Airport selection under city-based demand

[seafax]

So, re-reading through the manual in order to familiarize myself with the CBD system, I see that an airport's distance from its metro area is the largest influence on demand, followed by airline service (I assume this means both frequency and quality of flights to the destination city?) and lastly infrastructure level, in that order.

If I'm understanding this right, that simply means the most optimal long-term choice is to always pick the airport closest to the city you are trying to serve? (since distance is the one factor players cannot influence)

Is there *any* mechanism for competition that will allow 'underdog' airports farther from their parent cities to overtake the airports closer to the city?  Sure, a farther airport might have cheaper slots and fees, but it sounds as if demand will be stolen from it, so that anyone who chooses one of those underdog airports will struggle to build up and capture the majority of demand if airport distance is the main demand driver.

[Talentz]

So, re-reading through the manual in order to familiarize myself with the CBD system, I see that an airport's distance from its metro area is the largest influence on demand, followed by airline service (I assume this means both frequency and quality of flights to the destination city?) and lastly infrastructure level, in that order.

If I'm understanding this right, that simply means the most optimal long-term choice is to always pick the airport closest to the city you are trying to serve?

Is there *any* mechanism for competition that will allow 'underdog' airports farther from their parent cities to overtake the airports closer to the city?  Sure, a farther airport might have cheaper slots and fees, but it sounds as if demand will be stolen from it, so that anyone who chooses one of those underdog airports will struggle to build up and capture the majority of demand if airport distance is the main demand driver.

Route access and demand served will be the X factor. If the smaller airport can serve more cities then the "main airport", then it can take its potential demand. This can be seen with the new GW1 on the cargo side. Demand will go up/down/convert to other type of demand based on which airport serves or doesn't serve every cargo route.

The thinking carries over to CBD-Pax. If 3 airports service the same city, the airport with best airline operations will garner more potential demand then the others. While its hard to image ATL losing out to a smaller airport, cities with multiple airports to serve the metro area are more at risk.

Think about every major airport that has 2-3 rival airports that its beaten out over years. Once CBD-Pax is complete, you'll get to re-live those battles every new game world.


Talentz

[Tha_Ape]

Not playing any CBD GW, but following the discussion.
Logic also says that behind that there are numerous factors that will balance the proximity of the city.
For example:
- it will be easier to have a large airport starting from an already large airport
- runway length can limit the capacity of closer airport
- curfews too
- special cases: SVO is the only Moscow airport allowed to fly internationally

Moreover, in megalopolis or dense areas (US East coast, central Japan, Western Europe, etc.), the 200 nm max radius of a said airport covers a HUGE quantity of small airports whose base demand will get stolen by larger ones as the former probably won't host bases.
Ex: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=200nm%40FRA&MS=wls&DU=mi
In this example demand from Munich or Bruxelles will get stolen by FRA if nobody in Munich or Bruxelles flies the route. But this won't bring many pax as there will most likely be airlines based is such cities.
On the other hand, FRA 200 nm radius cover around 45 other airports, and nobody's based at Reims or Kassel or Bern. The inbound flights to those places will take a part from those airports primary demand, but the unsupplied one will get spread over all the overlapping major airports' areas.
For one minor airport, it ain't much. But out of the 45 airports within the 200 nm radius of FRA, some 30 are rather small and likely to get stolen from.
Same for airports where "classical" point-to-point demand for intl or LH demand is too low. Will get stolen by the nearest LH-viable airport.