Growing Advise

[vandeventer09]

Could find a related topic for this one.

Looking for advise and tips for growing your airline in big game worlds, 300 to 400 plus players.
I started a airline and am doing ok with 30+ aircraft. But now most of the routes are full for my headquarters airport, I want to open a new base but looking at route planning, almost every airport worth moving to have either a lot of airlines already there or most routes already full. It seams to me that unless you open an airline at the begging of a game world start, its hard to grow when you start mid or late game.   

[Amelie090904]

Hi there,

That is not true. And I'll tell you why. You always need to find a niche within the game and use that niche for your profit. For example, last game world 2 was opened in the game year 1960, but I joined a bit later (1965 if I recall correctly). Obviously all "good" bases were gone and the demand was fully supplied pretty much everywhere. I joined the game in Chania (a really small airport in Greece). I did fine for the first 2-3 years, made sure to "own" the place and then found out that a Greek competitor in Rhodes and Corfu was struggling. I immediately expanded at the bigger airport (which was Rhodes) and took over the market share. Eventually my competitor went bankrupt and I expanded also to Corfu. Rhodes and Corfu were quite large airports to play with until EU-wide bases could be opened. I expanded where I could and also expanded into Zakytnhos (not the biggest airport, but demand was good enough).

In 1998 the OpenSky agreement allowed me to open bases in the European Union. I was looking for struggling airlines and found a "victim" in Vienna (Austria). 2-3 game years later he was gone and I had another big base all for my own. The same strategy was applied elsewhere (e.g Prague). I don't quite recall which other bases I had, but I think I also went into Hamburg later on and another few smaller places here and there. Again, my HQ was Chania! Nobody ever (me included) would have thought I'd become one of the bigger airlines in Europe. But it's possible if you have a plan.

In current GW2 I joined late (again) and was "forced" to go into Stuttgart. It's not exactly a bad place to start, but certainly not the biggest HQ either. And now? I killed all competitors, expanded to Cologne, Hamburg and Düsseldorf, have around 500 million passengers a week and have nothing to fear. My score is currently a bit low as I fired quite a lot of people recently, but that'll recover soon. Again, started in a rather small place, fought my way up, owned the place(s).

Nothing is impossible, just give it time! Make a plan, find a niche, look out for opportunities. You're based in Denver. There should always be room for improvement. E.g "outfrequency" competitors if that needs to be done or focus on smaller demand niches...even cargo. I am sure there is some room for expansion. If not, the US has lots of potential. I am sure you'll find a place with weak airlines, unfulfilled demand etc...

EDIT: Also, the "airport list" doesn't end on page 2. I have just had a brief look what I would do. Look at Louisville, Tulsa, Dayton etc. 230 demand and only 2 daily flights. Open a third daily flight there and you could easily fill a plane with 70-80 seats. And what about Greater Rochester, Syracuse or Long Island? 250 demand, only 114 covered. You could easily fly two daily 80-seaters on each of those routes! As I said...the airport list doesn't end on page 2. I would be happy to have so much opportunities for expansion!

[vandeventer09]

Wow, learn something new every day, thanks!

I meant to put "its hard to grow when you start mid or late game." with a question mark at the end, because I wasn't sure, but again thanks for answering that. 

[Tha_Ape]

Andre is completely right.

Situation in smaller countries can be complicated, but in the EU, USA, Japan or China, you can always find a way to expand.

Starting mid-game can sometimes be complicated if you start relatively early, as prod lines can be filled already and the UM completely depleted. But that's only for a few years: after that, things get better and better, and bankruptcies begin to happen.

Last GW#4 (1970-2030) I joined in 1988 and within 10 years I was the 3rd biggest airline in China, HQed in Xian. And I came close to the scores of the first 2 that started on day 1. Sure, they held Beijing tight, and out of the majors airports I was able to set a foothold "only" in Guangzhou and Shanghai (still, small footholds), but the other 2nd row bases were still large enough for my needs. Grew past 600 planes without a problem.

The thing is to know when to move and where. Don't go to a said place because you want to be there (emotional reasons), but because there is an opportunity: like Andre said, someone that's just gone BK / about to go BK, mainly. Or, even if the guy there is strong, if he is flying a different sector than yours (props vs classic jets; MH vs LH, etc.), so you won't be direct competitors. Or if he's not well settled yet.

