"Smear Campaign"

[m320au]

So. You've just started out in an already moving game. You pick a hub with no home airlines, lease your first 737. The moment you set up however, you realise your home base has already been 'secondary hubbed' by at least one huge airline based 2500 miles away with 300+ aircraft, saturating most of the available routes out of your base. You look him up and realise he has a value of $2bn+.

Damn, you wished you knew this before you started. Nevermind, you start nimble, avoiding his routes, building a backbone of regional flights to places you've never heard of - as a bottom feeder in the ocean. Eventually you have a fleet of 20 aircraft and are invited to join an alliance, ...you even start your first international routes!

Suddenly, your lazy 300+ competitor hubbed 2500nm away notices your existence and starts duplicating your routes, out of YOUR hub, trippling passenger demand with cheap capacity at inconceivably low fares. An obvious attempt at bully boy extermination.

If this was the way the real world worked, there would only be one airline in the world - the first guy who joined the game and bought an aeroplane.

In the real world however, small nimble airlines have access to the 'smear campaign' button.

The 'smear campaign' button instructs all your cabin crew to give up their sundays, put on orange suits, and stand outside parliament house with banners and their children, announcing to the world how much of a bully boy your lazy out-of-town competitor is.

The 'smear campaign' button is available through your marketing department and is only effective against airlines twice your size or larger. It is enacted against a particular airline and seriously harms their route image on flights out of your home base. It is particularly effective when used against an airline 'hubbing through' - rather than 'based in' - your airport.

It gives the small airline a chance to compete with bully boy multi magnates on the basis of location and staff morale - rather than cash and fleet reserves.

Pacific One would like to propose the inclusion of the 'smear campaign' button.

Regards
Pacific One.

[EYguy]

Hi Pacific One! I used to be Bucanneer Airlines in YVR with you... As if not competing with another airline based on my hub was enough, we both had to compete with Moonlight Airways, uh? As you may understand, flying and competing with you (around 20a/c) and Moonlight (around 400 a/c) was a bit difficult... Even if you consider that some of the most profitable routes were already taken by other airlines flying in Vancouver from their hubs.
The problem of the secondary hubs and the double leg routes have already been put to Sami's attention and he said that this will be eliminated in the next version of engine... Furthermore, in the far future he will add the "secondary hub" option, which will enable you to choose a second hub and use it to fly to everywhere you like.
Anyway, I agree to what you've written... If you look at the forums, you'll see how much I have written about this "trick"!

[Filippo]

The "Smear Campaign" feature would only give a better reason to your bigger, far-away based competitor to eliminate you sooner in order to avoid later trouble.

[m320au]

Hi Pacific One! I used to be Bucanneer Airlines in YVR with you...

Dude! Nice to chat, you were a good base partner, i felt we had an understanding together - we kept out of each others routes. (except HNL which i was prepared to fight until the death on - 'cos i got there 3 days before you were)

I find the whole "secondry hubbing without a hub" thing a dud - it doesn't happen in the real world. Tech stops ok, triangular routes ok, but "second hubbing" is not.

Moonlight - although big -  is fat and lazy. Somehow he's woken up recently though and flooded capacity on my only proifitable international route.  If he was based in YVR - like you were - i'd treat it as fair competition. But he's based in Toronto - 2500nm away - and i find that cheeky and unrealistic.

"Smear campaign" is the way forward. We could never have used it against each other, even if we we wanted to - because we were similar size

Best
PO.

[mikk_13]

Its simple, don't get angry, get even. You need to dodge his attempts by flying routes he is not on. If he starts to fly your routes, move them. He won't be able to keep up since he has 400planes. I doubt he is flying small regional routes, eg ones with less than 100 pax. So i would smash these as there yould be no reason for him to fly 2500m to take over a route worth basically nothing. He will get bored and eventually he will loose interest.

Also, there will only be so many routes he can fly since the first leg will only be able to support so many flights. Eventually when you are strong, increase your image to 100. Then open up routes that he has as second legs with a discount. Chances are he won't notice since the whole leg will still be making a profit because of the first leg. As these routes build up to about 70-80%, keeping adding to all the routes he is flying from your base. Then smash his first leg with by trippling the seats. Also, own all your ac since you will be able to go lower then him if he is renting.

I had the same problem and this is how I got all thr routes they flew to and from my base. It increased my market share by about 15% when i forced them out and now my market share is about 80%

[schro]

I find the whole "secondry hubbing without a hub" thing a dud - it doesn't happen in the real world. Tech stops ok, triangular routes ok, but "second hubbing" is not.

