Tweaking Cargo for more realism

[MikeS]

I'm competing in HKG with JumboShrimp in GW1 and he has made full use of the new CBD cargo operations.
He is very successful and built up a fleet of over 1200 B757PF operating out of a single airport.
Basically it is impossible to compete with any wide body aircraft on the same routes.
From my experience in real life, most cargo is not that time sensitive except express parcels. So as long as there is space on a flight on a requested date,
the shipper would be happy (no need for multiple departures per day). If that could be coded to some extent into the AWS code, then wide body freighters
would have a realistic chance again. Something like: Anything more than 2 flights a day would be consolidated for the calculation of cargo
shares between competing airlines.
I believe there used to be a similar issue with pax B757 in the past.

Anyways, just something to think about. In the mean time, my congrats to JumboShrimp on his hard work

Cheers!
Mike

Attached a partial screen shot on HKG-FRA as an example

[schro]

Yet, there are trade offs in selecting the 757pf as a fleet type - the not as great passenger plane and the loss of one of the three fleet types one can use...

[CU]

Yet, there are trade offs in selecting the 757pf as a fleet type - the not as great passenger plane and the loss of one of the three fleet types one can use...

B757s are good enough on 2500NM - 4000NM routes where too small penalties hit for A320s and B737s. The game balance is becoming very one-dimensional with 757s and 767s dominating larger widebodies.

[JumboShrimp]

I wrote about this extensively.

But in general, the recap is: if you get a Very Large aircraft full with cargo (especially the biggest ones - MD-11F, 777F, 747F), the margins are out of this world.

Margins of 757F are far more modest in comparison, not much better than a full passenger plane (after some adjustments that apparently lowered the default prices of cargo).

As far as HKG, it is an outlier in late stages of the game, as far as how much cargo demand there is.

[DanDan]

thats why things should get more price-sensitive. so people could make competition according to ticket/cargo prices. prices would get lower, margins would get smaller.

[MikeS]

But in general, the recap is: if you get a Very Large aircraft full with cargo (especially the biggest ones - MD-11F, 777F, 747F), the margins are out of this world.

Margins of 757F are far more modest in comparison, not much better than a full passenger plane (after some adjustments that apparently lowered the default prices of cargo).

That is true. Full wide body freighters are gold mines in the sky but completely helpless against frequency. Some further tweaking would be highly welcome.
As Dandan said, a higher price sensitivity for cargo would help. Together with reducing the effect of frequency and maybe some other ideas, we could have a bit more realism.

At the end of the day, player preferences differ a lot. I might prefer a more realistic game set-up with smaller fleets and fewer slots while others prefer a more vivid set-up. Both are valid. It's all about finding a good working balance.

[JumboShrimp]

I agree with both of you, with one extremely significant addition: capacity being the primary influence on allocation and frequency having zero influence on allocation for cargo.
So then, the allocation would be by:
1. capacity (proportional split)
2. speed (when a non-stop flight is present, tech stopped flight would be have lower proportion of the split defined by #1.
3. price (it has many complications though, such as driving weak competitors out of business and also route management by player, since there are no time-efficient tools to manage pricing of a large airline)

But I have given up / made peace with it.  All my posts on the subject are now probably in the cemetery, so we have to just play the way the system wants us to play (which is not always correspond to realism).

[JumboShrimp]

Yet, there are trade offs in selecting the 757pf as a fleet type - the not as great passenger plane and the loss of one of the three fleet types one can use...

Yes, very significant tradeoff for airline trying to participate in  pax SH, LH and cargo.

[VitoNg]

Indeed I haven't seen 757F in HKG for few months IRL. 747F and 777F are the major types here.
Moreover, the cargo doesn't care about the departure time. Except for express parcel, those Fedex and DHL express freighter usually departing 9 - 11pm to US and Europe non-stop from HKG.