Change Cargo Revenues

[Mort]

I wouldn't want cargo profitability changed (sorry Dani - I know we agree on most things but not so much this one  ) but I do agree with you Simon - ridiculous to think that airports like LHR would be swamped with cargo flights.

Underneath the static model and way of thinking, sure. But part of the concept of city based demand is that it allows atypical airports to become the major hubs. When pax CBD does get added, I'm sure it won't take long before a concerted effort in one GW is made to debase LHR as the King of Intl LH.

[groundbum2]

it won't take long before a concerted effort in one GW is made to debase LHR as the King of Intl LH.

Northolt Intl? North Weald Worldwide Port? White Waltham Global? lol

[knobbygb]

When pax CBD does get added, I'm sure it won't take long before a concerted effort in one GW is made to debase LHR as the King of Intl LH.

I don't think there'll be any effort needed at all.  Initially LHR will probably start off with a bigger catchment area so will do OK, but the curfew is the killer.  Anyone who bases at LGW or even STN will slaughter a competitor at LHR.  This is the current end-of-game coverage map for the UK:  Basically anywhere south of LBA will eat into LHR traffic.  I actually think a proper concerted effort could make somewhere like BHX the 'king' of the UK. When it's level 10, it will take traffic from the south coast all the way up to the Scottish borders. It would cover 70% to 80% of both LHR and MAN!

[Cornishman]

Underneath the static model and way of thinking, sure. But part of the concept of city based demand is that it allows atypical airports to become the major hubs. When pax CBD does get added, I'm sure it won't take long before a concerted effort in one GW is made to debase LHR as the King of Intl LH.

It'll be the death of this game for me. I won't be muddling though all sorts of fiddley systems to try to work out what might work. Hope it never happens.

[Maarten Otto]

Regarding tthe proposed "BAN" of cargo flights to slot restricted airports like Heathrow... Who are you to ban me? If I make the business decition to pay 7 million for a slot then it is my decition. Any airline has the same rights of buying and using the slot as they want. Hell, I even flew EMB120's into heathrow just to annoy the competition. And yes... it works big time as long as you know what your doing.  For cargo flights into the London area I would however opt to use any other airport as cargo is regio based demand and not calculated the same as passengers.

[JumboShrimp]

Underneath the static model and way of thinking, sure. But part of the concept of city based demand is that it allows atypical airports to become the major hubs. When pax CBD does get added, I'm sure it won't take long before a concerted effort in one GW is made to debase LHR as the King of Intl LH.

If the same exploit that exists in cargo is left for pax CBD, you can just fly A380s from one tiny airport in middle of England and suck all the passengers from the entire England.

Say you set up shop in Coventry airport, and soon enough, you can make it big enough to fly A380s and suck all the pax demand from England like you can do with cargo, exploiting the Empty Capacity demand steering...

So, hopefully, no CBD for pax, because cargo was ruined with this exploit.

Incidentally, exploit that would take just a couple of hours of programming to fix.

[dmoose42]

to ensure fairness across players, it may be helpful to expand how cargo steering works in detail. I'm not sure if anyone has performed tests in detail - I can see the "effects" of it but in terms of fairness, perhaps a detailed guide of how it works would be helpful...

[JumboShrimp]

Imagine you have 100 demand, and it is being supplied by 10 route pairs with 10 supply each.  The system will allocate the demand equally between the 10 route pairs.
10/100 * 100 = 10 for each route.
All cargo demand is being fully served.

Now, suppose one of the route switches to 100 supply aircraft.  The new demand will be split

100/190 * 100 = 52.6 (+42.6)
So after adding 90 tons of empty capacity to perfectly balanced and served environment, the empty capacity sucks the cargo demand from all the other route pairs.

Each of the other 9 routes will have
10/190 * 100 = 5.2 tons

Those who played with cargo know that carrying 50 tons of cargo is insanely profitable, and 5 tons of cargo in dedicated freighter is bankruptcy - as a result of the exploit.

The fix is very simple;  If the proportion distribution of demand assigns 10 tons and the proportional demand is fully supplied, adding extra 90 tons of empty capacity would not change the allocation between route pairs, it would not steer the demand from fully server portion of proportional demand.  I have a spreadsheet somewhere with the formula (algorithm).