Sleepover analysis

[AngryOpossum]

yet we still ignore the other glaring obvious positives and focus solely on the turn time question.     That's like only worrying about fallout after a nuclear war.

The turnaround time was the original question. And I addressed the other potential benefits of sleepovers. I'll requote it for you:

Now, there are other arguments being made in favor of a sleepover such as slot usage. Sure, if airport A is slotlocked at 0500, the sleepover scenario is preferable. But the converse is also true: if airport C is slotlocked at 0500, the stay at base scenario is preferable. If you have a curfew of 2300 at A, the stay at base scenario is impossible. But if there's a 2300 curfew at C, the sleepover scenario is impossible. I understand these arguments, and they may be a valid reason for a sleepover. But these arguments work both ways and may at times argue for keeping your plane at your base.

As I said, those advantages can work either way. There is one "glaring[sic] obvious positive" to each scenario, and that is that A-checks can be performed at your home base but not at a sleepover airport. Continental Sky did a great analysis of this question, and when applied to competitive situations losing one route per week is clearly not worth any hypothetical turnaround time advantage gained from a sleepover. In fact, the loss of one route per week is pernicious from a competitive standpoint. Given we spent hours arguing over what should be a tautology - 305 minutes on the ground is 305 minutes on the ground, after all - I don't expect to convince you here. But the answer is quite clear.

[tungstennedge]

While at this point in this argument, I don't really even understand exactly what the confusion is about or what we are discussing, I want to make some clarifications purely about available flight times in different scenarios, using a 1 hr minimum TAT to match comments made earlier by different users.

Firstly, there are 5 scenarios:

1.Seven day, redeyes (optimal) > 6 hours wasted per week 5 hours + one TAT before the A check

2.Seven day, sleepover(next best) > 6+ 30.5 = 36.5 hours wasted per week. 305 minutes on the ground for 6 days, and 6 hours for A check like before

3.Seven day, 5 to 23:55 scheduling(tied with seven day sleepovers) 6+30.5 = 36.5 hours wasted per week. Also spends 305 minutes on the ground, 6 days a week, just at your own base. Still need one A check, which wastes 360 minutes instead of 305 due need of a TAT before the a check.

5.Single day, 5-23:55(second worst) > 36 hours wasted per week, since every day our plane spends 6 hours on the ground to accommodate the a check.

4.Single day sleepover(worst) > 36+30 hours wasted per week, since every day our plane spends 6 hours on the ground to accommodate the a check, and 5 hours aat another base on the ground. (NOBODY does this) One flight of the week can also be cancelled to have the a check, but still wastes 36.5 hours whilst also loosing a flight


I think a ton of the confusions stemmed from the fact that seven day sleepovers were being compared to SINGLE day 5-23:55 style scheduling. In this exact situation, there is indeed a "magic hour" since the single day schedule has to accomodate 1 additional hour for the a check, every single day of the week even though there is only one A check. In a seven day, ofcourse this is only done once saving 6 hours.

I think this mistake was made because most players know about single day scheduling, and seven days with redeyes, but not seven days with sleepovers. This lead to the default assumption that seven day sleepoevers are being compared with single day schedules as that is the normal alternative. Not seven days with scheduling from 5:23:55 which is quite rare.

I believe angry opossum is comparing 7 day sleepovers to seven day 5to 23:55 scheduling, hence the disagreements. However, there are still mistakes in both Andre and opossums posts.

Let's shorten it.

Example route:
Flight length per leg: 1h
Turnaround time: 1h

With sleepover:
A-B: 2255-2355 (1h)
Turnaround time: 2355-0055 (irrelevant as it happens during the night when the aircraft "sleeps" until 0500)
B-A: 0500-0600 (1h)
Next possible departure: 0700 (1h)
Total use time during "usable" daytime: 3h

Without sleepover (random departure time during the day):
A-B: 0500-0600 (1h)
Turnaround time: 0600-0700 (1h)
B-A: 0700-0800 (1h)
Next possible deparutre: 0900 (1h)
Total use time during "usable" daytime: 4h

This is flat out wrong. 4 hours are wasted in both these situations, because in the TAT before the A-C flight using sleepovers was not considered, where it was for the non sleepover.

The sleepover plane must return to base at 21:55, and the non sleepover at 23:55. (2 hours gap, exact same as thier next possible eariest departure.