Doesn't mean you can't move to those bases on your wish-list, but do so only when there is that opportunity. Look for the demand from all potential airports (sometimes people fly to only a handful destinations), on various sectors (are props covered? are workhorses jets covered?), look at the health of airlines based there, etc.

So for example sometimes MH is completely locked, but SH is not, and that's a nice way to set a foot in the door, even if you have to wait for years for the guy to BK. Might even never happen, but that won't prevent you from having a profitable base. A lot of airports have enough room for 2-3 players. But not all of them.

[groundbum2]

I moved into Atlanta late, when the two big boys had the place sewn up and all routes 150% supplied with A320s/737s. Now I make loads of money.

The way I did it was use smaller planes, 50 seaters, against their 180 seaters, and with double their frequency. All the airwaysim computer does is look at how many passengers fly the route that day, say, 2000, divide by the number of flights that day, say 10, so all flights get 200 passengers. If I have smaller planes and double the frequency then my LF% are 90% and the bigger planes will be 50% or so, even when the route is 150% or 200% supplied. I suppose there is logic to allocate, say, 80% of passengers to the 6am-9pm prime slot, and the other 20% to the rest of the day but I don't think the logic goes much beyond what I've described.

The only downside of the above is slot costs at Atlanta and other large airports are really expensive, and small planes carry a small amount of light cargo and zero standard cargo so that lucrative cashcow is denied me. I wish there was a small regional jet that carried some standard cargo...

Hope this helps, Simon

[JumboShrimp]

All the airwaysim computer does is look at how many passengers fly the route that day, say, 2000, divide by the number of flights that day, say 10, so all flights get 200 passengers. If I have smaller planes and double the frequency then my LF% are 90% and the bigger planes will be 50% or so, even when the route is 150% or 200% supplied. I suppose there is logic to allocate, say, 80% of passengers to the 6am-9pm prime slot, and the other 20% to the rest of the day but I don't think the logic goes much beyond what I've described.

Sadly, you are 100% correct.

Allocating passengers by counting the flights, and (nearly) ignoring everything else should at some point be fixed, the code responsible for this allocation should be rewritten from scratch, instead of applying bandaids to it.

[groundbum2]

Sadly, you are 100% correct.

Allocating passengers by counting the flights, and (nearly) ignoring everything else should at some point be fixed, the code responsible for this allocation should be rewritten from scratch, instead of applying bandaids to it.

Time for AI! Since your average toaster now has AI built in, time for airwaysim to have it! 8-)

Simon

[Sami]

All the airwaysim computer does is look at how many passengers fly the route that day, say, 2000, divide by the number of flights that day, say 10, so all flights get 200 passengers.

...that conception of yours on how the background systems work could not be more wrong. It does not work on such a simple system.

[gazzz0x2z]

...that conception of yours on how the background systems work could not be more wrong. It does not work on such a simple system.

Possible. At the same time, his abstraction of the system, how leaked and wrong as it may be, is more than enough to build scheduling strategies that dominate the game. I personally assume what he said is true, at least enough for my needs, and my performances in some Game worlds, let me think that it's a theory accurate enough to be very successful(even if I saw a subtle difference while RI is low in current regional game, which I included in my strategy).

[yearofthecactus]

...that conception of yours on how the background systems work could not be more wrong. It does not work on such a simple system.

I'm glad to hear an impassioned defence of the system. Obviously, those in the know understand the phrasing used is a rank generalisation, and the system is a complicated one.

The problem is, however wrong it is in theory, in practice following many years of playing, one realises it's a good basis for thinking about demand allocation and how to best serve t. An alliance colleague describes the effects of many of the variables that go into the system calculations as "a rounding error". What he means by that is that in isolation, each seemingly important variable has such a small effect, as to be fundamentally unimportant, and further to that, is easily negated the other way by the next variable.

What the game has seen is a race to the bottom, and the most successful aircraft on the game are the smallest ones that can go the furthest distance, and usually frequency wins out.  The too small warning came in to deal with the 320 and the 757 spamming and killing MH/LH, but it didn't really solve the root cause of what's happening - small and often still wins out, that means certain aircraft always have an advantage. But as well as nerfing the smaller planes spamming the 3000-3500nm market, it ended up nerfing the higher end as well, with the 707 and DC-8 going to small in 1980. That shouldn't happen, because the economics of running such planes  in this time period are marginal anyway. And if you look at the current GW2, the whole gw is full of airlines struggling financially because of this. Nerfing the 757 you are protecting spamming of cheap to run planes from frequency spamming. Nerfing the DC-8 and 707  we are killing airlines for no reason that haven't yet switched (probably because the production rates are so low in 2, the 350 players can't source enough planes to switich!

