I don't understand, how passengers choose the flights. But as far as I can see, it's more ore less a uniform distribution... so, the more flights you have, the more passengers you get and the more marketshare you can take... I'm not shure how realistic that is (ok, we all know, normally passengers are not very smart and often they don't know what they're booking)... but let's take e.g. the route from New York to Boston... I flew this with MD-80s and it worked... an other competitor flew it with 737 ... and it worked... and then someone came in with ATR72 ... he started flying this so often, that he had the same amount of flights like our two other airlines had together. And quess what? .. he got the market... he's flying two planes at the same time (often) or in the middle of the night (4.55) ... and, as I said... with ATR72 ... now, the problem here is simple... if you can't win with larger planes... and if the only solution to do the job is with very small things... then... it's strange... and ruining everything.
About the distribtution... I also have the feeling, that flying two 60 pax planes at the same time brings more passengers than flying a 120 pax plane alone and flying 3 planes of 60 will bring again more passengers... and that's definitively stupid...
I'm not sure what times he's flying, but it's usually because with more flights, passengers usually have a better choice of what time they want to fly.
Quote from: sami on May 29, 2010, 10:01:41 PM
The whole "fact" of pax preferring smaller planes is a myth. It's thought so because people just look at the LF % and nothing else really.
If you put a ERJ145 and B747 on the same route, with equal prices and dep/arr times etc (only diff being the aircraft type) guess which plane will have the higher LF if all seats on both are not sold? ERJ of course since if you sell like 45 seats there you get 90% LF but to get the same for 747 you'd need to sell 400 seats.
Though if repeating the same route again and again, the smaller plane will become more effective since the flight frequency and available choice is increased and that is preferred. But using a too small plane has bad effects on the other hand as paxes don't prefer slow / small / uncomfortable planes.
(but with all the variables and things affecting these the results may vary.. but they do not prefer small planes in design)
I made and experiment now... I took a flight and made a copy of it
same route, same time, same aircraft, same seat configuration
and guess what... I had (when flying 1 plane) at the same day (monday) 45y 1c, 56y 2c, 44y 1c
and now, with 2 planes at the same time... one had 36y 2c and the other 46y 2c so in total 82y 4c ... that's more than ever with one plane and that's only the first day...
I didn't look much at other flights on this route (other times)... but even if those flights would lose passengers, it doesn't make sense how they're distributed... why should someone choose to fly with my airline over an other, just because now I have 2 flights instead of one ?? and, why do those 82y and 4c not fly in one aircraft with 8c and 130y seats installed? ... that's completely stupid... just to say that... and I really think about leaving the game... because that's not fun... (and I'm even paying for that)
once again... we are NOT talking about different times... we are talking about the exact same time!! ... I do understand that providing a flight in the morning and one in the evening can make a difference against just one bigger flight in the morning... but... that's not the case here! ... and even if it would make a difference... it wouldn't be that big, if we are talking about 20 minutes... so, one flight with 200 pax every 40 minutes against two every 20 minutes would not really make such a big difference in reality... I simply can't imagine this...
hey my friend, I know what you are trying to say. we can see everywhere in the forum people telling smaller plane + more frequency is better but rarely people talk about time. if 2 flight starts exactly at the same time and you still get the market, then it is a strategy of 'more seat available=higher marketshare' and not realistic. i know someone will say in real life it really happens that many flights of the same route starts at the same time but the problem is are the conditions same as in the game where you are fighting in a tough competition against other players?
I guess the coding for PAX preference includes flight frequency independant from the timings. If you flew 2 737's or 2 md-80's against 2 atr's, you'd get the same number of passengers (obvioulsy a lower load factor on the 737's or md-80's).
