Seating types and configurations

[Shlongdog]

Hi there, I tried to search a relevant topic similar to this question but with no success.

So with aircraft configurations, one thing that really confuses and angers me is the default configs. So when I create a config for example on the 777 the standard economy seating is 10 abreast. Usually 9 abreast is standard while high density is 10. But I cannot change this to 9 abreast as the next best, premium seating is 8 abreast.

Same goes for 737 and a320 business class seating. Standard seating is 5 abreast when it's 4 abreast in real life. Again this can't be changed to 4 abreast as the next best, premium seating is 3 abreast.

Why is the seating so different in terms of pitch and width?

Kinda annoys me how the 767 economy seats are 8 abreast and a330/340 are 9 abreast. This isn't even high density either!! Hate to be a passenger on those flights...

Any help please!

[Infinity]

Unfortunately, using anything different from standard seats yields absolutely no benefit in this game, so you are wasting your time thinking about 8 or 9-abreast and seat pitches.

[Andre]

Different options for seat config and such has been in the works earlier, perhaps it still is. For now, we have to settle for the options we have.

[helliviknow]

Different options for seat config and such has been in the works earlier, perhaps it still is. For now, we have to settle for the options we have.

To confirm, you are saying that using premium economy seats vs standard yields zero benefit? Even on long flights?

[Curse]

Nearly zero benefit and absolutely not worth it. Only time you in theory maybe want to consider premium seating is if you anways can't fill up the seats (like the minimum 5 Standard First Class seats on a DC-10-30).

[knobbygb]

Unfortunately, using anything different from standard seats yields absolutely no benefit in this game

Nearly zero benefit and absolutely not worth it. Only time you in theory maybe want to consider premium seating is if you anways can't fill up the seats (like the minimum 5 Standard First Class seats on a DC-10-30).

But that is a LOT of the time in reality, especially on long and ultra-long haul, so saying there is nearly zero benefit is a bit misleading.  If you arrange things correctly you can make a LOT more money by filling fewer premium seats at a much higher price wherever there is fierce competition.  It's an important part of the game,  for me at least.

On the original question, I think the answer is to not think in terms of how many abreast the seating is.  Sami stated once in a thread about 2 or 3 years ago that you mustn't think of the seating increments as applying directly to the number of seats abreast.  They are just convenient increments and aren't meant to represent real practical configurations. It would be impractical, or at least quite difficult, to match each increment to the exact size of the fuselage of each type so they are just meant to be approximate (to available AREA rather than width I believe) with larger increments for larger types.  For example, the idea of 9 or 10 abreast on a 777 isn't really modelled here - you just have "fairly cramped" (standard) "VERY cramped" (High Density) Economy seats.  So long as the final numbers match up to roughly how many seats you'd expect in real life, I think you're supposed to ignore the detail.

[Curse]

Premium Seats in AirwaySim have basically no impact (< 1%) on actual market share or profit on a route. This was tested endless times, improvements were suggested endless times, it was reported as bug endless times.


I'm aware in reality things are different, unfortunately not in AirwaySim. The only usage for premium seats is you can't definately (!) anyways not fill the seats, you don't expect growth on the routes and you want to push your load factors with that and add some immersion to the game.

However, since there are random events that increase demand (like the railway staff strike) I don't even do the immersion thing anymore, grabbing away lots of the additional demand if an event pops up.

[Andre]

High Density config vs Standard config in Y class really has an impact on routes longer than roughly 3 hours. That's about 1000NM in a jet. But going from standard Y seating to Premium really is no point.

It's supposed to make the pax prefer your aircraft instead of the competitor, but the effect is so small it's hardly noticable. I flew a 2600 NM route between Asia and Europe with 3 x Airbus A321 filled with all premium seatings, and the competitor was using a single widebody. I don't remember if it was a 747 or 777.. but either way, he got 80-90% of the pax with both of us filling up the demand. I dropped prices 50%.. still no help. Departure and landing times were just as favorable for both. Both had CI of 100. I don't know if this means the widebody vs narrowbody effect is too big, or if the seating/pricing effect is too little.. but something's not right.

Premium seats, half price tickets, and the frequency did not matter at all vs his widebody. Now, the irony in this is that if the route was 2400 NM, I would be the one with 80-90% of the pax.

[knobbygb]

I do agree that having nice seats doesn't generally make people think "ooh, I'll fly with THAT airline instead" - not as much as one might expect anyway, so we're not really disagreeing over this.

But it's not just about numbers of passengers. One thing you're overlooking is that premium seats seems to make things a bit less price sensitive.  Even on a crowded route (150% to 300% of demand met)  I've found I can keep prices high, or even raise them quite a lot when using premium seating.  With regular seats I'd have to be discounting by 10% to 15% just to keep load factors up and there's no money to be made that way.  Since the relationship between load factor and profit isn't direct (I mean a 10% increase in load factor is NOT the same as a 10% increase in profit, it's usually worth a lot more than that), there really is a lot of money to be made with VERY SELECTIVE use of premium seats ON THE RIGHT ROUTES.

In my current game I have all premium seating on what I call the transatlantic trunk routes (to LHR, AMS, CDG and FRA from the US) but on no others (except where I am abusing an aircraft's range, for example, a 737 East Coast US to Ireland)

Maybe a lot of the previous research was done before it was possible to use price raises to any real effect (about a year ago?). I don't know how much you've tinkered with prices but I've found that on the right routes, with premium seating, it's possible to go as high as 220% of the recommended price and still get pretty much 95% loads, especially in F and C class.  With regular seating 150% (ish) seems to be about the limit generally.