Finally, I like Continental Sky's analysis, but if there is competition on a route it underestimates the detrimental effects of a sleepover. Let's say the demand on his routes is 130 pax/day, and two players are flying an A320-300 (130Y) on it with all else equal. Now, the person with the sleepovers (let's call him player A) is flying 65 pax/flight every single route he flies. The person without sleepovers (player B) is running each flight 7 days a week, so player B gets 65 pax/flight six days a week and 130 pax/flight one day per week on the route player A isn't flying – an average of 74.2 pax/flight for that particular flight. There will be a similar bump in cargo load factors. Now, both sleepover scenarios lose 7.4% per week to the non-sleepover (see attached excel edits). This may overstate the case a bit since the route would likely be not flown on Saturday, when demand is lower. But regardless, I love it when I go to a new base and see someone flying a route 6 days a week. All of his flights will have competition, whereas 14% of mine won't.

EDIT: The first scenario, while getting more passenger revenue, also burns less fuel (10% shorter mileage flown).

This is also wildly wrong. Why are you suggesting that the sleepover player is cancelling a flight in the week? This makes no sense and nobody actually does this when sleepovering routes. You mentioned above that you normally seven day sleepovers. This makes me confused as to why you believe that sleepovers need to cancel a day's flight, when this is not what happens when a sleepover 7 day schedule is done properly.

Anyways, Im sorry if this came out somewhat offensive, I didn't mean to call out players but rather just to have a discussion on strategies. I find it quite fun to actually analyze the efficiency of these different techniques (not that I ever actually do short haul seven days), just instead verify the validity of differing methodologies.

-Tungstennedge

[Continental Sky]

Anyways, Im sorry if this came out somewhat offensive, I didn't mean to call out players but rather just to have a discussion on strategies. I find it quite fun to actually analyze the efficiency of these different techniques (not that I ever actually do short haul seven days), just instead verify the validity of differing methodologies.

Well, neither did I want this discussion to escalate beyond acceptable, of course, and I don't think there was anything offensive. I was intrigued by that topic on Discord, and decided to explore it a bit further.

At the end of the day, I believe we all have to agree about one thing: we don't agree. I'm not convinced in benefits of sleepover, so I'll somehow continue to live as I lived before I heard of that, just like everyone else, I guess, and that's fine...

[AngryOpossum]

4.Single day sleepover(worst) > 36+30 hours wasted per week, since every day our plane spends 6 hours on the ground to accommodate the a check, and 5 hours aat another base on the ground. (NOBODY does this) One flight of the week can also be cancelled to have the a check, but still wastes 36.5 hours whilst also loosing a flight

This is exactly what started the debate. We've moved into other topics, but the original discussion was that someone on Discord was using single-day, sleepover scheduling and claiming its superiority (the "magic hour"). They posted an example schedule, which I've uploaded here. The plane is on the ground for 305 minutes at night (not at the base), and is on the ground at base during the day for an A-check. So "NOBODY does this" is wrong. This happened to be a player with lots of experience.

[Amelie090904]

If you were to play in China, you would notice that it is the best way of handling the sheer demand (and slot issues). I have never done it previously in other game worlds, but each place has its own challenges. In China, there is almost no way around sleepovers like that. Either because you simply got no other slots, because demand is so big that you need the additional departure times that sleepovers offer, or because you just got no redeyes to make use of the night time. I played in ORD last HatF (#2 pax) and cannot remember that I ever had a single sleepover there. So it really depends on where you play and how the circumstances (demand/slots/redeye opportunities) are.

I am playing China now for the third time (in a row) and I have always managed to outgrow any competitor. Sleepovers offer a big strategic advantage that you should know about. If you don't want to use it, fair enough. But you should keep it in mind for conditions like those in China where it's important to be able to fly 3x daily (or more) domestically to make the most out of your aircrafts/schedules (since no redeyes are available).

I have attached a screenshot of a "normal" single-day schedule. It's the same in the end. 3 daily flights. It's the most I can squeeze in per day since redeyes are not available. The night time is basically dead. It cannot be used. If I fly 3 daily flights during daytime or make use of sleepovers is irrelevant. All that matters is to squeeze in those 3 daily flights at departure times that match the high demand and the required intervals. You can't just fly 10-15 daily flights that all depart at the same time. Otherwise it would be a lot easier. 

PS: It does not matter at all if you do the A-Check at night or at daytime. One of the routes can only be flown 6 times a week when using sleepovers like those. Which of those routes you fly 6x a week does not matter. I usually pick the one with the least demand and/or highest competition.

[Fudaru]

If you do 7-day scheduling with sleepovers you don't run into the 6x weekly issue

[Amelie090904]

True, would be slightly better. But a ton of clicks more, too. Not sure about the effort-benefit...