What do you mean this doesn't happen in the real world? Lets review a few examples:

NW @ IND
DL @ MCO, LAX, LGA
AA @ LGA, SJU, STL, RDU
WN @ Every city they fly to
FL @ BWI, IND
FR @ Every city they fly to
U2 @ Every city they fly to
JL @ HNL

[EYguy]

Schro, the point of M320 is: it is ok if you "focus" on cities in your home country... Personally, I have nothing again this point. But I sometimes had problem with people flying from, say, Dubai, and "hubbing" in JFK! That's bloooody crazy!
I had to fight with Moonlight on some routes and in the end I manage to beat him off some of those routes. But what my former "hub-mate" says is correct... It is not fair to do such routes and actually "de-hubbing" a smaller airport in order to get a position on a bigger one. If you choose to be based in the Gof-forsaken airport, it is only up to you if you do not have enough traffic!

[michael]

If I were the "big, fat, lazy" Moonlight, which I am not (I just have a few 737s), he doesn't need to fly to your hub directly to compete on your traffic. If I were him, I would fly to your point B, and then into your hub. No point for him to fly to your hub and then out to point B - waste of seats from his hub to yours. If he was doing the point B then into your hub, perhaps we can remove the word "lazy" 

[zorbon]

+1 to smearing
Not even 2 days into the game and all my routes were countered and flooded by someone 3000NM away(and in a MUCH larger airport)
Guess i'll have to counter by flooding all his routes

[EYguy]

Mikey, the point is: CYYZ-CYVR has a very high pax demand... Something in between 2500-3000 pax/day so it would not absolutely be a "waste of seat"! And the motivation behind using CYVR as hub is that you can also exploit those profitable routes leaving from Vancouver... Including Hong-Kong, Tokyo and most of the asian capital cities.

[RushmoreAir]

Most Airlines have a second hub in the real world. In AirwaySim we have to rely on secondary hubbing instead. I have a 141 a/c airline worth $1.6bil and I have two hubs other than my home base. I personally make sure to choose a second hub where nobody is based, but that is just me.

[EYguy]

Rushmore, the point is... I can accept what happened in Vancouver with no problem... What I CAN'T ACCEPT is what's happening to me NOW in Baharain. I have this pain in the arse called "Qatar Star something" hubbing its route through my airport!!! AAAARGH! It is not acceptable, even because it would not had happened in the real life! He's flying out from Doha, hubbing on my airport and then flying to all the destination not served from his airport. I even do not know how many seats he's currently offering on the London route... Probalby something around 500 seats/day!

[schro]

If you don't like another airline making a secondary "hub" in your airport, then fight back and make it unprofitable for them to exist in your hub.  Eventually they'll go bankrupt or back off.  You can also fight back by building your own secondary hub in his base and targeting his most profitable routes.  Its called competition - the best managed airline will win.

I had a scenario in MT1 where there was a rapidly expanding airline about 1300 miles away that flooded a handful of my more profitable domestic routes.  I responded by building a nice little hub out of his city, duplicating any routes he didn't have open and making sure he was losing money.  He eventually lost about 20% of his fleet because he couldn't pay the leases and backed off all the routes to my bases. If fuel was where it is now in MT1, he would have bankrupted pretty quickly.  After holding him down for a few game years, I moved on to more profitable adventures.... and if he comes back then he'll have to deal with my fury again.

Schro, the point of M320 is: it is ok if you "focus" on cities in your home country... Personally, I have nothing again this point. But I sometimes had problem with people flying from, say, Dubai, and "hubbing" in JFK! That's bloooody crazy!
I had to fight with Moonlight on some routes and in the end I manage to beat him off some of those routes. But what my former "hub-mate" says is correct... It is not fair to do such routes and actually "de-hubbing" a smaller airport in order to get a position on a bigger one. If you choose to be based in the Gof-forsaken airport, it is only up to you if you do not have enough traffic!

Ok. So international examples include:

BMI (owned by LH) in LHR
U2: Any city served
FR: Any city served
LH: FCO/VCE (LH Italia), BRU (Air Brussels)

[Filippo]

Ok. So international examples include:

BMI (owned by LH) in LHR
U2: Any city served
FR: Any city served
LH: FCO/VCE (LH Italia), BRU (Air Brussels)

LH Italia actually operates out of MXP (not from FCO and VCE) to fill the gap left in Northern Italy after Alitalia withdrew its MXP base.

BMI and Air Brussels, even if they're owned by Lufthansa, are separate airlines that fly under their own brands and consider themselves British and Belgian respectively

[EYguy]

Great Filippo...

Anyway, what I mean is that the double legs routes between international hubs are quite unrealistic. As I have already written before, there are only a few examples of such routes.
The problem I had when based n YVR was a "non problem": I did a stupid thing in the beginning flying A 310 which was not a very profitable a/c (at least on my routes) and so I started up with a not optimal situation. Then i had to deal with the competition of Moonligh and pacific One and there was my bankrupt...