Overflooding capacity on routes

[elleana]

There are a couple of routes from my hub which have been flooded with capacity. When I started flying the routes, the available capacity more or less matched the demand. Now, however, certain airlines have decided to flood the route with extreme overcapacity. For example if the demand is 1000 seats a day, they provide ~2000. This has happened on a few routes which I fly.

What is the sense in doing this? Why would they want planes to fly at 50% LF when they can have fewer seats on one particular route and open other routes? Surely their own hub isn't so saturated that they have extra planes to do this with?

[Kontio]

Maybe they are going for second leg routes?

[Seattle]

Or they could be trying to get you off the route. Common in the game and in the current market.

Example, when Virgin America started flying 3x a day SFO-SEA and 4x a day LAX-SEA, Alaska Airlines started this "West Most Schedule" which had flights on SEA-LAX leaving every half hour from like 6-11 and similar service on SEA-SFO. They also improved meals on those flights, etc.

Now? (could also be due to the economy too.....) Virgin America will probably reduce bot SFO and LAX to 2x daily.
They are also  their worst routes.

Southwest does this all the time to.

[Topflite]

Yes this kind of activity is ridiculous and certainly unrealistic. In my part of the (AirwaySim) world there are several trunk and regional routes where capacity is double (or more) the demand – and I've seen this capacity put on by a single airline presumably to discourage competition.

The aviation industry is still heavily regulated in many parts of the word and the Freedoms of the Air usually apply for international flights. Open Skies agreements only exist in some places and they are often in conjunction with Laws preventing anti-competitive behaviour (Capacity Dumping).

Additionally, shareholders and airline boards would never permit this kind of wasteful behaviour. The is no point in paying for a fleet of hundreds of aircraft if you've got no demand for them or you just want to have a p***ing contest with another airline, the shareholders would roast you.

I know this is just a game, but an extra element of realism could be added by addressing this issue, maybe limiting the fleet size of an airline relative to the demand in/out of its base airport/country/continent. Or by adding a measure in Airline Statistics "operated capacity relative to demand". Something to prevent airlines founded at the beginning of the game monopolising routes – you know – in the spirit of the game and all that.

[Seattle]

Several real world airlines would love to disagree with you.

[NorgeFly]

One of my routes has also recently been flooded with capacity by two new airlines. As frustrating as it may be, it is pretty realistic! Lots of  real airlines flood a market with cheap seats to kick the competition off the route. You just have to ride it out, or if you can't manage to make it profitable, give in I guess. I am trying to hold onto my route in question, but my market share has been cut in half 

[Brockster]

An example of this could be John Wayne - San Francisco in real life (I think?). Both United and American have daily flights (multiple...) to San Francisco from SNA. In a few month (I think maybe April?), Virgin America will begin service to San Francisco. Additionally, Southwest will also begin daily service on the same route. As much as I think there is demand, it just shows how competitive some routes really are.

[Richard9741]

I agree with Seattle on this one - it happens in the real world occasionally so don't see why it should be prevented in the game.  As a game, it's an exaggerated version of the real world - just look at the number of aircraft some airlines have. 

I don't see any issues with airlines flooding particular routes - it is often because they're in a regional airport and want to take advantage of another hub for good long haul routes for example.  If someone wants to do it to protect a route then good luck to them - that's just part of the game in my view. 

[elleana]

I don't have an issue with it per se. I'm just wondering how profitable such a strategy is in the long run for such airlines. As long as I can break even on that route, I'm not about to lower prices or capacity. I have lots of other profitable planes/routes so I don't need have to worry about a few oversaturated routes.

[jagalubnan]

I'm just wondering how profitable such a strategy is in the long run for such airlines.

That's the point- Sometimes it isn't about profit but about dignity.

[Topflite]

Fortunately it's neither profitable nor good for dignity.......

........Finally after "years" of struggle, SkyPlus from MEL/YMML has withdrawn or gone bankrupt! He did often have zero or negative profit, verification that the game is realistic and that capacity dumping is simply unprofitable and poor management.

Thankfully in the real world I can't see any airline tolerating a load factor of 16% (estimated) while maintaining 38 daily flights on a route – except maybe the eternally profitable United lol.

I so happy!!!

[Sigma]

I saw some SkyPlus (bankrupt) planes on the market, so they went under.