Small Airline hurt by Anti Monopoly rules

[charger27]

As far as your supply goes, the competitors seats dont matter at all. They'll affect how many you fill, but not how many you offer.
Ok, good. Thanks.

the demand figure YOU see on your charts is not accurate : bottom right is a text in grey which gives your airlines accuracy rate : its affected by how efficient your staff are, thats affected by wages, numbers and morale and, I think, how long you have been flying the route (as in, your airline gets better at predicting the demand).
The warnings are generated by referral to the TRUE demand figures contained in the game-data ; which of itself varies as demand fluctuates both day-to-day and also over time.
So its not a fixed number, it moves, you dont even get to truly know that number, except within a range defined by your accuracy rate on the day and at the time you look.
Yes, I realize all this.

mathematically ; you are missing a factor in your working-out ; A near-200% supply magnifies the effect of any movement in the base figure ; example : demand is 100 : you supply 190, leaving a 10% margin : if the base demand drops by 5 pax you lose your 10% buffer : if it drops by 6 pax, you go over 200%. If your accuracy rate is 90% : you dont even know if there is 100 to start with, could be 90, could be 110 : if its an actual figure of 95, for example, you have no 10% buffer at all, 1 pax less is enough to push you over the mark.
Ok, makes sense... but I'm not running any of my planes that close to the mark - since they have been adjusted for the new rules, of course.
For example, this route I have indicated: 360 @ 200% on the one bad day... 290 seats.
That would have to be a huge fluctuation to drag even the worst day down to 200% capacity.
BTW - every other day of the week is over 200 pax listed, and the worst day is the one my competitor chose not to fly at all.

But what it really comes back to is why are you even trying for a 200% supply? okay, you play your game your way, yada, yada, but its just creating these issues for you and you aint addressing the root cause so perhaps its best you Bk and beggar off before you blow a fuse refusing to accept a fundamental fact ; 200% supply aint neccessary, going over it it will get the route pulled, and beating yourself over the head with a calculator trying to get your supply as close to that figure as possible is idiotic at best when the actual 100% figure is not fixed.
thank-you, its been emotional.
Not trying... I wish there were more routes with adequate pax.
Fact is, I am only mentioning the routes that are a problem... not the vast majority that are not.
What it comes down to - I have basically run out of destinations that are worth servicing... both domestic and international.
The secondary long distance flights are a problem because of the need for a plane to reach the location vs seats available when you get there.
So the adjustment continues.

While I appreciate your answers... it still doesn't answer my question as to why my Asian routes were closed.
Essentially you have confirmed my math was not wrong - and something is not right with this new system restriction.

I should mention, all these routes were individual flights... not several days grouped together.
Also - even my high 240 day route was closed, along with all the others in between high 240 and low 180.
And that would have to be an outrageous swing of pax to take the 290 seats to over 200% on a 240 projected day!

I could reduce to - say 20 seats over the listing.
But why should I have to - when 200% isn't even close?
Just trying to understand what makes the new rules work.

[brique]

Your routes were closed because the system judged they were breaking the 200% over-supply rule.

We've endeavoured to explain how that rule works, and how and why going by the raw demand figures shown on route planning can be deceptive.

We've offered solutions, such as seat-blocking and questioned the very need to over-supply at that level, particularly as you say you have no competition on some of these routes.

If you continue to have routes pulled when, by your calculations they should not be, and none of the explanations or solutions offered here suffice, then report a bug in the correct forum, giving all the relevant information, (this being a general discussion forum, so may not attract Sami's attention as readily) and await Sami's investigation and response.

As to the difficulty of  finding the right aircraft to service long thin routes, that's not a new problem, sometimes some routes just cant be done at all, never-mind profitably, with current aircraft types ; seat-blocking does go some way to allowing you to try for them though, but you do need to judge the amount of seats offered carefully : I have one route in JA which wanders quite randomly up and down from 330 to 430 ; add in my 95% accuracy rate and it could be worse, or better, depending... which illustrates the problem of judging what is 200% nicely...

[Sanabas]

I should mention, all these routes were individual flights... not several days grouped together.

Without having seen your airline, and since you are very clear that you weren't close to 200%, my guess is you've made a relatively common mistake, and not looked closely enough at the return route.

Say your Friday flight lands at the destination at 2200, and the return flight takes off 2 hours later, at 0000. Your Saturday flight lands at 2100, the return flight departs at 2300.

So when you look at the route planning, you'll see 290 pax on Friday, and 290 on Saturday. BUT, if you look at the planning for the return route, you'll see 0 pax on Friday, and 580 pax on Saturday. So you get a warning, and you get your route closed, even though nothing looks wrong on your route planning page.

