best to keep the pressure on.
Rome too.
A successful one, Jerry. Get back in there.
Good Hustle, Doug. That move, combined with gently raising fares added $2.2M to our air-profits last turn.
Let’s see you do better, Doug.
Pictured: At least one thing found at the location of this event.
Jerry makes us look bad in front of the Russians.
The Russians, Jerry!
Q3 1960
An improvement on his older brother on all fronts, for just a few (million) dollars more.
Some nice clean bids. We’re an plane and an opening fee away from moving in on Oceania.
Well, a bigger plane. We have plenty of other work for Doug. He’ll fit right in with our Euro-fleet, but our bid for time in Rome hasn’t cleared. For now, I use him to add two flights to our connecting route to Hong Kong. With all the local volume added by our last Doug, I think demand is there for more THR-HKG.
Despite Jerry’s repeated failure to hype it, our Museum brings in enough to finance his marketing experiments. I step up his budget to $1.4M. No more mistakes, Jerry.
You’d damn well better.
With this year’s flex-funds sniped by Doug, the budget isn’t there for Hotel Kong. Instead, our agents double-down on claiming another 3 slots each in our Mid and Far-East Hubs.
THROM towers over all who dare oppose it, earning more than all its rivals combined.
Blue turns east, joining us in Hong Kong and opening service to the Uzbek SSR. Negotiations follow in Tehran and Calcutta. They also bid in Rio de Janeiro, laying groundwork for the game’s first route in South America.
Black keeps the pressure on America, buying more Lockheeds and more airtime Stateside.
Dear Moscow, please authorize production of a better plane.
-AirMarx.
Sports!
FUCKING SPORTS!! Q4 1960
More decolonisation. Their new leaders are also friendly, so no loss on our part.
Rome Status: Sports.
Our new time slots are activated, mostly going to Berlin. Igor is sent in to see if he can pry their last free slot open for us.
Likewise at home. Note each of our enemies stuck at 6 whole flights.
To help prevent that from happening to us, I bid for some breathing room in Australia.
That new American route pops the bubble I had going in Tashkent. It’ll take competitive pricing to refill that plane. It will also close another trap.
That’s some good flying, Doug. $1.7M in your first quarter.
THROM Hungers.
With their current selection of aircraft, there’s not much they can do but wait.
More money, More Jets.
More invasion of personal space. They also connect Mexico.
Sometimes, a tourism boom can target an entire region. When they do, the effect on each city is much less intense.
Like so.
1960 Year-End Review
An uneventful winter for our opposition.
Sometimes vendors offer flash-sales on their craft. I don’t expect we’ll take advantage of this one.
Our footprint didn’t grow this year, but our business sure as hell did. We brought in $54,240K, an increase of $19.5 Million from last year with the addition of a mere two Doug to our fleet. While some of that was SPORTS!! money, there’s no denying that our core business is going strong. If we put our money in the right places, we can rise even higher.
Budget Carryover:
pre:
Routes Planes Biz Flex Bank ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ 4,331 0 4,419 482 7,219