Back to the small and often - the 767 is the most economical small plane. It's small, it's cheap, it's plentiful,  it never goes too small and it flies over 6000nm. If you have a 400 demand route, one player flies a single 747, and another flies two 767-200s - however the system is meant to work, with certainty I can say the person flying two 767s has lower operating costs, and in all probability, more than 60% of the passengers. Neither will make much money on such a  route, but the 767 flyer will be bankrupting the 747 flyer if too much of that happens across the base.

In my opinion, the DC-8 and 707 should be removed from the too small nerfing for reasons stated above (and to allow the super 70s to be a realistic proporsition), but once the 787/A350/330NEO/A350 are in operation, the 767 (which with 80s technology remains viable to 2036), should be giving too small warnings after 2015.

Then there is the Embraer E190 series - there is a too small warning at 1600nm within a country, and 1200-1300nm outside. That needs to come down as it's overpowered.

Anyway back to the original point, reading the comment you commented on raises two fundamental points; it's factually wrong for sure, but the system does err towards working as if it's based on fact. Knowing how difficult like this to program, I don't know if I have any answers or better ways of creating a system, because each would be flawed and inherently biased towards favouring one kind of approach. But small tweaks, and incentives towards larger aircraft, or away from the same old work horses (767, 320 etc) might leaven the bread somewhat. Just some rambling thoughts.

[wilian.souza2]

Before playing this game I never thought that Caravelles would lose for Beechcrafts and "inexistent" Accountants when it comes to pax preference... It was after that that I understood that passengers in AWS prefer choosing more flights a day on a Short or other "cheatcraft"  than 1 comfortable flight on a DC-9, which is way bizarre!

[MikeS]

The two main things that influence ticket sales is: Price and Schedule. First and Business class pay more attention to schedule while Economy class passengers
are more price sensitive. So, it would be nice if AWS would allocate F & C class more to the airline with the higher frequency, while Y class to the airline with lower
fare (ignoring the frequency to some extent). Maybe that's already the case but not very prominent.

What I haven't tried myself yet and would be interested in knowing: Did anyone successfully run a low cost airline out of a major hub by using only high density seating at considerably lower fares?

Cheers!

[gazzz0x2z]

(.../...)
What I haven't tried myself yet and would be interested in knowing: Did anyone successfully run a low cost airline out of a major hub by using only high density seating at considerably lower fares?

I've seen opponents try this method against me. None of them survived long.

[JumboShrimp]

...that conception of yours on how the background systems work could not be more wrong. It does not work on such a simple system.

The problem where the starting point of the allocation is.  The main unit a flight.  As in 1 flight, 2 flight, N flights.

While the excesses were curbed in the corner cases (small aircraft flying very long distances), the center of distribution, where there are most flights (0nm - 1500nm) is unaffected.

A route with 150 demand flown by
- Airline A with 75 pax aircraft
- Airline B with 150 pax aircraft

The system will alocate 75 pax to each.  That is where the center of gravity is.  All the variables that the system has have such a miniscule effect that they just can't materially change the distribution to be 75 pax to each flight.

The result is
- Airine A has 100% LF, half the costs, and is printing money
- Airline B has 50% LF, double costs, and is losing monehy.

The system strongly favors flying smaller aircraft.

What needs to happen is that this center of gravity needs to move from 1 flight = 1 flight to 1 seat = 1 seat, which would result in:
- Airline A with 50 pax, 67% LF
- Airline B with 100 pax, 67% LF

In this case, the system is neutral, as far as size of aircraft.

From this starting point, where the seat is the main unit of distribution, other variable can have their proper effect (price, seating quality, flight duration etc.)

[Luperco]

...that conception of yours on how the background systems work could not be more wrong. It does not work on such a simple system.

I'm sure it is, Sami. The problem is that what we all observe is a system that behave like if "look at how many passengers fly the route that day, and divide by the number of flights" regardless the underline algorithm.

