Originally Posted by
ironbutt57
cheap accommodations for 800 passengers and then how active in between duties?? will they keep it busy enough to pay for itself? how many 380 are needed in a fleet to pay for themselves?
The line I was looking at was leading and trailing the high seasons, but with base schedules planned well in advance to get the high numbers. It would take some good planning to get the optimum package together that gets reasonable aircraft utilisation but with some selective non utilisation for crew reasons. Non high/peak season operations into cities and even countries can often get good operating cost reductions/deals. I see it would be a very fluid operation and more of a travel agency than an airline type operation. If a pax will spend $1,500 on a flight and $1,500 on a accommodation, meals and drinks package for 7 nights (that you get for $1,000) numbers would be worth looking at.
An another market again it would be very GIG economy stuff is to target the Backpackers, they are generally flexible with travel dates and happy to deal with a +800 passenger flight if the $ cost is low.