This semester, my last before graduation, I enrolled in an Airline Management course. Part of the course requires that each student create, manage, and maintain their own airlines. We are able to do this as a class via a web-based Airline Simulator created by a company known as Simulate! based out of Australia. http://www.simulate.aero/ The course entails far more than just the simulator, this is just a large part of it.
The simulator presents a steep learning curve, something I should have taken into consideration before the first batch ran, and second, and third. A batch is referred to as the end of a time period. The simulator is turned based, as opposed to real-time. This allows each student a designated time period to work on, update, and manage his airline prior to the batch being run.
Each student was given $100,000,000 to begin with. This may seem like a lot, but is quite the opposite. With in the first couple batches running I was in the red by nearly $67 Million as well as last place out of 16 airlines. In response to this blunder, I did what I would naturally do in a time of crisis, collect my data and make a decision. This is where my spreadsheet came into play. A spreadsheet that began as a single paged document is now an ongoing project, including quarterly graphs, full reports, a journal, fare markup worksheets, etc. Some might say I got a little carried away, heck I might agree, but needless to say, I have learned a lot. As of the last batch running, I had total profits in the excess of $500 Million and have climbed to 7th place. Click on the 'Grace Airline Info Center' below for access to the Excel Workbook, if it is not functioning properly, be sure your macros are enabled.
My small company logo, named after my wife.
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