Nothing else works. Indeed you have to add the too small penalty, that is, in my opinion, and artificial patch to fix a not well working algorithm in assigning passenger.
The too small penalty doesn't have any counterpart in real life. People look for price, length of the journey, the departure or arrival time in some case, and to the service offered by the company. The majority of people doesn't know, nor cares, about the type of aircraft and its size.

So if someone ask me how to beat a well established player on a base, I'll answer to take smaller planes and send more flights per route than the competitor. And he will win.

[Sami]

I'm sure it is, Sami. The problem is that what we all observe is a system that behave like if "look at how many passengers fly the route that day, and divide by the number of flights" regardless the underline algorithm.

Before playing this game I never thought that Caravelles would lose for Beechcrafts and "inexistent" Accountants when it comes to pax preference... It was after that that I understood that passengers in AWS prefer choosing more flights a day on a Short or other "cheatcraft"  than 1 comfortable flight on a DC-9, which is way bizarre!

Sorry, that is simply not correct. Here's a test with some raw data for you:

Details applicable to all cases:
- Year 1970.
- Two airlines in game, both with:
   - Company Image 100.
   - Route Image 100.
   - Based at the same airport.
   - Salaries at the standard level (= same for both).
- Both are flying the same one route, with:
   - Route pricing the same.
   - Same seat quality (HD Y).
   - Different a/c types, other uses a modern jet for the era and other a small prop (also modern for the era).
   - Schedules done with at least 1 hr spacing between flights and no night flights.
   - All other variables the same.
- No delays, cancellations, or maintenances in effect (= pure flight data calculation).
- Route distance 235nm (within full payload range of both a/c).
- All in all, everything "normal" and route and setup is also "standard".


Case 1:
- Airline A: Supplies 160 seats daily on TWO flights (dep 0600 and 1500), jet (Caravelle VI-R), 80 HD seats per flight. One aircraft in use.
- Airline B: Supplies 160 seats daily on EIGHT flights (evenly spaced between 0500 and 2000), small prop (DHC-6-300), 20 HD seats per flight. Three aircraft in use.

- Route demand 450pax/day, total supply is 340 seats (route "underserved").

=> Route sales result: Both airlines sell 100% of their seats. 160 and 160 seats sold for both, market share will be 50/50%. (all flights full, nothing spectacular here, since there is still demand to be served)

- Economy comparison: Both airlines earn $16320 ticket revenue. Direct route expenses for airline A are $3114 while airline B has $2304 (pax fees are the same of course, but B has lower landing, handling and fuel fees but larger navigation fees; small aircraft are very much cheaper to operate).  => So airline A's direct route operational result was $13206 and airline B's $14016.

- However airline B has paid some $60 000 more for slots (but this is very airport specific and not comparable; but later in the game and at large airports the difference towards fewer operations per day will be VERY significant).

- With this scheduling (1 large a/c vs 3 small in use) airline A is paying $40000 is staff expenses and airline B is paying $90000 (more aircraft in use, and more operations per day). However since both airlines are new/small this comparison is not fully accurate, but in principle more operations per day need more operational staff.

==> Overall in this case it is more economical to run the larger jet twice daily, than small a/c eight times a day. (however you'd need to account the a/c ownership/lease costs and maintenance costs too, but that's beyond this comparison)



Case 2:
- Same airlines, same equipment, same number of daily flights and same schedules as in #1.

- Route demand is 250pax/day, and supply remains at 340 seats (route "overserved").

=> Airline A sells 142 seats, airline B sells 148 seats. Market share would be 49/51% (but number of flights per day is 20/80%). So here you can clearly see that route sales are not allocated to whom just flies the most!

- Economy comparison: Airline A earns $11376 and airline B $12905 after direct expenses (B had the small aircraft, hence lower ops expenses). Slot cost and staff cost (etc) not taken into account.

==> Airline B with six more flights per day has a very minor advantage but it is offset by the other indirect operational costs. So again it's smarter to fly the bigger aircraft in this case, but you are not broke if you wish to run a small airline either.



Case 3:
- Again the same route, and all the same details, but let's lower the demand even more.

- Route demand is 150pax/day and both airlines serve a total of 340 seats a day again (route "very overserved"). Both airlines are slightly overserving the demand (160 supply from both and demand is 150 per day). This is a very normal case, as all airlines would of course like to fill the available demand with their supply.

=> Airline A sells 86 seats, airline B sells 86 seats too. Market share 50/50% again (but number of flights per day is 20/80%). Again the number of flights per day makes no difference here.