Since you say they were all individual routes, rather than a weekly route with identical timing, that'd me my first guess about an otherwise inexplicable monopoly warning.

*edit* I just had a quick look, and I'm almost certain that's what the issue was. I don't know the specific route you had closed. But you are making that same mistake I mentioned on existing routes. I've attached a screenie of the route planning for you to & from Bangkok. As you can see, it all looks fine on the outward leg. But the return leg, not so much. If that route was slightly smaller, you'd be getting warnings for supplying 588 seats on Saturday.

You look to have the same problem on your flights to Buenos Aries, Caracas, Hong Kong (You should be getting warnings about Hong Kong & Caracas), Memphis, Miami, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Sao Paulo (540 Sunday, 0 Monday, ~270 demand so that'll be likely to trigger warnings then say it's fine on a week to week basis), Shanghai, St Louis, Taipei, Toronto, Winnipeg. Not all of those will generate warnings, but every one of those has the route planning for the return leg look very different to your even planning for the outward leg.

So I assume that was also the case for the route that was closed. Nothing wrong with the system, just a relatively (though could be painful with so many routes) easy to correct mistake with the way you schedule. If you use 7 day schedules, you can avoid having to deal with this issue, and also avoid all those 0000-0455 takeoffs/landings.

[Sami]

Ok, this oversupply BS needs to be figured out.

There is NO bs in it.

The rules are very simple and it sends the warnings if you really are over the rule limits, for sure, and the messages are correct. So check the message you got, also the return route.... (there is a direct link to that leg's route planning from the globe icon)

[charger27]

Without having seen your airline, and since you are very clear that you weren't close to 200%, my guess is you've made a relatively common mistake, and not looked closely enough at the return route.

Say your Friday flight lands at the destination at 2200, and the return flight takes off 2 hours later, at 0000. Your Saturday flight lands at 2100, the return flight departs at 2300.

So when you look at the route planning, you'll see 290 pax on Friday, and 290 on Saturday. BUT, if you look at the planning for the return route, you'll see 0 pax on Friday, and 580 pax on Saturday. So you get a warning, and you get your route closed, even though nothing looks wrong on your route planning page.

Since you say they were all individual routes, rather than a weekly route with identical timing, that'd me my first guess about an otherwise inexplicable monopoly warning.

*edit* I just had a quick look, and I'm almost certain that's what the issue was. I don't know the specific route you had closed. But you are making that same mistake I mentioned on existing routes. I've attached a screenie of the route planning for you to & from Bangkok. As you can see, it all looks fine on the outward leg. But the return leg, not so much. If that route was slightly smaller, you'd be getting warnings for supplying 588 seats on Saturday.

You look to have the same problem on your flights to Buenos Aries, Caracas, Hong Kong (You should be getting warnings about Hong Kong & Caracas), Memphis, Miami, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Sao Paulo (540 Sunday, 0 Monday, ~270 demand so that'll be likely to trigger warnings then say it's fine on a week to week basis), Shanghai, St Louis, Taipei, Toronto, Winnipeg. Not all of those will generate warnings, but every one of those has the route planning for the return leg look very different to your even planning for the outward leg.

So I assume that was also the case for the route that was closed. Nothing wrong with the system, just a relatively (though could be painful with so many routes) easy to correct mistake with the way you schedule. If you use 7 day schedules, you can avoid having to deal with this issue, and also avoid all those 0000-0455 takeoffs/landings.

Hong Kong was a "noob-like" oversight on my part.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Caracas was a slot deficiency that I was aware of.
It has now been corrected, courtesy of my competitor. 

[Sanabas]

Hong Kong was a "noob-like" oversight on my part.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Caracas was a slot deficiency that I was aware of.
It has now been corrected, courtesy of my competitor. 

Not trying to sound harsh, but all the routes I listed are 'noob-like' oversights. 

It's an easy mistake to make, and a minor one in most cases, it'll just lead to low load factors on one day of the week on the return leg, not enough to make a difference to a profitable airline. It just becomes bigger when it triggers oversupply warnings and route closures, is all.

Was this why your route got closed unexpectedly?

[charger27]

Not trying to sound harsh, but all the routes I listed are 'noob-like' oversights. 
It's an easy mistake to make, and a minor one in most cases, it'll just lead to low load factors on one day of the week on the return leg, not enough to make a difference to a profitable airline. It just becomes bigger when it triggers oversupply warnings and route closures, is all.
Was this why your route got closed unexpectedly?

The domestic routes are not oversights.
They are schedule fillers... so will look silly to some degree on the timelines - but I have never received warnings for these either.
But the other two daily flights connected with each aircraft are very profitable.
Yes, I could run another 10 planes to pick up the shorter routes I am "wasting"... and maybe I will, eventually.

