Tech stop penalty

[DiCH]

What is exact tech stop penalty?

[Cardinal]

There isn't an exact penalty. Like most things, it's a gradual thing and depends on era (tech stops are common in the piston prop era due to aircraft ranges) and things like demand, competition, route length, route/company image and aircraft size. If you try to tech-stop a CRJ across the Atlantic, you're going to have a bad time. But a 737 Classic on a route with way more demand than a 737 can carry and no competition and a good Company image, you might get decent loads after the Route image gets to 100.

This applies only to passenger flights. Cargo doesn't care how many stops it makes.

[wilian.souza2]

There isn't an exact penalty. Like most things, it's a gradual thing and depends on era (tech stops are common in the piston prop era due to aircraft ranges) and things like demand, competition, route length, route/company image and aircraft size. If you try to tech-stop a CRJ across the Atlantic, you're going to have a bad time. But a 737 Classic on a route with way more demand than a 737 can carry and no competition and a good Company image, you might get decent loads after the Route image gets to 100.

This applies only to passenger flights. Cargo doesn't care how many stops it makes.

There is penalty, which is applied to limit your load factors on techstopped routes. It depends on the relation of the number of seats you offer vs the demand and opponent's supply and is not related to era (whether you open a route in 1950 or 2030, penalty applies in the same way).

Basically, if you offer a number of seats close to the current demand and without competition, you'll attract nearly only half of that demand, so if you want to fill more seats on techstopped routes you need to look for routes whose demand is much bigger than your supply - 1.5x at least - and with zero or very little competition (you can still open the route if your competitor flies it with a techstop aswell).

[Zobelle]

Well, I guess I’ll be wiping the floor with a pair of competitors on a new route I opened where both fly passenger service with tech stop.

[DiCH]

Basically, if you offer a number of seats close to the current demand and without competition, you'll attract nearly only half of that demand, so if you want to fill more seats on techstopped routes you need to look for routes whose demand is much bigger than your supply - 1.5x at least - and with zero or very little competition (you can still open the route if your competitor flies it with a techstop aswell).

 I thought the same too, but just explored it's not right. And that's why I'm asking.

See example (1 tech stop, no "too small warning", RI=100, CI=100, price=default+7%).

[wilian.souza2]

But it's 2 flights with 210 seats each, isn't it? Maybe that's it, the system might consider how many seats each aircraft offers. Try flying a single 747 with 400 seats on that route now...

[Cardinal]

There is penalty, which is applied to limit your load factors on techstopped routes. It depends on the relation of the number of seats you offer vs the demand and opponent's supply and is not related to era (whether you open a route in 1950 or 2030, penalty applies in the same way).

Basically, if you offer a number of seats close to the current demand and without competition, you'll attract nearly only half of that demand, so if you want to fill more seats on techstopped routes you need to look for routes whose demand is much bigger than your supply - 1.5x at least - and with zero or very little competition (you can still open the route if your competitor flies it with a techstop aswell).

I never said there wasn't a penalty. The OP wanted to know the exact penalty, and bolded the word exact implying he was expecting a specific equation. I tried to explain that it's not exact, it's fuzzy and depends on a lot of factors.

And yes, era does matter. Tech stops do get a penalty against competition in 1950 but not as much as they do in 2030. And against no competition tech stops get little to no penalty in 1950, while they definitely get a penalty in 2030.

[wilian.souza2]

The way he asked about "exact" techstopped penalty is ambigous. You took it as he was asking for the exact amount of penalty applied, I took it as he wanted more clarification about the concept of techstop penalty. This might be the origin of this misunderstanding.

And I say again that era does not matter! In last GW4 back in the end of the 50s, I opened techstopped routes offering 80 seats on pairs that demanded 90 seats. I was able to fill roughly 45 seats on those routes, even when I was alone. Definitely, this is not "little to no" of a penalty.

[groundbum2]

I've heard that passenger loads are impacted by whether tech stops occur at ungodly hours at the tech stop airport. So a stop in Dubai at 10am local time might carry a small penalty, but a stop at 3am local time will carry a bigger penalty. Any truth to this?

Simon

[Cardinal]

The way he asked about "exact" techstopped penalty is ambigous. You took it as he was asking for the exact amount of penalty applied, I took it as he wanted more clarification about the concept of techstop penalty. This might be the origin of this misunderstanding.

I can see that.

And I say again that era does not matter! In last GW4 back in the end of the 50s, I opened techstopped routes offering 80 seats on pairs that demanded 90 seats. I was able to fill roughly 45 seats on those routes, even when I was alone. Definitely, this is not "little to no" of a penalty.

Can I ask, was the half-full planes with a RI of 100? Just asking so I can make an apples-to-apples comparison, because your experience differs from mine. Early in the current GW2 I opened Southeastern US to Alaska flights with DC6/7 nonstop and got full planes. I retired the DC props in favor of the B732 but I had to tech stop the jets to Alaska. In the 1960s, with a RI of 100, I still got full planes on monopoly routes for about a decade but toward the late 1970s my loads started to decline.