- Economy comparison: Airline A earns $5939 and airline B $6985 after direct expenses. Again slot cost and staff cost (etc) not taken into account.

==> No noticeable difference in who gets the passengers. Like earlier, airline B has a few more bucks in the bank after the direct expenses since small a/c is a tad cheaper to operate (but again needs more slots and staff etc.).



Case 4:
- Same routes, airlines and details. But airline B is supplying only three flights.

- Route demand 150pax/day, airline A supplies 160 seats per day (two flights) and airline B supplies 60 seats (three flights); total supply 220pax/day.

==> Airline A sells 114 seats, airline B sells 60 seats. (market share 66/34%)

- If you look at load factors alone, you might think, "wow" airline B has 100% LF, but that is merely because the aircraft is small. The system does not calculate the sales based on the load factor, but instead the specifications of the flights.

- Economy comparison: Airline A earns $8680 and airline B $5256 after all direct expenses.

==> You can see that it's relatively easy to get some market share with small aircraft on a route with larger airlines established. But you cannot use the frequency to your advantage really. You'd get the similar results for using a lower frequency and a bigger plane...

As you see, you cannot "win" by frequency spamming. In no case of these does the system allocate any significant higher number of passengers to the player flying the route a lot more times than the opposition. And to point out in this case the frequency has no benefit either as the route is so small, and no penalty either as player B flies it only 8 times a day. On larger routes (2000 pax a day or similar) you would get a small bonus for flying let's say 10 times a day in comparison to 2 daily flights.

Since this route is so short (<300nm) the slower prop has no noticeable disadvantage over the more comfortable and faster jet. At larger distances the prop would start to lose (chose this short route as it was the easiest to set up for demonstration). But of course since the prop is slower, you need more aircraft, more staff etc. in order to fullfill the whole demand here.

The system is built so that also the small airlines can survive (but their life will be hard at large airports due to the slot costs). So basically if you think that you will set up shop at LHR and spam 19-seaters to all routes in order to gain the market share, then you're screwed. Yes, you will get your share of the sales eventually but it will be much more costly overall.

But the statement that number of seats sold are allocated in the order of who flies the most flights per day is just incorrect, it depends on so many other things too.


Most of you seem to be too fixed on some notices and warnings the system gives to help you, and to some other things you might have heard on how the system works (but such data is probably never disclosed?)... Hate to say but perhaps it could be best to hide all those helpers etc. since it seems to lead to misconceptions. For example the "too small" notification - it does not automatically mean that flying that route with that a/c type is a complete failure (it's not a "on/off" type trigger).


/edit, typo

[JumboShrimp]

The system has another "special case" to combat a corner case scenario, where the system severely penalizes high number of flights to a destinations (in relation to demand of the route.

It seems that the cases 1 - 3 are really this special scenario, where airline B is penalized for high number of flights, and only case 4 is a pure one, where no special rules or penalties apply.

As I said elsewhere the system is a lot better with these 2 out of 3 bandaids (than it was before):
1. "too small"l penalty
2. penalty for too many flights
3. tech stop penalty is a mixed bag

But in the vast space where the pure allocation formula operates, where none of these 3 bandaids apply, the allocation is just per flight, and it results in a small planes being full, bigger airplanes being half empty.

But the statement that number of seats sold are allocated in the order of who flies the most flights per day is just incorrect, it depends on so many other things too.

Better way to look at is to ask, as Luperco mentioned:

Q: How many passengers will be allocated to a flight?
A: Total demand / number of flights.

Case 1:
450 / 10 = 45 per flight
Airine B 20 seater full
(even though it may be in penalty phase of 8 flights to 450 demand)

Case 2:
250 / 10 = 25  pax per flight
Airline B gets 148 / 8 = 18.5 (nearly full, nearly all of 20 seats sold
(Airline B is slightly more into the penalty phase of 8 flights to 250 demand)

Case 3
150 / 10 = 15 pax per flight
Airline B gets 86 / 8 = 11
(Airline B is most likely very deep in the penalty phase, for flying 8 flights to 150 pax demand)

Case 4   <- this is the only normal scenario where no penalties apply
150 / 5 = 30 pax per flight
(Airline B gets 60, all 20 seats are full.  System tries to give it 30, so a lot of room to spare for Airline B.  They probably don't even have to clean the lavatories between the flights, because the system will always (no matter what) allocate full plane.  As far as penalties, supplying 2 flights to 150 demand has no penalties, so this really how the system works across AWS, perhaps in of 80% of all passenger allocations.

