I thought the frequency had been tweaked?

[ukatlantic]

OK, I thought it had been mentioned that frequency had been tweaked so you DID NOT get the advantage by flying smaller aircraft more often against larger types with V1.3.  Yet I still see frequency winning over capacity.  An example there is one route with an average demand of approx 1300 pax per day, I am flying A319/20/21s and my competitor has gone for several more ATR 72's and has the better deamnd.  IMO the frequency still needs some tweaking as is it stands fequency can still dominate not to the degree is ws, but its not that much better. 

[swiftus27]

I agree with you 100%. 

I re evaluated my situation and it is still much much much better to use 753s on everything that goes from EWR to Western Europe.  And because you only need 3-4 max (except for LHR or CDG), you never get penalized. 

I am calling the current state of this change the "Japan Rule".  No longer can one person fly 737s every 5 minutes to the same place.  Other than that, there are very few other places that have enough demand where this rule will actually have an impact.

[psw231]

  You both have been around AWS long enough to know that there are more than one variable that will effect any one thing, you say he is flying several more ATR's than you do A's, who provides more seats? ATR's are generally standard seating so you should be equal there. Who has the greater CI? I would guess that his RI is greater, unless you are at 100, as more flights will bring it up faster. More peak hour flights could be helping his LF"s. On the good side for you more flights need more slots and the increased cost will likely slow his growth somewhat and he will need another fleet group to compete with your Airbusses on the longer and more plentiful routes. Also if the route is less than 600 nm he is using ATR's where they should be used and this has aways been one of the keys to a successful airline in AWS and I would suspect in RL.
  Patience with the new version will show best strategies on ac choice and route deployment.

PSW231

[Dave4468]

I am calling the current state of this change the "Japan Rule".  No longer can one person fly 737s every 5 minutes to the same place.  Other than that, there are very few other places that have enough demand where this rule will actually have an impact.

Nail, the head, you hit it.

[ukatlantic]

I think the frequecny card is still playing far too much in game, I for one do not think it has been tweaked enough.  As Swiftus has pointed out it is still better to use many 757's on routes from EWR to Europe than say using one or two 767/777/747 and because of the frequency the 757's are still winning, so either slot prices have to be increased significantly and the route fees also say by another 100 -300% ontop of the current prices or the frequency model is still tweaked further to give a better model so the frequency card cannot always win.

[Dave4468]

I think the frequecny card is still playing far too much in game, I for one do not think it has been tweaked enough.  As Swiftus has pointed out it is still better to use many 757's on routes from EWR to Europe than say using one or two 767/777/747 and because of the frequency the 757's are still winning, so either slot prices have to be increased significantly and the route fees also say by another 100 -300% ontop of the current prices or the frequency model is still tweaked further to give a better model so the frequency card cannot always win.

The problem with hiking up the slots costs more is that some players are going to get shafted, especially those in Europe. Where in Europe you can get routes with demands of several thousand people a day that are maybe only 200NM a plane can easily have 4,5 maybe 6 flights a day and that will be looking into several million to schedule just one plane. Which is too much.

I think the frequency model is the issue and trying to "fix" anything that isn't the frequency model is just avoiding the elephant in the room.

Although I have had an idea that may help the LH frequency and the use of B757s. Maybe pax could prefer widebody jets over 3000NM? Or if in a future build on board aircraft things are added maybe widebodies can be fitted out with better on board facilities like better at seat entertainment; bigger better galleys, the shower's and bars that some A380s have.

[Filippo]

Raising slots costs further would cripple chances of success for small, regional and domestic carriers, as they will be the ones to pay the price for this, and not the 747 flying longhauls.

I think that the solution is to add something, as Dave4468 suggested, that triggers a preference in pax for larger aircraft after a certain distance.

If you really want to fiddle with slots costs, why not base them on destination?
Domestic - 50% discount from current rates
SH int'l - current rates
LH int'l - 50% increase from current rates.

This would allow us to protect the smaller carriers, the domestic ones, newcomers to game worlds, and the smaller micro-planes whilst resolving the frequency problems with bigger a/c

[ukatlantic]

The problem with hiking up the slots costs more is that some players are going to get shafted, especially those in Europe. Where in Europe you can get routes with demands of several thousand people a day that are maybe only 200NM a plane can easily have 4,5 maybe 6 flights a day and that will be looking into several million to schedule just one plane. Which is too much.

I think the frequency model is the issue and trying to "fix" anything that isn't the frequency model is just avoiding the elephant in the room.

Although I have had an idea that may help the LH frequency and the use of B757s. Maybe pax could prefer widebody jets over 3000NM? Or if in a future build on board aircraft things are added maybe widebodies can be fitted out with better on board facilities like better at seat entertainment; bigger better galleys, the shower's and bars that some A380s have.

I agree with you 100% Frequency is the issue which still needs 'tweaking' rather than increasing slot costs expodentially, and whislt some 757's are used from the US to Europe, it is very limited 'thin' routes or routes where its a mainly business class demand  

[JumboShrimp]

The simplest approach would be for the frequency bonus to completely disappear after 3rd flight < 2500nm.
after 2nd flight > 2500nm
and disappear completely after 5000nm

(just an idea)

[ukatlantic]

The simplest approach would be for the frequency bonus to completely disappear after 3rd flight < 2500nm.
after 2nd flight > 2500nm
and disappear completely after 5000nm

(just an idea)

I guess it would also need to be dependant on pax demand also, as some short routes have high pax demand too; for example if a route is say 600NM and pax demand is 1500 a day then if you use ATR72's to fulfill that demand then after your 5th daily flight you lose the frequency bonus in total. So if Airline A uses ATR 72's and Airline B uses 737-800's then Airline B isnt penalised for having less flights but is fulfilling more of the capcity.

