See only routes with demand?

[skrelk]

Is there a way to see a list of routes and their demand from a departure airport, like you do when you start an airline?

[Cardinal]

Sadly, no. 

The "Route Planning" page is very lacking in filters. You can basically only filter by continent/country. It would be nice if you could set a threshold for demand or distance, like you can with range/pax on the Used Aircraft page.

[skrelk]

That really should be an urgently added feature

[gazzz0x2z]

It favors player that take the time to "map the demand" on a regular basis. It takes around one hour to map the demand for an airport like Warsaw - just did it 2 days ago. Found enough destinations for 7-8 737s, no more. Demand is already nearly fully supplied.

@Cardinal : I do filter by distance to map the demand. I'm going in my base main page(by clicking EPWA/WAW under the name of my company), then route planning(from EPWA), and there is a range filter here. 2400NM to 2500NM, then 2300NM to 2400NM, etc..... Works wonderful. I'm mapping demand by slices of 100NM, and I'm storing long lists of destinations. Of course, one year later, it begins to be false for some lines(opposition may appear). Still, it's very useful.

[Cardinal]

When did that show up? I've never noticed that before. The check box to filter out routes you already fly has been there forever but I don't remember the range being there even just a few days ago when I opened RJCH. 

[gazzz0x2z]

I've been playing for 3 years, and it's been always there.

[Cardinal]

Obviously I need some Windex... 

[gazzz0x2z]

No. We need more tutorials.

I could begin with planning and screenshots like that(that I made for LH challenge, but appliable everywhere) :



Which can explain 7-days schedule, and for the even more basics, this one :



for the 1-day schedule, with or without red eyes flight. With some explanations, it should help beginners to see

I'd need also to make something about fleet choice, and something about route mapping. Your problem would be explained in route mapping. I want to do all that because I'm tired to say always the same things to my mentees. They all do the same mistakes.

[schro]

That really should be an urgently added feature

It's been discussed before and is consciously not being added from what I can gather. The main reason being that this is a game and there should be parts of it that you have to play and discover rather than having it handed to you. Finding demand for your routes is one of these game elements...

[Cammellodacorsa]

Taking hours to discover pax availability is nothing about strategy. It's just a matter of having hours to discover pax availability.
In my opinion, and we have already talked about it, every data that is available in  the system should have better way to be digged out via filters or queries or whatever.
Loosing time to retrieve what is already there is, always from my point of view, silly.
We need more filters, when we choose an airplane, wen we look for demand and more or less everywhere.
Clicking every single destination is the most stupid thing a CEO of an airline should do!

Really, I don't think this details could move a beginner to an advanced featured player just cause of the added filters, but it makes life pretty easier.

[dylan08p]

100% support the ability to filter out demand. Makes it much easier than having to load hundreds of pages of data.

[NovemberCharlie]

I think a demand filter is a reward for players who are willing to put a lot of effort and time into the game and therefor I would not want a demand filter.

A compromise would however be a filter for airports with domestic, international or long haul demand. This would make for a more targeted search, while giving players who invest more time in searching for routes still a slight advantage...

Just my 2 cents

[Cammellodacorsa]

You should aim to be a clever player more than a time-wasting player, but everyone has its own target. We are asking for filter to be more efficient, and to avoid to spend hours to retrieve data who could be available in seconds.
This happen also in our usual working environment, why waste time to get data a normal pc can search for you.

Strategy, tactic and clevernes are something completely different.

[MuzhikRB]

well

may be we should think about something in the middle.

this in-game filter-assistant can be implemented - but its accuracy should depends on some company related things:

1. CI
2. Marketing staff amount.
3. Marketing staff morale.
4. And may be add something like MI - Marketing Index. Comparable to CI.

The more money you put into 4 above categories - the more accuracy and spread it will show.
Example:
So at the begin of game - using that data will not help you much - it will show only data at biggest routes (large airports) within let say 1000nm and domestic only.