The 2 Caracas routes that were a problem, I have been waiting for over a week (real time) for better slot openings - which I finally got.
Venezuela is again pretty much a "what do you do with planes that have a bit of space to fill" in the weekly sched... and not a big concern for the revenue.
Gather a couple bucks rather than have the plane sit for the empty spare time.
No way that route could support an aircraft as the primary revenue source.

Hong Kong?  I have to THINK that's why they were closed unexpectedly.
I dunno - even after I fixed the routes to proper times, I still got a warning.
So I have reduced the seats further and we'll see how it goes.
These are new and developing routes with decent pax... so we'll have to be a little patient and let the marketing campaign do its thing.

[Sanabas]

The domestic routes are not oversights.
They are schedule fillers... so will look silly to some degree on the timelines - but I have never received warnings for these either.
But the other two daily flights connected with each aircraft are very profitable.
Yes, I could run another 10 planes to pick up the shorter routes I am "wasting"... and maybe I will, eventually.

Yeah, fair enough. You do end up with no flights one day, and 2 flights and vastly oversupplied the day before. But as I said, pretty minimal impact in terms of profit.

You don't need another 10 planes to pick up extra routes. You could fly all of your LH destinations at the same time every day, and you'd probably free up a plane or two in the process.

The 2 Caracas routes that were a problem, I have been waiting for over a week (real time) for better slot openings - which I finally got.
Venezuela is again pretty much a "what do you do with planes that have a bit of space to fill" in the weekly sched... and not a big concern for the revenue.
Gather a couple bucks rather than have the plane sit for the empty spare time.
No way that route could support an aircraft as the primary revenue source.

OK. I have a feeling you're still misunderstanding the issue. You say that you have already fixed the issues with the Caracas flight. However, I'm looking at the route planning for SVMI-KMSP right now. You appear to have manually restricted seats to 120 aand 140 for the routes you were getting warned about. You offer 260 seats on a Wednesday, and 0 seats on a Thursday. The daily demand is ~110. You've 'fixed' it, but it's clearly in violation of the oversupply rules, and should generate a warning. Screenie is attached...

Hong Kong?  I have to THINK that's why they were closed unexpectedly.
I dunno - even after I fixed the routes to proper times, I still got a warning.
So I have reduced the seats further and we'll see how it goes.

I don't think you have fixed the routes to proper times. From Buenos Aries, you offer 604 seats Mon & Fri, 302 Tue, Thu, Sun, 0 seats on Wed & Sat. No warnings though, because the daily demand is ~350.

Sao Paulo you've manually reduced two of the flights to be 260 & 280. But you still offer 540 seats on a Sunday, none on a Monday, and so are very very close to 200%, and may well get warned/told you're fine depending as the demand fluctuates by 5-10 people up or down.

Taipei, you've reduced 4 of your flights to 220 pax. Those would be the 4 you got warnings. As a result, https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/RCTP/KMSP shows 440 pax on Mon & Saturday, 288 tues, Thur, Fri, none on Wed & Sun. So should avoid warnings.

From Hong Kong, I can't tell for sure, because there is another airline on the route. But I *think* you are offering 450+ seats on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. 250 or so seats on a Friday. No seats at all on Monday, Wednesday, Saturday. You are definitely going to get warned about your flights to Hong Kong, and you are definitely going to have them shut down yet again, unless you fix it. Please click on https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/VHHK/KMSP and look at the graph.

So it seems like you're just taking a guess, reducing your seats for sale a bit, and hoping that avoids warnings. Rather than understanding the actual cause of the problem, and fixing it. Your Caracas and Hong Kong flights ARE NOT fixed, and that is why you are getting warned. They WILL get closed down.

[charger27]

Yeah, fair enough. You do end up with no flights one day, and 2 flights and vastly oversupplied the day before. But as I said, pretty minimal impact in terms of profit.
You don't need another 10 planes to pick up extra routes. You could fly all of your LH destinations at the same time every day, and you'd probably free up a plane or two in the process.
OK. I have a feeling you're still misunderstanding the issue. You say that you have already fixed the issues with the Caracas flight. However, I'm looking at the route planning for SVMI-KMSP right now. You appear to have manually restricted seats to 120 aand 140 for the routes you were getting warned about. You offer 260 seats on a Wednesday, and 0 seats on a Thursday. The daily demand is ~110. You've 'fixed' it, but it's clearly in violation of the oversupply rules, and should generate a warning. Screenie is attached...
I don't think you have fixed the routes to proper times. From Buenos Aries, you offer 604 seats Mon & Fri, 302 Tue, Thu, Sun, 0 seats on Wed & Sat. No warnings though, because the daily demand is ~350.
Sao Paulo you've manually reduced two of the flights to be 260 & 280. But you still offer 540 seats on a Sunday, none on a Monday, and so are very very close to 200%, and may well get warned/told you're fine depending as the demand fluctuates by 5-10 people up or down.
Taipei, you've reduced 4 of your flights to 220 pax. Those would be the 4 you got warnings. As a result, https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/RCTP/KMSP shows 440 pax on Mon & Saturday, 288 tues, Thur, Fri, none on Wed & Sun. So should avoid warnings.
From Hong Kong, I can't tell for sure, because there is another airline on the route. But I *think* you are offering 450+ seats on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. 250 or so seats on a Friday. No seats at all on Monday, Wednesday, Saturday. You are definitely going to get warned about your flights to Hong Kong, and you are definitely going to have them shut down yet again, unless you fix it. Please click on https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/VHHK/KMSP and look at the graph.
So it seems like you're just taking a guess, reducing your seats for sale a bit, and hoping that avoids warnings. Rather than understanding the actual cause of the problem, and fixing it. Your Caracas and Hong Kong flights ARE NOT fixed, and that is why you are getting warned. They WILL get closed down.

