Yeah well I've got a very deep drawer full of "out of the box" even "turnkey" business plans for aviation enterprises, some of them bankable.
All need various "market forces" to become aligned, realigned, appear, disappear and so on, but they also need
real equity. The intelectual property may notionally be worth squillions but an investor would be betting on its ultimate worth.
As Air Ace avers the magic break even number is 70% (to be more accurate 68% is the number given that the travelers by type and time over a sufficiently large population and size of aircraft, are essentially random) assuming the average per seat cost is recovered within that parameter.
In very simple terms the first step is to research the "number" of travellers available, apply the aircraft "size" (seating capacity) and calculate he number of flights needed to produce a 68% seat load factor, then calculate the fare required to break even on the utilisation produced.
Of course peak schedule times, aircraft size and type and other factors are brought to bear but that is the simplicity of it.
Coupled with an underlying axiom, frequency frequency, frequency forcing the choice of type to smaller, more efficient or bigger conundrum which brings you up against the cost per seat mile equation.
Never told you it was easy.
Second step is to research the "affordability" of the fare in the market researched and adjust the above numbers and aircraft type until it comes in to or stays out of focus.
You then, either have a business plan or you do not.
However in the broadest sense
All other things being equal the number of seats that you can expect to fill under normal conditions is relatively independant of the fare as that relies on largely random events in so far as when a passenger needs/can afford to fly and why in relation to each ones personal life events current at the time..
It means if you heavily discount some seats against the average seat cost at the 68% break even number, then you need to get an equivalent premium fare to offset it. Or if you go up the market and sell premium class seats at economy fares, the calculations get a bit more complicated but the basic underlying premise remains.
IMHO the single logical failure of the Ozjet plan was that it was in effect trying to sell economy fares with a premium class seat the filling of which was required to break even. All the toss about cheap airframes compensating for extra fuel flow and maintenance was just that, it's all about seat mile costs.
Bryan was down the other end of the spectrum needing 114% to break eve.
Fuel hedging is a necessary instrument but if you are relying on your success in that to make a profit then you are not in the airline business you are in the hedge market. And if you are good at that you should just concentrate on the futures market, there is hugely less risk and you can close out and walk away if it gets to hard, which is a bit different from walking away from an airline.
The "profit" is in the single %age points you can get above the 68%.
That's the basic rationale behind the heavily discounted and conditioned apex fares, trying to run an operation on these fares as primary revenue is doomed to failure as is a full premium fare. We have seen examples of both recently.
The statistically iron bound laws of random behaviour are ignored at your financial peril. You can fiddle around the edges, even take the odd gamble to suss a market, but the house
always wins.
If Gold are having trouble finding an equity partner, and they WILL get lots of tyre kickers because these guys have guys travelling the world, and I have flown a few of them of them around, whose FULL time job is hunting out "deals", its because Gold appear to be trying to find a partner who will allow Gold to bet with the partners money against the "house".
Now, if Gold were to stump up the "house margin" win lose or draw as collateral they might get a taker but he will want mostly all the chips. The long suffering individual consultants may or may not recoup their time and or get a job, but it is not the same as money in the bank.