My all premium 764s have 27% fewer seats than the standard ones and generate about 45% more income PER SEAT.  That's approximately 20% more income overall. This equates to about 35% bigger profit ON THE RIGHT ROUTES.  Add to that the better looking stats (more alliance points for a higher average load factor etc.) and the fact that it must annoy your competitors to see you offering only 30% of the seats in the market but taking 55% of the pax, and I think it really is worthwhile.

[JumboShrimp]

To confirm, you are saying that using premium economy seats vs standard yields zero benefit? Even on long flights?

The difference in using premium seating vs. standard seating is so small that it gets lost in the noise of randomization of demand.

[Troxartas86]

I mostly use the nicer seats for range abuse. It's often a necessity when you are flying Soviet birds. I've even done it with turboprops like my current fleet of An-28s; their range almost doubles when you drop from 18HD to 15 Standard. In heavy competition I still generally just use the old school frequency blast strategy and try to win by attrition when I can bare the awful LFs. I'm more likely to go all-HD to milk short-haul routes for all their worth than anything else as far as changing from default configurations.

I think a lot of the knowledge we all claim to have is pure speculation based on our own individual experiences. This game has always been quite mysterious in its inner workings. Those of us who have figured out how to be successful most of the time think we know what we are doing but we probably know less than we think. Case in point: some of you are saying there is no point to premium seating while others are claiming to have seen significant benefits. I have only really experimented with pricing and frequency vs competition in the past but I think I am going to look into what people have claimed about premium seating allowing higher prices.

To the OP: You could always go for less than the maximum amount of seats to try and create the exact configuration you envision. The extra leg room does improve the comfort rating although I doubt it has any tangible benefit.

[LemonButt]

As with many features of AWS, most players don't seem to know what premium seating actually does.  Think about it in real life.  Spirit Airlines charges X and Delta charges Y for the same flight.  Spirit Airlines is going to be a cattle car while Delta will be something less than a cattle car.  Do you think Spirit could achieve the same load factors if they charged Y?  The answer is no.  If Spirit had a Delta-quality product they could charge Delta prices.  Thus premium seating doesn't create or change quantities demanded, but reduces price elasticity for the demand that already exists.

If you're a dude, your demand for pantyhose is zero, regardless of price.  If you made pantyhose out of the finest material on Earth and were selling it for $1/pair, you still wouldn't buy any because your demand is zero.  Likewise for premium seats--people aren't going to start suddenly flying because the seats are comfortable.  However, the existing passengers will be less sensitive to price increases because they're receiving extra value/bang for their buck (same thing knobby was saying).

I have premium seating in all my long range aircraft currently due to the price elasticity issue, but more importantly because of load factors.  There is no point in flying with 250 seats if demand is only 200.  As with any perishable service, the most expensive seat is an empty seat (in an airplane, restaurant, empty hotel room, etc.).  So it is a better business decision to fly 200 premium seats with 100% load factor at 125% pricing than flying 250 standard seats with 80% load factor and 100% pricing.

So if you think premium seating exists to attract more passengers, you would be correct in saying that it is pointless.  If you view it as being able to charge the same passengers higher prices without a significant reduction in load factors, then premium seating does work.  Also as a corollary to this, you'll be flying with less weight, burning less fuel, and paying less airport fees which helps your margins.

[Curse]

I tried that in GW#4 a while back and the aircraft with premium seats were not able to support higher ticket prices than the ones with standard seating.

[LemonButt]

I just setup 3 test flights to get some data behind it.  I have 3 identical aircraft taking off at identical times with 3 different seating config with all Y class seats--HD, Standard, and Premium.  It is a brand new route with 0 RI flying from Chicago O'Hare (ORD) to Grand Forks (GFK) and is 562nm long (GW2 link: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/KORD/KGFK/?go=1).  All prices are identical.  After 1 game day here is the result:

(pax = outbound/return flight)

High Density: 8/10 pax (52 seats)
Standard: 11/13 pax (44 seats)
Premium: 14/17 pax (30 seats)

So far, so good.  I'm going to start raising prices once I start getting 30 pax/flight and will update.

[JumboShrimp]

I just setup 3 test flights to get some data behind it.

Good luck, you will need a ton of it.  And a patience of a saint.

The randomization of demand is there for you to never know what is going on, to always be, to a large extent, in a dark.  The randomization is there, so that the test like yours never has a conclusive result...

I have 3 identical aircraft taking off at identical times with 3 different seating config with all Y class seats--HD, Standard, and Premium.  It is a brand new route with 0 RI flying from Chicago O'Hare (ORD) to Grand Forks (GFK) and is 562nm long (GW2 link: https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Planning/KORD/KGFK/?go=1).  All prices are identical.  After 1 game day here is the result:

(pax = outbound/return flight)

High Density: 8/10 pax (52 seats)
Standard: 11/13 pax (44 seats)
Premium: 14/17 pax (30 seats)

So far, so good.  I'm going to start raising prices once I start getting 30 pax/flight and will update.

Just keep the standard and monitor the pax count.  IMO, premium seating should be getting 2x pax of HD, if the seating configuration made any difference.

BTW, you have all 3 flights departing at the same time.  Flights that don't comply with the flight spacing requirements have an extra randomness introduced (that I noticed).

[LemonButt]

RI has risen to 21.

High Density: 17/17
Standard: 21/21
Premium: 21/21

I need my aircraft back (the slots actually) so I'm cancelling the flights   For this route, it seems the marginal utility for Premium seats is nil as it is too short--that is standard/premium is the same for shorthaul.  There is clearly a nice bump (20%) for going above the "default" seating expected on a route.  Premium should have a bigger impact over standard for long haul routes.