Does aircraft age impact cargo demand like pax demand?

[jrljamielin2]

Hi everyone, I hope you are all safe and well during these challenging times. I don't post on here very often so would just like to thank the admins and moderators for giving me something to do whilst we are locked down here in the UK!

I've been playing on and off for 6 years but never really taken the cargo aspect too seriously from release until now, and I was wondering if the demand model was similar to the pax model on AWS, whereby the older your aircraft is, the less demand there is to fly on your airline (especially if a competitor is flying a newer model on the same route). I did a forum search but couldn't find any similar post, it must have been asked before so if someone has a link please kindly share and close this thread.

The reason I ask is because I believe most cargo specific airlines (UPS, FedEx etc) tend to use older airframes or converted airframes as their main fleets and therefore wondered if following the same ideology in AWS would be feasible?

I currently have DC8 Cargo Aircraft around 7 years old in The Age of Flight game world (year is currently '71) and my upgrade path will likely be the A300-600F, but this is not released until around the mid 80's from memory, so it's likely the DC8's will be at least 23 years old before the replacement aircraft are introduced. Will this affect demand for cargo or does the game not model this as you're not transporting people so image/perception is less of a concern?

Any help would be appreciated!

Jamie

[Sami]

Cargo doesn't really care from other than getting there quickly and cheaply.. 

https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Routes/Cargo/#Transporting

As one would imagine, cargo is much less sensitive to the flight's "quality" and other specifications compared to passengers. Cargo does not mind if it is being flown in the middle of the night or if the aircraft is a bit older. The emphasis on some other factors, like Company Image, is also lower compared to passengers. In other words cargo is most sensitive to pricing and amount of flights offered (since cargo does not like to wait).

[jrljamielin2]

Cargo doesn't really care from other than getting there quickly and cheaply.. 

https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Manual/Routes/Cargo/#Transporting

Thanks Sami appreciate your help with this one!

[knobbygb]

To be fair, I don't think aircraft age directly impacts pax. demand either. 

Pax. prefer newer technology - A DC-8 across the Atlantic instead of (a) Connie, then later (b) a 767 instead of the DC-8 is 'better' but most of that preference is because of (a) the speed increase and (b) the move from narrow to wide-body.

Aircraft age in itself shouldn't DIRECTLY make any difference.  A 25 year old DC-10, if properly maintained, should have the same appeal as a brand new 787, all other things being equal.  Of course, the older aircraft will cost more in maintenance and it's condition will deteriorate more rapidly, causing a higher delay/cancellation rate and thus an impact on company image, but it should generate the same load factors as a new aircraft of the same size.

I might be wrong there, but I've certainly never noticed any effect when switching out old fleets for new, except due to differing size and/or seat configuration. If there IS a difference it's hardly worth worrying about. Certainly, confining the comparison to a single fleet type it makes no difference for sure.  In my current game world I have some 7 day schedules covered by 737-200Adv varying from 1 year old to 28 years old and there is no difference whatsoever in average load factor.

my upgrade path will likely be the A300-600F, but this is not released until around the mid 80's from memory

Depending on where you are located, the only thing you might need to worry about is noise.  You might need to either hushkit your DC-8s or upgrade them to series 70 (even better, if you can) as the original models are only Chapter 2 compliant.

[stealy]

To be fair, I don't think aircraft age directly impacts pax. demand either. 

Pax. prefer newer technology - A DC-8 across the Atlantic instead of (a) Connie, then later (b) a 767 instead of the DC-8 is 'better' but most of that preference is because of (a) the speed increase and (b) the move from narrow to wide-body.

Aircraft age in itself shouldn't DIRECTLY make any difference.  A 25 year old DC-10, if properly maintained, should have the same appeal as a brand new 787, all other things being equal.  Of course, the older aircraft will cost more in maintenance and it's condition will deteriorate more rapidly, causing a higher delay/cancellation rate and thus an impact on company image, but it should generate the same load factors as a new aircraft of the same size.

I might be wrong there, but I've certainly never noticed any effect when switching out old fleets for new, except due to differing size and/or seat configuration. If there IS a difference it's hardly worth worrying about. Certainly, confining the comparison to a single fleet type it makes no difference for sure.  In my current game world I have some 7 day schedules covered by 737-200Adv varying from 1 year old to 28 years old and there is no difference whatsoever in average load factor.

Depending on where you are located, the only thing you might need to worry about is noise.  You might need to either hushkit your DC-8s or upgrade them to series 70 (even better, if you can) as the original models are only Chapter 2 compliant.

You also have to beware of the "too small penalty" on passenger DC-8s that come rather quickly. That is certainly going to hurt your load factor. Yes, the age of the aircraft likely makes little to no difference on load factors, but this game has other ways of "forcing" you to upgrade to more modern planes eventually. Old planes have increased maintenance costs, fuel consumption, and chances of delay/cancellation. They are negligible, but they are still there. Average age of your fleet also affects your airline score, so that's something to think about. And at some point, it just makes more sense to upgrade.

But going back to the OP's question, cargo does not care about the age of the aircraft. It's the year of 1996 in Airline Generation (GW1) and I am still flying DC-8-73F. They range from 18-25 years old and they are as full as they can be. I am replacing them with 767-300F now, but they can keep flying for another decade if I really wanted to.