As long as the allocation starts with the formula of:

Allocated pax = Total demand / number of flights.

this issue problem will persist.

[yearofthecactus]

It should be noted Sami, that many of us are aware of mechanisms (we don't know what they are of course), which mean in the scenarios you pose, one airline won't monopolize the routes. Indeed, the first flight is always the most important, and when I play the US, I often operate a single flight policy knowing that lf's will be sweet across the board, costs low and yields high.

The issues raised really pose problems higher up the food chain. Frequency spamming is probably the wrong phrase for it, because operating 2 or 3 flights isn't spamming. But the reality is this - buying 2 767-200s is cheaper than 1 747-400. Operating 2 767-200s on a 3500nm will cost less (fuel, staff etc combined) than 1 747-400. And in most cases, all things being equal, the two 767-200s will pick up more passengers than the single 747-400.  I can't speak for anyone else, but this is what I mean by small and frequent over size,  not talking about irrelevant oversupplying on small regional routes - I apologise for not making that clear.

My question is reasonably simple; what is the benefit to buying a 747-400. Now I do understand there has to be a benefit to frequency, because pax like frequency (If by using the word frequency I'm mistunderstanding the system, again sorry, but the point is about because the two 767s carry more passengers, it's hard to nail down a better word). But there is an argument it's too primitive. And the planes people are interested in buying, long haul are very  narrow. Basically, everyone wants B767s and A330s, because the 777, the 747 and the MD11 are considered too big, and they bankrupt airlines. This isn't conjecture, it's a fact of gameplay

In real life, the 777 IS the most popular widebody on the market, and the 747-400 was the most successful variant of the series. They don't really work in game, except for a few select airports. This is a shame I think, and hopefully cargo will address this (although I don't think so, as the same game play rules apply for cargo, and the 767 and 330f also look hard to beat).

In real life, the 777 is not too big to be economically run. In real life, the 747 has had its day a viable pax plane because of the 777 really, but it had 40 years as a lynchpin of the skies. In game, they're very difficult to make work anywhere. It's a shame they're too big. Perhaps using the word frequency muddies the water, but if there's any competition, you have to go small and more frequent (or not).

EDIT: Actually - forget the word frequency. Small beats large. Frequency is a by product of the realisation of players that large is bad. So...

If a 400 demand route has a 767 and a 747 on it, a perfect system would allocate demand in a way that wasn't 50/50, but favoured more passengers on the larger jet (but overall meant neither airline loses out too much/costs are covered more relatively to the metal being flown). This does actually happen IRL, through traveller preference for an A380, and of course airlines offering more cheaper seats on bigger jets to fill them. Frankfurt to Toronto is a route I take a lot for example, and Air Canada flies 777. Lufthansa flies 747. Lufthansa flights are always full. Air Canada flights are a mixed bag.

[groundbum2]

surely in real life the bigger plane has a cost advantage? The whole point of an A380 is it's one set of airport slots, 3 flight deck crew, one load of avgas so surely lower price tickets can be offered, compared to smaller planes that cost more per revenue seat mile to run? I would think this would be modelled in AWS?

So in the scenario's above, the one 747 carrying 450 pax should be profitable at a lower ticket price than 2x767 250 paxs? So the clever player will get the Jumbo, offer lower ticket prices, and harvest the price sensitive Y passengers? Just like the real world.

What breaks the above is the lease/purchase cost of bigger planes is sky high compared to smaller planes. I can buy the 50 seat Embrear for $12M in GW3 whilst 180 seat A320s are $85M, so cost per seat is twice as much for the bigger plane.

Other things AWS takes into account when allocating seats,
relative CI
relative RI
age of plane
attractiveness of plane (eg Russian vs Western)
seat style (high density etc)
ticket prices
direct vs 1 vs 2 stop
departure time

but all the above is tiny swings 2-3% compared to frequency.

hefty penalties apply when an airline has 2 flights within 60 minutes of each other or the too small plane penalty

Simon

[groundbum2]

can I also say I'm happy with the system as it is now, it reflects real life pretty well within the constraints of what a 3GL computer program can do. And makes for an enjoyable game where big and little players can co-exist.

Simon