Eh, maybe some day when I have time I'll take a look at the returns more closely.
For now, good enough.
Thanks for the tips.

[exchlbg]

Yet another case of unfriendly behaviour. After complaining in aggressive tone not a bit understanding what is going on, now this improper answer to someone that really cared and worked out route by route where the problems really lie.
I would like to thank Sanabas for all the work he had to put an end to it.

[charger27]

Yet another case of unfriendly behaviour. After complaining in aggressive tone not a bit understanding what is going on, now this improper answer to someone that really cared and worked out route by route where the problems really lie.
I would like to thank Sanabas for all the work he had to put an end to it.

GFY

[charger27]

Eh, maybe some day when I have time I'll take a look at the returns more closely.
For now, good enough.
Thanks for the tips.

Trying to squeeze the "extra" flight out of the long routes per week.
Works with outbound, but not so much with inbound.
Guess I will just revert to the "cleanup" 3rd plane that I have used in other games.
That keeps the logistics in order.

[Curse]

I'm still missing the excuse to sami calling his feature and software "Bulls***" while the mistake was absolutely on user side...

[exchlbg]

Instead of telling us what he is planning to do (who cares?) he should have excused to everybody else.

[Sami]

Okay, give it a rest already ..... 

[charger27]

A couple days ago, I had these routes warned then closed.
I couldn't find anything wrong - and reconstructed them.
Now I have them all under warning again.
Can someone see something that I am not?

[Sanabas]

You've closed your MSP-KIX routes, so hard to tell. Based on the screenies, you shouldn't have been warned about it.

You have fixed or removed all of your problem routes, which is good. Flights to Hong Kong now all depart at identical times, for instance.


You would have had at least 3, and possibly 7 different route numbers for MSP-KIX. Did all of them get warnings? Or only a couple?

There are only a few possibilities:

You're mistaken, and the warnings you received didn't correspond to the screenie you posted.

The actual demand for KIX-MSP on a sat/sun was under 150 (doesn't appear likely, looking at the route planning)

You were warned incorrectly, and there was a bug (can't tell now, unfortunately. If you recreate them and get incorrectly warned, you should take screenies of the planning, the warnings themselves, and post a bug report.)

The warnings were generated because the competition on the route is also a member of your alliance, and so the alliance offering over 200% is in breach of the rules. However, that should mean the other airline should have also received warnings, and as far as I know, warnings of that type must be manually generated after a complaint, they're not automated.

[charger27]

You've closed your MSP-KIX routes, so hard to tell. Based on the screenies, you shouldn't have been warned about it.

You have fixed or removed all of your problem routes, which is good. Flights to Hong Kong now all depart at identical times, for instance.


You would have had at least 3, and possibly 7 different route numbers for MSP-KIX. Did all of them get warnings? Or only a couple?

There are only a few possibilities:

You're mistaken, and the warnings you received didn't correspond to the screenie you posted.

The actual demand for KIX-MSP on a sat/sun was under 150 (doesn't appear likely, looking at the route planning)

You were warned incorrectly, and there was a bug (can't tell now, unfortunately. If you recreate them and get incorrectly warned, you should take screenies of the planning, the warnings themselves, and post a bug report.)

The warnings were generated because the competition on the route is also a member of your alliance, and so the alliance offering over 200% is in breach of the rules. However, that should mean the other airline should have also received warnings, and as far as I know, warnings of that type must be manually generated after a complaint, they're not automated.

I didn't close the routes... they got closed by the system AGAIN!!
If it is my alliance affiliation causing the issue - no problem, exit the alliance.
And yes it was all the routes over two planes.
That is twice - if I get more warnings (now that I have rebuilt them again), I will submit a ticket.