Part 28: - Hydrobiz

1965 - Hydrobiz


Q1 1965



I just want to say one word to you, just one word. Are you listening?

Watercraft.



Spare agent time spent bidding at home. With luck, we’ll disrupt the efforts of our rivals.



Had my eye on Singapore for a while. Trying for 6 more slots here, with intent to one day flip off ConAir by making their own home base a spoke on our network.



People Auck to Flockland, and London grows again.





Turns go a lot faster when you don’t have money.

Q2 1965



A hookup for Perth and negotiations in Chile mark Blue’s continued focus on southern business.



No, you can’t defect to us.



We’ve brought their attention home again, as ConAir goes for China.






Boat lives.

As an Amusement-type business, the Pleasure boat has the side effect of boosting the tourism rating of the city once purchased. Hong Kong is up 5 points from where it was before. The more expensive ones provide even larger bonuses. Other businesses in this category are the Amusement Park, Golf Course, and Ski Resort.




Competition out east is putting pressure on our routes. We’re keeping ahead in totals, but it’s hurting our revenues.



I hope to improve on that with some added service. Note that the price of Doug has slightly fallen. All planes experience some dropoff in value as their design ages. Doug is 18, which is quite a lot in Aero-years, so that number will continue to drop off as we move forward.





The Second Kashmir war is underway. India and Pakistan, who together make up most of the Middle East region, will be cut off from negotiation and under major penalties for the duration of the conflict. As with the Suez crisis before, the ingame event will last much longer than the historical conflict.

There’s not much air service to either belligerent, so the direct impact on our business is low.





However, there’s more to this than first appears. While the first event didn’t mention it, future reminders will inform us that this war is driving up the price of oil. Everyone is getting squeezed by fuel costs until it ends.

Q3 1965



Further fragmentation in Asia. Singapore also likes us. ConAir has to reprint all their business cards.




Another competitor for the light jet market. Compared to the B727, this little fellah sacrifices 800 miles of range to slip ahead in capacity, efficiency, and price.



A shiny red line marks the direct impact of the war.



AirMurica won’t let that stop them from carrying on as usual.



Doesn’t look so bad from up here, but we are still feeling the burn. We only made $9 million last turn.



At least we have a boat.




Kuala Lumpur has always been a great connection for us, I decide to hand them a Doug. Those two IL14s get reassigned to Cairo and Tashkent. I’d intended to send them to Bombay, but with the war on even our existing link there is under stress. If they can handle more traffic, it won’t be until after the fighting stops.



Guess whose aircraft are the most sensitive to fuel prices?



Thanks, war.





Not a fun turn. A crisis like this is not a good time to get experimental. With effects of the war all over our business model, it’s hard to tell if those schedule changes added up to an improvement or if they should be rolled back.

The answer’s probably yes

Q4 1965



ConAir actually suspended all their local mideast flights this turn, as all their spokes are inside the conflict. It’s the only reason they’re black right now - 0 is not negative.



Boat status: Wet.





Route Status: Damp.

On close inspection, we can see that this shuffle isn’t doing well. Demand is a little more complex than just seats per week and cost per chair, and I’ve misjudged the vague wobbly cloud of other factors which influence performance. I’ll give these another turn to see if changes in fares can polish their performance, but this holds I’ll roll them back and send that Doug somewhere more promising. Probably London.



Oddly enough, Bombay is holding up well.



Russia, not so much. This thing is really hurting them.



Air’Murica is willing to run routes at losses for the sake of climbing the scoreboard. They continue bidding in secondary regions and buying jets.



The war still rages on.



Spain!





If only this were GuerraBiz.


1965 Year-End Review



We own a boat.

And we’re half way through the scenario. We’ve come far, but have a ways to go if we want to have a hope of coming out on top. With that in mind, let’s take some time to go over what we have _{Boats aside} and the air-travel industry as a whole.








Our connectors remain dependable and strong, filling seats and bank accounts alike. Cairo is even starting to take to the extra flights provided by that extra IL14. Really, though, these routes are overdue for upgrades. The performance of our rivals proves there’s loads of tickets waiting to be sold. Getting either of THROM or THR’HGK switched over to jets would do a lot to increase our revenue, and free whole flocks of Doug to work in other sections of our network.






Home sweet home. A small-time slice of our business, but one vital to our success. Fortunately, our near monopoly of Tehran and effective use of tiny planes has kept us undisputed leaders in the area. Of concern here is a local symptom of a bigger problem - we have a lot of unused time. Those 14 slots way over in Calcutta have been sitting idle since we bought them, chipping away at our bottom line over the years. We have time in a lot cities all over the world with fair potential for new routes, but until we get them active they earn us nothing.

It’s a problem we could solve with the aforementioned influx of Doug.








Asia has come into its own as our second-largest field of business. ConAir has had some success in clawing their way back up in response to our aggression, but has only just slipped back into a tiny 96-person lead last fall. More of our idle hours are on display here, along with I think are secondary effects of running fewer flights to Kuala Lumpur. (We’ll know for sure after I swap them back to daily IL14s)

I expect we can start shaving extra slots off our old links here to save money.







Europe remains our largest source of passengers. London is an excellent connection, and Paris and Berlin overcame their initial sluggishness and show potential for growth. Athens is choking a little on the low fares it needs to keep filled. It’s a common problem for short range routes, where the base price is so low.

There’s more Idle time here waiting to go online, though our expansion in the region has been held back by Rome’s slow-growing airport.




Our humble beginnings stateside continue to pay off. The slower pace of bids here means we’re nowhere near as over-extended as we are in friendly territory. Each of those piles of extra time could be taken by a single plane.




Speaking of idle hours, Oceania has all the rights in place to roll out service in the region. We need only a plane to get us there.




Business-wise, South America is much like Oceania. Black and Blue have a few planes active, but are mostly fighting for a place on the scoreboard. Now that we’re set up in Washington, we have our pick of potential hubs when we’re ready to go south of the border.




Poor Africa. Only the Russians have bothered to set up shop here, and they’ve failed to accomplish anything but a very fragile local #1. Anyone who choses to bust in here could quickly knock them over, but they’d not earn much money in the process.




Overall, a status quo has managed to emerge.

Air’Murica is the yet unchallenged top dog of the AeroBiz, but as their recent stuttering shows they’ve been unable to reliably turn that lead into positive financial feedback.

Con Air has reaped the benefits of breaking into markets overseas. They’re getting packed with cash from their successes on those fronts, but from the passenger counts and local data it can be seen that they’re getting outflying-foxed on a lot of fronts. They need to work on their short game.

Air Marx has failed to export the revolution in regards to civilian travel by aircraft, and has been left helplessly thrashing about at the bottom of the barrel. The only hazard they pose to us is their sizable footprint in Europe, which presents some competition.

And then there’s us. We’re a tough little ship. On our good days, we take what little we have and squeeze out a competitive business model. Maybe let’s keep that up?

With the horrors that war inflicted on our bottom line, we only brought in $41,460K to throw at next year’s budget.

Budget Carryover:
Build our Plan, and Cut our Budget for 1966.