Passenger Demand Reality/Frustration

[dl1991]

I feel like regardless of game world the passenger demand algorithm is always the same. It's the same key airports and routes that have the largest passenger demand whereas some emerging markets are still neglected and do not mirror real world demand.

This is making each game repetitive because unless you manage to do well within the first couple of days at a key base you have no hope of doing well.

Some key areas I have noticed that are lacking realistic passenger demand are:

- SE Asian domestic routes (Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia)
- South American domestic routes (Argentina, Chile and Peru all underrepresented)
- Central Asian domestic routes (Kazakhstan is huge)

If anyone has anymore please list them below and hopefully AWS will take note.

[Sami]

The passenger demand model is indeed based on static airport specifications, and thus quite often the same big airports remain big airports. For cargo a newer model is in use where airports serve merely as the gateways for the demand from the cities/regions. This will be expanded to passenger model too, but the development for that has been a low priority / long-term plan, but I plan to shift into next gear with this after the introduction of the new website/backend that's almost done.

[Balkania]

Agreed.

Rejoined the game after a 2-year break and was dissapointed to see my favourite base airport (LYBE - Belgrade) still has very unrealistic pax demand to the majority of airports within 700km. The game demand doesn't match the real-world demand for such a strong real-world market.

I got bored with turning and burning routes and want to try something more challenging (<50 demand routes), but it will almost certainly lead to bankruptcy.

[sirvalkyerie]

If you get enough <50 passenger routes with little competition you can definitely turn a profit but it's damn hard and not all that feasible until later in the game. You need <50 pax routes of distances like <400nm. Then you can load up like Cessna Grand Caravans or something and as long as you make 4 trips a day you'll make some cash. Clearly you're not gonna be rolling in it but you can load up planes on these sorts of routes and it works out.

But the possibility for that exists really early and really late in game. Mid game it's kinda untenable and it also relies on there being very little competition (or a huge amount of possible route combos so that way you can find routes without competition).