[JumboShrimp]

I guess it would also need to be dependant on pax demand also, as some short routes have high pax demand too; for example if a route is say 600NM and pax demand is 1500 a day then if you use ATR72's to fulfill that demand then after your 5th daily flight you lose the frequency bonus in total. So if Airline A uses ATR 72's and Airline B uses 737-800's then Airline B isnt penalised for having less flights but is fulfilling more of the capcity.

Yeah,  or just from the practical point of view, flying short distance (< 2500nm), morning, afternoon evening is enough of a choice for vast majority.

For transatlantic flights, (2500nm to 5000nm) afternoon or evening departure from the US (or early morning and mid-day from Europe) are more than good anough as far as choices.

For longer flights (> 5000nm) I am not sure there should even be a frequency benefit....

[meiru]

sami... I've the solution for this problem... 

[MidlandDeltic]

Yeah,  or just from the practical point of view, flying short distance (< 2500nm), morning, afternoon evening is enough of a choice for vast majority.

For transatlantic flights, (2500nm to 5000nm) afternoon or evening departure from the US (or early morning and mid-day from Europe) are more than good anough as far as choices.

For longer flights (> 5000nm) I am not sure there should even be a frequency benefit....

The less than 2500nm would need further subdivision.  There are many short-haul routes in Europe which justify more than three flights per day; Dublin - LHR, LHR-CDG, MAN-LHR to name but three off the top of my head.  Probably also the case in the US and Far East as well (not played there).

I get the feeling that some players only want to see people operating 777 or larger on long haul, and do not want anyone with a different ideal to get in their way.  Even IRL, CRJs / A32x / B737 operate into major hubs for connectivity.  Live with it.  I'm not in MT5, but in DotM2 there are still plenty of slots even at the largest airports with the current frequency set up.  Much of the comment on here seems to centre around the why do we have small planes / airports in the game as they don't use them.  Some of us prefer to run a more varied set-up than wide bodies on long haul, and the game is more interesting for it.

MD

[swiftus27]

There is no need to have a 737 flying every 30 minutes to X from Y going 300nm... then imagine 3 airlines doing the exact same thing all going after 100% of demand.  NO airport in their right mind would allow that.  They live off of pax fees... and they don't collect unless there are ppl on board.

[JumboShrimp]

sami... I've the solution for this problem... 

I don't think there really is a "problem", just some potential fine tuning.

[Dave4468]

I get the feeling that some players only want to see people operating 777 or larger on long haul...

Well, this is a simulation and lets be honest, IRL B777 and bigger makes up the vast majority of long haul so people who want a realistic game want to only see B777 and bigger properly succeeding on LH. Yes, there are some places where B757s and B767s run long haul. And I think I'm right in saying BMI did/do fly an A321 from Heathrow to Freetown.

In the same way I cannot understand why a competitor of mine in MT5 is managing to survive while operating B763s and B744s on short haul domestic and don't think its all that realistic.

[MidlandDeltic]

There is no need to have a 737 flying every 30 minutes to X from Y going 300nm... then imagine 3 airlines doing the exact same thing all going after 100% of demand.  NO airport in their right mind would allow that.  They live off of pax fees... and they don't collect unless there are ppl on board.

I didn't suggest that - I did say that three/day was too restrictive.  IRL, there are 8 BA and 7 BMI flights on the 170nm Manchester - LHR route, all A32x sized aircraft.  Presumably both MAN and particularly LHR are happy with that level of service which equates to slightly less than 60 minutes headway.

Airports live on a variety of charges; slots, pax, ancillary spending, car parking etc, not all modelled directly in AWS I agree.  If the planes are empty, the airlines soon cut back - or go bust.  In AWS, if there are sufficient slots, what is the problem?

MD

[swiftus27]

I didn't suggest that - I did say that three/day was too restrictive.  IRL, there are 8 BA and 7 BMI flights on the 170nm Manchester - LHR route, all A32x sized aircraft.  Presumably both MAN and particularly LHR are happy with that level of service which equates to slightly less than 60 minutes headway.

Airports live on a variety of charges; slots, pax, ancillary spending, car parking etc, not all modelled directly in AWS I agree.  If the planes are empty, the airlines soon cut back - or go bust.  In AWS, if there are sufficient slots, what is the problem?

MD

There may be 8 per day TOTAL but not 3 airlines all doing the same thing with A320/737

[meiru]

I don't think there really is a "problem", just some potential fine tuning.

well, you can do a "fine tuning" or you can try to find a complete new solution that solves everything... depending on what I see it's difficult to do it with the current solution, since there are too many special cases... e.g. what if you have a 1000 pax/day route and only two 100pax planes are flying at exactely the same time? should they get a smaller amount of pax? how much smaller? ... my solution was always to learn from what we have and then try to solve the problem again ("problem" in a mathematical sense) ... might be, that this is also not perfect... might also be that the fine tuning could produce a good solution as well... but, I wouldn't recommend to do it that way

[JumboShrimp]

There may be 8 per day TOTAL but not 3 airlines all doing the same thing with A320/737

Eventually, even in AWS, there will not be 3 airlines all doing the same in the end.  2 out of 3 of the airlines will probably go under...

Another way to fine tune the system would be for every additional flight to add less benefit...

But anyway, I don't feel strongly about making wholesale changes, just turning down the frequency benefits (if anything).