Quote from: JonesyUK on May 30, 2010, 01:35:05 PM
I guess the coding for PAX preference includes flight frequency independant from the timings. If you flew 2 737's or 2 md-80's against 2 atr's, you'd get the same number of passengers (obvioulsy a lower load factor on the 737's or md-80's).
even worse... if you fly two atr at the same time against one MD80 you get MORE passengers...
but this game, what is it all about here? ... shouldn't it be a simulation of the airline market? If it is, then it has to be realistic! And it can't be, that you have to "game-optimize" your routes and create things that wouldn't work in real life...
I understand, that it's not very easy and it happens also in other parts of the world. But it should be avoided. Some examples:
comparing CPUs... Intel sometimes optimized their compilers to create bether code specially for benchmarks... now what did we have in the end? ... CPUs that were not usable, but won all benchmarks... that's stupid... the same for the cars ... the so called "c-bar" is larger than usefull... why? ... because like this they get more "crash-points" ... cool... but now you can't see out of your aft windows anymore, because they became so small for this benchmark optimization...
The game doesn't care if you fly 20 flights all departing 0700 or evenly distributed over the day. The game considers both situations to be identical. (Actually 20 flights at 0700 is preferred for the game, because 0700 is a peak time unlike 1200 or some other time.)
More flights per week increase one's "score" and gives more passengers.
So is that means higher frequency flight will be better than less frequency flight regardless of aircraft size? When the frequency is equal, the smaller plane will win?
2 MD vs 2 ATR -> ATR win
2 MD vs 1 ATR -> MD win
If so, it still didn't solve the problem of flight at the same time.
I don't agree with powi. Yes, 0700 might be the peak hour but it is never possible that everyone fly only at peak hour.
Quote from: GDK on May 30, 2010, 01:28:24 PM
hey my friend, I know what you are trying to say. we can see everywhere in the forum people telling smaller plane + more frequency is better but rarely people talk about time. if 2 flight starts exactly at the same time and you still get the market, then it is a strategy of 'more seat available=higher marketshare' and not realistic. i know someone will say in real life it really happens that many flights of the same route starts at the same time but the problem is are the conditions same as in the game where you are fighting in a tough competition against other players?
well, I'm not talking about frequency OR time... I'm talking about frequency AND time... high frequency is good... ok, but it shouldn't help you, if the planes are flying at the same time or within some minutes... and even then, not everybody would change to this company... if you have 10 ATR flights (1:50h in duration) every 20 minutes... or 5 737 flights (1:30h in duration) every 40 minutes... would you (as passenger) switch to the ATR, just because they have a higher frequency??
I'm having same thought with you. The first 2 sentences are what I trying to say. The last sentence is meant for someone else... ;D
Quote from: GDK on May 30, 2010, 01:48:36 PM
So is that means higher frequency flight will be better than less frequency flight regardless of aircraft size? When the frequency is equal, the smaller plane will win?
I don't agree with powi. Yes, 0700 might be the peak hour but it is never possible that everyone fly only at peak hour.
What I don't know is, why this model is so strange... in my optinion it should be modeled like this:
you have pax with a prefered flight time on every route
then, they choose between the flights they have... and for then every passenger decides according to the following rules:
1) time (closer to prefered time is bether)
2) price
3) flight time
4) CI and Route-Image
5) aircraft type and condition (should be included in the route-image, but we all know, that's not how it's working)
6) how often this flight is overbooked or really crowded (less crowded is bether)
... maybe we would have to review those rules, but that's about how I would do it...
and of course you can't calculate this for every passenger every day... it's just to explain the model... it would have to be programmed a different way round...
Yea.
Or in other word, it should not be possible in the game that 'all flight starts at 0700 hour' will work.
Quote from: GDK on May 30, 2010, 01:48:36 PM
So is that means higher frequency flight will be better than less frequency flight regardless of aircraft size? When the frequency is equal, the smaller plane will win?
2 MD vs 2 ATR -> ATR win
2 MD vs 1 ATR -> MD win
If so, it still didn't solve the problem of flight at the same time.
I don't agree with powi. Yes, 0700 might be the peak hour but it is never possible that everyone fly only at peak hour.
You don't have to agree with me, but that's how the code works in this game. I agree that it's not very realistic, though.
