More important: company or route image?

[azflyer]

I'm curious what you all think.  In my brief experience playing this game I feel that route image is more important. My load factors have risen in correspondence with a higher route image and when I cut staff recently, my company image went from 43 to 21 and my load factors were largely unaffected. What have been your experiences???

[zorbon]

company image imo...

Unless your a big screw up, your route image will always hit 100. Where as when going up against someone else flying the same route, company image seems to play a bigger roll.

[Sigma]

When you're alone on a route, RI is more important to your LF.

But RI always gets to 100 on its own in just a few game-months.  So any competition you have will also be at an equal RI in very short order.

When there's competition it is CI that affects your LF the most because your RI's will be identical in very short order.  So it's CI that differentiates you from your competitor and pax are more willing to fly on a company they know and trust and even pay more to do so.

[knutm1980]

How do you get your CI to 100? Mine's stalled at 90 for ages, added some a final general marketing campaign, it's gone up by another 1 point..but it's alot of cash to spend for I'm guessing not so significant gains? Do you need to have a global campaign with all the options ticked? billboards, newspapers, radio, internet and tv? Or do cancellations and delays keep it from hitting 100 even if they are not frequent and for long?

[Sigma]

It just takes a LOT more money to get your CI north of 90 is all.  There's another good size hurdle at 95.

[altmants]

To hit above 90, make sure you have almost no delays or cancellations, close to 0%. So make sure your turn around times are placed so that turn around delays chance is down to ~1%.

Secondly, You can drastically increase your Image if you put in better configuration. AKA, use Premium Economy over Standard Economy. Your total available seats go down, but your passengers are much more comfortable, thus higher image.

[azflyer]

Would it be worth it though, to spend the cost of reconfiguring your aircraft to premium seats as well as the lost revenue by having fewer seats in order to raise your CI???

[altmants]

depends if you keep your prices the same. If you switch over, You are able to actually set prices above the default prices and still keep high load factors.

Its the same idea as...having full economy of 150 passengers
or 120 Economy + 10 Business Class.

Your saying the the plane with Business Class would earn less revenue. However since business seats are charged twice as much as economy, it may not be the case.

So it All depends on what you charge. If you lose X amount of seats from economy to premium economy, but you are able to increase fares by X percent, will it equal out? that is for you to decide.

If you think regarding the REAL world.....
United Airlines has something called Economy Plus Seating. Jetblue has 34 seat pitch for its forward half of the plane, British Airways has Premium economy class.


Lastly, I would suggest testing it on one aircraft, and see if your revenue on that specific route goes UP, stays the same, or goes down. (just remember to mark up the fares if you use premium economy - which is actually the same seat as "high density business")

[knutm1980]

Just a thought on real world airlines here..People don't seem to be willing to spend that little extra for comfort and would rather pay a bit less for a lot less. 

Anyway, back on topic. What about destinations with seemingly no busniess class demand? Alot of my routes have none according to the graphs. Do they exist if you offer up a busniess class?

[d2031k]

If you serve a route that shows no business class, you can still get those passengers if you under serve the route.  You have to reduce the fares a bit, but they will move up.

The screenshots here show my flight from PRG-VNO in EC.  As you can see on this sector, there is apparently no business demand, yet I get 2 PRG-VNO and 1 VNO-PRG.  The demand graphs show no business pax on the return leg either.

[knutm1980]

Hmm..interesting. I guess it's always a market. Understanding the subtetly and psychology of consumer demand isn't my strong point. Obvisouly, Sami does.