Idea for a new challenge—No Alliances

[Tuckernut]

I get frustrated as a single player trying to enter markets only to find that alliance members have monopolized the route with as many as twenty flights a day.  How about a challenge with NO alliances.  Every man (or woman) for themselves.  Equalize the playing field.  Some AirSim members have been here for years and know all the ins and outs while newer players, while having fun, are getting stomped on. 

[Fisher970]

There are two worlds like that already, BGW1 and BGW2...

Real Gameworlds are competitive whether you are in an alliance or not. And plenty do well outside of alliances.

If you look for the crowded routes as your main routes you won’t succeed. Look for smaller undersupplied routes that will help you gain market share and profit before moving into larger markets.

[Zobelle]

Major markets are great at the beginning of a world when untouched and as "yeah, well me too" routes if joining halfway through and combing through what's left over to gain some semblance of profit to even start with.

[knobbygb]

In some ways, you could say that alliances are actually protecting you in these situations 

The players who want to have big airlines and totally dominate their bases will often put a lot of supply/oversupply on these routes anyway, regardless of their Alliance membership or not.  At least the alliance limits the TOTAL supply on the route (from both ends/both players) to 200% demand.  If they were flying independently, they could EACH supply 200% of the demand if they chose to, making the situation even worse for you.

The only negotiation I do with Alliance members at the other end of 'fat' routes is to make sure we DON'T over-supply too much - otherwise we're just taking money from each other's pockets.  The idea of doing this to push out a small player with a single flight is not realistic and almost impossible to do - it's just not worth it. There is a lot more money to be made by flying those aircraft elsewhere, rather than starting a price war with an alliance 'buddy'.  Now if the guy at the other end is a big enemy - THEN you are liable to see a bloodbath,which will crush the small guy (you) who is stuck in the middle.

As others have said, consider those kind of routes as secondary targets. So long as you supply only your proportion of the demand, you'll do OK on them.  Divide the total demand by the number of flights currently operating, plus one, and that'll give you the number of seats you can realistically put on the route with a high load factor.  For example, if there is 1200 demand and your competitors are covering it with 12 x 180-seaters (240% filled), 1200 divided by 13 is 92. If you supply that many seats, or a little over you should eventually get at least 90% load factors. If you don't have an aircraft small enough, avoid the route.

[tungstennedge]

I get frustrated as a single player trying to enter markets only to find that alliance members have monopolized the route with as many as twenty flights a day.  How about a challenge with NO alliances.  Every man (or woman) for themselves.  Equalize the playing field.  Some AirSim members have been here for years and know all the ins and outs while newer players, while having fun, are getting stomped on. 

I'm a new player, and I'm doing very well. I've played other airline simulators, however, I've only played AWS for abt two IRL months, and I managed to get 5th place in score IN GW3, and 2-7th in profit, it fluctuates, even although I started about one year late.

I also reached that stage with no alliance until very recently, and alliances are honestly not so beneficial other than the forum/discord.

From what I can tell the only skill in starting a large airline is picking a large, base, keeping a large airline big tho I have no idea yet since of course, I've never played more than a few years in one world. The rest is actually quite similar to what you think would logically work, based on the way real airlines work, with three major exceptions, no more than three fleets no matter what, pricing does not effect LF nearly as much as in IRL, and transfers are not modeled. The rest is very similar to the real world. The more u spend on marketing, the more image/attractive your company gets. Plane data is very accurate. Ect, ect.

I don't think alliances would fix the monopolized route problem you are talking about, I think transfers/city based demand would. For example KALT is only an enormous base IRL since delta is based there, and its an excellent location being very close to the center of the USA in term of population. If you averaged the location of every US person it would not be far from atlanta. If AWS added transfers we could in theory, with smart planning create superhubs in other cities with suitable locations, rather than just the current ones, and ir would make scheduling harder. For example, if a passenger wanted to get from a small us town to say somewhere in maine to lax they may have to fly way of course to KATL, then fly to lax. If passenger transfers were modeled well in this game, that same passenger would rather say fly from Maine to Denver to LAX, in a more direct flight. However, you would have to smart because the takeoff time and landing would have to create a short layover at denver otherwise it wouls still not be preferred. That way routes wouldn't be "monopolized" as there would always be alternative ways for Pax to fly.

[zuluboi]

Being able to schedule connections would keep the game more interesting, in my opinion.

[gazzz0x2z]

(.../...)I also reached that stage with no alliance until very recently, and alliances are honestly not so beneficial other than the forum/discord.

Wait until you need to do mass replacement. You'll then undertand the need for a powerful alliance. Up to a size of 600/800 airplanes, it's doable alone. From 1000 aircraft and beyond, you really need a reliable set of suppliers, which is infinitely easier to get within a strong alliance.

From what I can tell the only skill in starting a large airline is picking a large, base, keeping a large airline big tho I have no idea yet since of course, I've never played more than a few years in one world. The rest is actually quite similar to what you think would logically work, based on the way real airlines work, with three major exceptions, no more than three fleets no matter what, pricing does not effect LF nearly as much as in IRL, and transfers are not modeled. The rest is very similar to the real world. The more u spend on marketing, the more image/attractive your company gets. Plane data is very accurate. Ect, ect.

Well, it's always the same thing, whatever the domain. For success, you need hard work, clever work, and luck. You seem to have been strong on both three sides. Luck especially, as competition in LHR was not as strong as usual, with a few good players, but lacking the killer instinct to push you to the edge, an opponent who BK'd for out-of-game reasons, and a slot distribution large enough for you to develope, and limited enough to prevent mass-scale attacks against you.

I'm not minimizing your merits - even counting all that, you're very good for a beginner. But don't think all your starts will be that easy. Had a company like New World Order started in LHR instead of MAD, you'd be not so proud.

I don't think alliances would fix the monopolized route problem you are talking about, I think transfers/city based demand would. For example KALT is only an enormous base IRL since delta is based there, and its an excellent location being very close to the center of the USA in term of population. If you averaged the location of every US person it would not be far from atlanta. If AWS added transfers we could in theory, with smart planning create superhubs in other cities with suitable locations, rather than just the current ones, and ir would make scheduling harder. For example, if a passenger wanted to get from a small us town to say somewhere in maine to lax they may have to fly way of course to KATL, then fly to lax. If passenger transfers were modeled well in this game, that same passenger would rather say fly from Maine to Denver to LAX, in a more direct flight. However, you would have to smart because the takeoff time and landing would have to create a short layover at denver otherwise it wouls still not be preferred. That way routes wouldn't be "monopolized" as there would always be alternative ways for Pax to fly.

Not sure. City-based demand for cargo is still not stabilized, and has some fun side effects. Time will tell, and it's probably a matter of years, balancing pax demand is a huge challenge.

[Tuckernut]

I get frustrated when I go to buy/lease an airplane only to find that one carrier has dumped over a hundred planes of one type that are weeks away from a C check or a month from a D check.  In the world of real airlines, virtually no one does D checks anymore.  They have broken up the chores and incorporated them into their C checks.  Less time for the machines to be grounded.