Quote from: Powi on May 30, 2010, 02:06:06 PM
You don't have to agree with me, but that's how the code work in this game. I agree that it's not very realistic.
I'd really like to see the code for this and to rewrite it... or... maybe only to rewrite it... ;D
So far it seems everyone in this thread doesn't really happy with this system. Soon, somebody will come and say they are happy with it.... :-\
There is another post in ATB titled 'PARAGON more realism...' also about this issue(at least the author was talking about this issue).
Quote from: GDK on May 30, 2010, 02:13:47 PM
So far it seems everyone in this thread doesn't really happy with this system. Soon, somebody will come and say they are happy with it.... :-\
There is another post in ATB titled 'PARAGON more realism...' also about this issue(at least the author was talking about this issue).
how could ever someone say that this unrealistic system is good? a simulation has always to be as realistic as possible! that's what "simulation" means
(have to note that I really do not like the tone of some of the messages here.. not very beneficial way of expressing things)
As noted the dep.time of flight vs. other flights of company is not relevant yet, you can make all your flights depart at the same time if you wish but so far it has no negative effects, since the demand is modeled for the whole day only and not broken into smaller pieces (partly for not taking it over complicated). But it can (or actually SHOULD) be investigated for change later on. (and all things are also not as nearly easy / simple to make work just by saying that "this and that should be made" - but as you know development is an (slow) ongoing project..)
Oh, have to add that the pax distribution system update has been in plans for some time but no estimate yet (and "in plans" means here just that "should update it some day soon", so no exact data yet) ;)
Thank you for the update, Sami. Your work on this issue is greatly appreciated. :)
In regards to Meiru's original topic, I have unintentionally (at first) taken advantage of this. I originally competed with a big airline on STL - JFK with my B734s against his similiarly sized jet (Air Travel Boom). He was beating the pants off me, so I decided to pull my B734s off and use 'em more profitably elsewhere. Not wishing to lose all the investment I had made in RI, I put a few SB20s (Saab 2000) on the route. Holy moly! :o My market share jumped; his plummeted! Soon after, he no longer flew that route.
Oh, and by the way, I not only stole market share: I was able to raise my prices against him! In fact, I was able to raise prices over suggested price and still take market share! :o What is that about?!
I agree. This should not have been the case.
Yikes:
Quote from: Sigma on May 29, 2010, 11:45:02 PM
Find a route that already has 100% demand filled.
Open a route with a single A300.
Open 3 routes with 3 x F100s.
Same number of seats between them.
Which one steals more pax from the incumbent airline over the whole week?
The 3 x F100s. By far.
Call it prefering smaller planes, call it preferring flight frequency, call it whatever you want -- simple fact is that smaller planes work better at stealing (or holding) pax than larger ones. In a very, VERY big way.
This is sad. :-\
small planes are way better on short routes ) the cheaper and turn around faster .But the cant fly big distences so comperad to big airplanes the make low money.
Anything below 500 nm even 700 nm should not be flown by Big airplanes at the end you loss more money at trun around then anything else.
Let say city got 100 demand pax. and is 435 Mn.
Saab 2000 trunaround 55 min 1 percent 54 pax
Boeing 737 turnaround around 70 min 1 percent 128 pax
this means that i have 15 Min head start at my 737 in the destination Town to fly back . so if you can get plane at 7.15 even if saab 2000 our one at 7.30 . AM sure you pick the 7.15 becourse we people dont like that wait to long .so at short Trips it more then normel that small planes have upperhand .
ones you send out you saab2000 to 700 and More the geting usless not enoff trips and the bigger planes geting usefull.
but that just me and am noob so i might bewrong ) Mine saab2000 the need 3 routes i day to let me makes decent profit i dont let fly at night s already found out that flying at night is pointless except if you can use the hour chance and can start at 2200pm and retrun around 6 am )
for rest i like the game becourse you dont need to be best to have fun and am sure it only wil inprove.
