Staffing Levels and Turnover for a Small Cargo Co.

[MMEMatty]

Hi all

I was wondering if i could get some "Ballpark" figures for the following questions, as it would be a great help in a report i have to compile as part of my course. (although the figures dont have to be super realistic, i would like to get them about right:O )

First a bit of background. For this report i have to compile a detailed technical report about the current state of this airline, its assets, finances and projections for the future. I have decided to chose a small cargo charter company based in Teesside somewhat along the lines of Air atlantique. It currently operates 6 DC-3's on various cargo flights to destiations in the UK and Ireland, France and the Channel Islands, as well as night mail routes between the various hubs (liverpool, london etc.)

So the questions i would like to ask are (and remember all figures are approximate)

What staffing levels would you expect for an airline such as this, and how would they break down (pilots, management, dispatch loaders etc)

What turnover would you expect this comapny to have

What costs (and a rough breakdown, wages, maintenance fuel etc)

And finally what options do you see for developing and expanding this airline, or would you expect it to be struggling

As i said before, dont go mental with the calculations, just ballpark figures will do, and any personal contributions will be referenced (I will PM you and let you know if i am using your figures)

I have tried googling and such, but i can only get figures for major airlines which dont seem relevant to a small op such as this.

Thanks again

Matty

[Daysleeper]

Hmmm, right ballpark figures then ;)

cargo ad-hoc charter with a little bit of scheduled flying say 2 crews per A/C max including management pilots. so 24 pilots.
Allow £900K for pilots salaries. PLUS , 2 base checks each every year (no sim so all on the AC) bout 2 hours per pilot non revenue per year plus type ratings dependant on staff turnover, anything from 5% to 25% depending on management practice and the general state of the market. that could be another 50 non revenue hours per year.
For the office say 1 boss, 2 accountants, 1 ops manager, 4 or 5 ops staff and 1 or 2 commercial staff chasing work. Dont forget to drag pilots in to do office jobs when needed. And dont bother with loaders, whadda ya think pilots are for.
Engineering is a tough one, say one or two office staff then engineers dependant on reliability , hours flown and failures. Big piston engines so expect a lot of cylinder changes. I dunno maybe 1 engineer per aircraft.
Your finances are all cashflow. Old aeroplanes are cheap to buy but expensive to run. The dak drinks Avgas like its going out of fashion and there are limited places where you can turn up on a charter and say 700 gallons of the blue stuff please and I need it on in 10 mins.

As for the current state of the airline have a look at the BAC express threads on this and PPJN. Its a tough market for a pure small aeroplane operator. Air Atlantique has always been a multi faceted company with a range of aircraft sizes, when times were hard for Ad-hoc then contract work on other aircraft kept the cash coming in.