Welcome to your new airline.

The year is 2021 and a group of investors have provided you with $150m dollars in start-up funding for
the purpose of starting a new airline in the already crowded European Skies.

Shortly you will receive the keys to your airline, and you will need to prepare a short, high level
business plan (no more than 1 page summary). Please submit this 1 page summary to me via email at
d.kondic@unsw.edu.au no later than 1800h Wednesday, Feb 24.

Your business plan should detail your proposed operations including:

 Mission/Vision and key objectives
 Organisational structure
 Primary Airport / Base / Hub
 Business model – e.g. LCC, Regional, Full Service or ??
 Fleet type

Demand and capacity are critical factors for your new airline.

Even with your extraordinarily rich investors you will not have enough money in your first year to
execute your full plan, hence managing and charting a plan for growth will be a key criterion to the
success of your airline.

Your plan should align with your operations over the 4 years of the simulation. At the end of the initial
4-year period, you will be asked to present to your investors, a new 5 Year Business Plan, based on
your learnings and the outcomes of your operation to date. This is what will form the basis of your 2 nd
assessment – the Group Presentation and the Group Report.

The starting point for your 5 Year Business Plan, will be the review and lessons learnt from the actual
operation over the course of the simulation. You will need to report on decisions, events, outcomes,
what worked, what did not and based on these learnings, you will write your future strategy. Please
refer to the course outline for more detail regarding the expectations around the Group Presentation,
Group Report and Peer Assessment.

The airline industry can be volatile. Aircraft manufacturers have limits. Chose your aircraft types
carefully, as well as whether you decide on new or used aircraft. Maintenance costs multiply with a
non-standard fleet and even so, the costs of maintenance for a wide body are much greater than
narrow body. Demand can fluctuate, political unrest, global events, weather, and health alerts are just
some of the unpredictable events which an airline must fly through.

Simulation Overview
The simulation environment will be updated twice per week and each update, aka a batch,
will progress your airline to the next quarter. There will be 16 updates which will cover 4 years
of simulated time.
Historical reports are only stored for the previous 8 quarters. If your plan is to reference this
data in your final report, you must download the data and store it separately. In your final
report to the investors, you will need to reference any challenges met by the airline and how
you responded. It would be wise to also discuss any events or cost impacts that may have
resulted in a need to adjust your initial business plan. How your airline handles and responds
to events is critical.