As MI grows (depends on staff amount and money put in it) - area coverage will spread.
Later at some point it will start show international routes. and at top it will show everything.

but - at the same time - you can check manually every route like you do it now.

something like this

[Kazari]

I was under the impression that one of the reasons this wasn't implemented was because it would require a lot of computing time, since each route pair would have to be calculated individually every day.

[[ATA] Sunbao]

I was under the impression that one of the reasons this wasn't implemented was because it would require a lot of computing time, since each route pair would have to be calculated individually every day.

Thats surely also a part of it as it would be used by all player all day long

[Tha_Ape]

Hi,

I'd say something in the middle too, but not in the same way as MuzhikRB does.
As for his proposal, apart from technical aspects (game mechanics), yes, it would be a little more realistic, but at the same time I have the feeling it would inevitably give an edge to large carriers over small/new airlines. Thus it would complicate the emergence of new airlines that don't start on day one.

What could be done, and generalized for everybody, and not indexed on money, would be just a few filters more that would allow you to skip one category you already searched in.
For example, you can already search in your own country only, but you cannot search in "anything but your country".
Or, in addition to "Cat 1/2/3 etc. airport only", a "2 and above" or "2 and under" filter.

Another one (automatic, not a button to activate) would be in the "manage routes" page. When selecting a base airport, the second list could contain only the destination airports you're flying to from this base: that would avoid to click each and everyone.

That kind of things.

Arthur

[Cammellodacorsa]

read all opinion till the end and everyone is adding its own point of view which would be very valuable in case of Sami would go for filter implementing process.

I think that the decision (apart IT issues) would be pretty simple: with many more filters the game will avoid boring and routine operation, this way maybe he can grab more players or he can keep more between the ones who does not have so much time to invest. Doing anything he will keep more the ones who have full of time to play.

It will be Sami's choice, as after one 70% game world and anothe full short scenario I understood ( and this is only for myself) I will never do it again, because having 4 bases and checking new routes to open from time to time is a neverending job where I'm not paid to do it.

I'm sure I could save a lot of time whit some filters somewhere, not only in the routes management page but pretty much everywhere.

Unless new job speeding features I will just wait to finish my credits and that's it.

But again and again this is only my opinion.

[FlyingDutchman]

Newbie here pitching in

Not knowing what a route's demand looks like is actually more representative of reality.
Lots of market research and 'guessing' goes into defining and flying new routes.

That said, I actually work with airlines in my day job and can say that a big component to revenue management (once a route is planned) is looking at what competitors are charging for their flights. This currently appears to be missing in the game.

I've started building some spreadsheets to calculate how many seats and what type of aircraft I should be flying on certain routes (also taking into consideration my capital constraints being a new player), but the one missing component is understanding what I can price something at.

[gazzz0x2z]

(.../...)I've started building some spreadsheets to calculate how many seats and what type of aircraft I should be flying on certain routes (also taking into consideration my capital constraints being a new player), but the one missing component is understanding what I can price something at.

I've been playing for 3 years, intensively micromanaging prices, and I'm still not sure to understand the details. The basics, though, are the following :
(1) Don't overprice high-density seating by much
(2) Do overprice normal seating, and the higher your company image, the more you can overcharge.
(3) Competition does not matter that much in terms of pricing. You'll do more money by overpricing, even if your opponent is leading a price war. I had some flight back in the green after raising prices - and LF went down from 40% to 30%. That's on routes overflown by opposition. I went from -5000$ to +10000$ per day. Not much for a 737-600, but still better.

Which means the method most other players use - i.e. each year, they set back all prices to a normal, then do an increase to all prices - is OK for most lines. You just miss extra income on lines whose demand is not filled yet - on that kind of lines, you can charge even more and stay happily full.

Point 1 I have studied a lot when I was playing CRJ100s or E145s. Those are 50/52 seaters, in high density. I had noticed, between 2005-2010, with 60% company image, that the maximum I could expect <i>per flight</i> was 20k$. No matter the distance. Makes the pricing easy, you sort the planes by Load factor, and everything above 90% load factor and below 20k$ of profit can see its price increased. If it's already at 20k$, and you increase the price, the LF falls down. And it works only for high-density. Which means high-density is worth it only if you fly several times a day.