Day to day pax distribution

[jamestbailey]

Pax distribution on pretty much every route has a U-shaped dip across Mon-Fri, and a fairly low Sat/Sun.
This appears to be the case for every route, so I assume that this is specifically modelled (rather than reflecting the raw data Sami has used in the model). No doubt this distribution is fairly realistic (although certain "holiday routes" would be different, I suspect).

My query is this: are we stuck with oversupplying routes the world over at the weekend if we are satisfying demand Mon/Fri. Presumably the only alternatives are to ground a small part of your fleet at the w/e, or alternatively use the spare fleet capacity to fly a route at weekends only (which is likely to be inefficient given the staffing costs)...

... any thoughts?

It would be interesting if pax demand could be modelled to allow passengers to change their day of travel, but I suspect Sami has higher priority tasks.

[Sigma]

Some people with way more time than I do, schedule their routes on a daily basis.  They do it maximize aircraft utilization, and it also allows you to much more easily move that aircraft to a different route a different day of the week.  But, in the end, that difference will always "catch up" to you.  You can only redeploy aircraft on Saturday/Sunday for so long until eventually you've got no place else to send them those days.

The ability for pax to move from day to day has been something that people have continuously asked for, but the system now simply does not support that ability.  The ability to "look back" at unfilled demand and let those pax "spill over" into another day is a concept far more easier said than done.  And with grander things planned for the demand model in general, I don't foresee sami spending too much time on the one we've got now.

[jamestbailey]

Does anyone happen to know how the pax model works where you have antisocial departure hours (0000-0100) on longhaul flights where, due to time zones and opening hours, there is no alternative, and none of your competitors can do any better. Do the passengers just stay at home, or do they accept the circumstances?

[ekaneti]

I'd like to see business markets like CLE-LGA have strong weekday demand and weak weekend end demand

Likewise I'd like to see leisure markets like CUN, SFB, LAS have weak demand on TU/WE decent demand on Thur strong inbound demand on FR/SA and strong outbound demand on SU/MO.

So something like CLE-CUN would be

Mon 100
Tue 75
Wed 75
Thur 100
Fri 150
Sat 150
Sun 100

and CUN-CLE
Mon 150
Tue 75
Wed 75
Thur 100
Fri 100
Sat 100
Sun 150

This would allow for additional flights on weekends. Likewise stronger weekday demand for CLE-LGA would require airlines to schedule more weekday flights on CLE-LGA, fewer on the weekend and more weekend flights on CLE-CUN.


Also at some point I'd like to see demand fluid by day of week. So that a market that has an average of only 50 pax per day, 350 per week, could support 3 weekly 737s to a destination that would be too far for a turboprop, such as some Carribbean island to a North American city. I do think that RI would be slow to develop of course.

[MattDell]

I just pay more attention to the Passenger Demand Estimate.  So if I see...

Estimate   
6100 passengers / month
200 passengers / day

I'll target for 200 pax / day regardless of what the individual bars say.

[Jona L.]

I'd then target min. 225, maybe 250... since you should oversupply by 20%, and your planes will still be as full, as if you'd only do 100%. on such a route B753 or B762/3 would seem good maybe A321, or 2xA318/B735/6/7

Jona L.

[JumboShrimp]

Suppose there is a route with demand of, say 120 pax.  When there was competition, I used to have 2 Dash-8, which is 2x68=136 pax.

Now, there is no competition.  Is there a point to replacing 2xDash 8 with 1x737-700 with 126 pax on the same route?  Is it going to be more profitable for me in the long run to operate just 1 flight with expensive a/c compared to 2 flights with less expensive a/c?

[L1011fan]

Perhaps we should take the leisure/vacation passenger into consideration and up those weekend demand numbers? I fly departing on a Saturday with a return Tuesday/Wenesday. Although its alot cheaper to do it that way, LOL! I save a bundle!

[Sigma]

Perhaps we should take the leisure/vacation passenger into consideration and up those weekend demand numbers? I fly departing on a Saturday with a return Tuesday/Wenesday. Although its alot cheaper to do it that way, LOL! I save a bundle!

The reason you save a bundle is because demand is so low on the weekend.  Airlines are willing to take just about anything rather than flying that plane about empty, which is what they'd be doing without the different weekend fares.

Go fly on a Monday and fly on a Saturday and you'll see just why the demand curve is the way it is here.  If anything it should be considerably more of a curve to most destinations than it is now.