Air Atlantis Dumping seats on the market
mark320:
Dear all,
It with regret I have had to close down all routes to and from Amsterdam due to underhand tactics by Air Atlantis. I have tried an analysis and i can conclude with certainty that this airline has been selling seats way below costs on the MLA-AMS-MLA flights to just have me pull off the route.
This is a game after all and as such we are a community of people with the same interest but in the real world, dumping seats is considered illegal: vide German Authorities case against Emirates Airlines 2009.
I do not consider this ethical game playing and frankly I will cede the routes without further ado since this is a free market after all.
regards,
Mark320
CEO BluWings Airlines
Malta
ucfknightryan:
If you don't mind me asking, how have you come to this conclusion since you can't see his pricing? ??? Heck, It's hard enough to determine where the profit/loss line is on your own routes since the crew costs and back office overhead aren't included anywhere on the route or aircraft profit numbers. There are a number of reasons why you might fail to attract enough passengers besides price. I can't say if any of them apply since obviously I can't see the details of your airline, and certainly can't see the details of routes you've closed. I'm not saying you're not right, but there are certainly other possibilities.
Other possible causes/explanations in no particular order:
You're CI might be significantly lower than hisIf you were operating the flight less frequently than him, pax seem to prefer the more frequent flying airlineDitto for if you didn't fly each day of the weekIf you're flights were at less preferred hours that would also give him an advantageIt's also possible he's been losing money without really dumping, if his load factors are reduced by your presence. As big as he is, its even possible he didn't notice the loss (not that that makes it feel any better)
mark320:
Quote from: ucfknightryan on February 10, 2010, 12:46:26 AM
If you don't mind me asking, how have you come to this conclusion since you can't see his pricing? ??? Heck, It's hard enough to determine where the profit/loss line is on your own routes since the crew costs and back office overhead aren't included anywhere on the route or aircraft profit numbers. There are a number of reasons why you might fail to attract enough passengers besides price. I can't say if any of them apply since obviously I can't see the details of your airline, and certainly can't see the details of routes you've closed. I'm not saying you're not right, but there are certainly other possibilities.
Other possible causes/explanations in no particular order:
You're CI might be significantly lower than hisIf you were operating the flight less frequently than him, pax seem to prefer the more frequent flying airlineDitto for if you didn't fly each day of the weekIf you're flights were at less preferred hours that would also give him an advantageIt's also possible he's been losing money without really dumping, if his load factors are reduced by your presence. As big as he is, its even possible he didn't notice the loss (not that that makes it feel any better)
Wel these are the answers for your very legitimate questions:
My CI is quite good and had a marketing specifically on the route
Frequency was better than his
Timings were various throughout the days including widebody better products on some days. You can easily check his cofig and seats.
I had ongoing traffic from AMS also and ticket prices were for some time less than $40 and I was not even filling 30% LF at times with the same A321 he was operating and with the same seats. Go figure. The outbound long haul flights were then normal pricing ranges showing discrepancies between the AMS-MLA-MLA and AMS-MEX-MLA for example. I also have many other routes and the pricing difference is mangable with comparative LF.
Yes he had an advantage of starting the game form the beginning and taking all routes from AMS. But there was no other airline on an other of my routes which has reduced the prices to that level and with no way of balancing LF.
And he monitored the sector.....
As I said he is free to do so, but he is not a sport!
Regards,
Mark
LemonButt:
How old was your plane? If you had a 20 year old bird flying the route versus a brand new one, that makes a big difference as well. Also, one route shouldn't make or break an airline...
Sigma:
In my experience price has a lot less to do with demand than people think.
While in reality, people are quite price-sensitive, in this game they usually are not. And contrary to reality, they're not drawn by huge discounts -- I've done a lot of testing on it, and found that any increase in pax (and it's never all that large) is usually gotten in the first 50% drop in price, anything more is just a waste; so true 'dumping' doesn't really do anything for you. There's countless other variables that count for a lot more than price, first and foremost is equipment. Passengers don't want to fly old planes and they don't want to fly big planes when a small plane has the range. And countless others count more than price as well.
I've gone so far as in the closing months of a game, dropping my prices to 95% off discounts, basically giving them away for free, and my pax and LF didn't really go up by that much.
So, chances are, if someone was truly dominating the demand on the route, pricing wasn't how they were going about it.
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