[Cornishman]

Lets face it, there is NO "One rule fits all circumstances" here and I think for that reason no-one here is fully correct nor incorrect.  I think we could all experience differing results depending upon what routes we try to fly with a pit-stop and what aircraft we are flying.  My own experiences on flying ULH routes in GW4 with L.1011 (max range about 5200nm) of which I have a large number... is that I can really tell little to no adverse affect on the profits and L/F that my flights are getting. In fact quite a number of these routes feature amongst my "highest profitable routes" and highest L/F when I sort according to those criteria.   

Routes from Paris CDG to Tahiti, Honolulu, Melbourne, Guam... etc.  all need fuel stops, all are recording very high L/F on the planes and some routes are almost same capacity offered as demand exists for route.  In fact Tahiti and HNL both need two L.1011 flights per day they are so thirsty for them to be offered - pit-stop or no pit-stop. I was sceptical to try putting a second flight on, but it's proved to make no difference to getting great results.

So I'm aware that there are penalties to look out for, but I wonder if it more depends upon whether there are other aircraft types readily available to fly non-stop on these routes. And I'd agree that as time progresses through GWs it probably gets tougher, and as we enter the 2000s then probably the pit-stop routes I currently have would become higher penalised. But I also know that by then I must have moved onto newer better range WB planes like A330/340 or 777s without those stops if I want to remain competitive.

[DanDan]

Lets face it, there is NO "One rule fits all circumstances" here and I think for that reason no-one here is fully correct nor incorrect.

I respectfully disagree: there IS a one rule that fits all the circumstances! The thing is programmed, the calculations are being done continuously. Yes, there certainly are a lot of factors that influence it, but wouldnt it be nice if we could just hear about those factors? Sami could just say how it is calculated. People would get smarter by that.

[Cornishman]

ahah ! - I actually agree with Dani that if you think about it, somewhere there is a formula that calculates something.... but my suspicions are that as time progresses and that all the different variables of bases, route distances, aircraft types, mm/yyyy when the routes are flown (plus goodness knows whatever else added to this)... that means that the end results "appear" to have the effect of - there is no 1 rule that affects all -

[wilian.souza2]

wouldnt it be nice if we could just hear about those factors? Sami could just say how it is calculated. People would get smarter by that.

Yeah! It's pretty annoying to know the route has the potential, but because of the techstop thing you can't be sure if your flight will be a success or not, depending on luck.

[groundbum2]

If I was coding this I would keep it simple. Take the largest range of the passenger aircraft currently in the gameworld (ie 1950 1600nm, 1980 4500m, 1990 7000nm). For all fat routes (300+pax/day) invoke a 50% penalty on routes over this distance. For skinny routes invoke a much smaller penalty. Maybe for very fat routes, like LHR-JBO 8K pax/day, invoke a much higher penalty, like 90%.

For 2 tech stops, regardless of aircraft currently fying, 50-90% penalty.

A lot of the fun of AWS for me is to poke AWS and see what it does. Reverse engineering in a way.

Simon

[Luperco]

I think that is written on the manual. With a tech stop you only get half of the demand. Any change on that you should notice are, in reality, changes to the demand not on the fact that you get only 50% of that.

So on a 300 pax route, you get only 150 pax if you fly with a tech stop. Anyway your are never sure that the demand is exactly 300 so you may get more or less passengers than 150.

With competition the things are little more complex. But what I've notice is that, if you get half of the demand, the other competitor get the other half if he has a tech stop as well.
If your competitor doesn't have a tech stop, he gets all the unserved half. For the other half, the normal competition rules are applied.

Of course, due to the uncertain nature of what we see of the demand and the random involved in it, is difficult to exactly determinate the used algorithms.

[Cornishman]

Sorry Emanuele my good friend - but what you say simply cannot be what actually happens, take a look at just one example I can show you here. Whatever the rules might be, whatever the calculations might be, here is proof (my current situation) on just one of the ULH routes I fly - CDG to EZE
I fly 3 flights per day which puts me offering at just above 90% of daily route demand.   The results below speak for themselves. Whats really interesting is my competitor is using 767 equipment with no fuel stop and doesn't get any advantage as far as I can tell for doing so over my offering.

All I'm trying to say folks, is don't be too afraid to try.  Surely if this works for me on about 12 ULH routes around the globe that I have with pit stop, then it could work for anyone on a similar principal.

[Cornishman]

...and here's another thought -  Is this working so well for my flights because the TIME my flights take are no different (with a fuel-stop) as flights for other aircraft types without a fuel stop?  Bear in mind I'm using TriStar 500 which is significantly faster in the air than any other aircraft except Concorde.   I worked out I get from CDG to EZE in almost the same flight time as a 767 given that the TriStar takes a short fuel stop, plus I always hunt around for the best fuel stop directly underneath the natural direct flight-path.

Maybe that plays a part in this ??

[DanDan]

Holy $§"*/&!

Sami, would you be so kind as to explain what factors are playing in what way into the tech stop penalty? We all pay crazy amounts of money for route-planning people and we get nothing in return! 

And while you are at it, please, the too-small penalty as well?   

[DiCH]

See my first post with screenshots. And now I'm changed 1 day 2x B762ER with 1x A346 configured Y414. And it have only LF 40%.