Quote from: JJP on May 31, 2010, 10:07:50 AM
Oh, and by the way, I not only stole market share: I was able to raise my prices against him! In fact, I was able to raise prices over suggested price and still take market share! :o What is that about?!
Here, you can do anything with a smaller plane. The ticket of smaller plane can be always higher (much higher) than ticket of a bigger plane on the same route. But the disadvantage is that you need to own more slots and hire more staff to handle your routes. Also because small planes can't fly far, you will waste the hours between 2300-0500...
Quote from: sami on May 30, 2010, 09:05:14 PM
As noted the dep.time of flight vs. other flights of company is not relevant yet, you can make all your flights depart at the same time if you wish but so far it has no negative effects, since the demand is modeled for the whole day only and not broken into smaller pieces (partly for not taking it over complicated).
Then why flight departing between 2300 - 0500 hours is not working??
Quote from: GDK on June 02, 2010, 07:03:15 AM
Then why flight departing between 2300 - 0500 hours is not working??
As of v1.2 passengers have a very strong preference against flying between those hours. Unless you have a high CI and lower prices you won't get high load factors on flights that depart or arrive during that time.
Quote from: ucfknightryan on June 02, 2010, 12:46:48 PM
As of v1.2 passengers have a very strong preference against flying between those hours. Unless you have a high CI and lower prices you won't get high load factors on flights that depart or arrive during that time.
I know that. But sami said the demand is modeled for the whole day and not broken into hours. If it is not broken into hours, then why or how the period between 2300-0500 is so inactive? If he can make this period of time inactive, why can't he use the same method to model the demand so that there will be a real peak hour?
Quote from: GDK on June 02, 2010, 12:58:22 PM
I know that. But sami said the demand is modeled for the whole day and not broken into hours. If it is not broken into hours, then why or how the period between 2300-0500 is so inactive? If he can make this period of time inactive, why can't he use the same method to model the demand so that there will be a real peak hour?
It has to do with programming. All these things are modeled with different variables. To make passenger demand lower during the night, it is simple. All a programmer would have to do is take his existing demand, and multiply it by some constant(or more complex equation) if the plane departed during these hours. To model a route preference multiplier based on how much variety in time is offered by a carrier, and how often flights left is a much more complicated bit of code to model. You would have to write and test hundreds of more lines of code. In simple, adding this feature is a lot of work, and perhaps of minimal importance given how much time it would take to fix it, versus other bugs that need to be fixed.
I do hope this gets fixed, but I understand why it would be low priority for a developer.
At least create some peak hours using the same method is referring to multiplying the demand with a factor(just like what you talking about). With these peak hours created, then it will be a little more balance having inactive hours and active hours.
If originally the demand is 2400 per day, then we assume it is 100 per hour. If the existing demand during night is multiplied by 0.5 then the demand at night is lower. Similarly, if the demand of say afternoon is multiplied by 1.4 then the demand at that particular time will be higher. He don't have to really rewrite everything. He just need to add in the peak hours. With this peak hours added, then it will make the demand differ with time.
It is simple:
1) Now we have inactive hours and normal demand hours. Nobody want to fly at night.
2) Create peak hour. The game will now have 3 different demand of normal, high an low. Still, nobody will fly at night, but everyone will be scheduling their flight to start at the peak hour. And this will prevent people from supplying 2400/2400 seats all departing at 0700 hours.
Quote from: GDK on June 09, 2010, 10:51:21 AM
2) Create peak hour. The game will now have 3 different demand of normal, high an low. Still, nobody will fly at night, but everyone will be scheduling their flight to start at the peak hour. And this will prevent people from supplying 2400/2400 seats all departing at 0700 hours.
Hm - but then people will supply 2400/2400 seats all departing at the peak hour.
AFAIK there's always been peak hour demand build in the model around 7 am and 4 pm. At the moment it's not very strong I think.
The quiet hours in the night doesn't affect whole day pax amount, so they don't need to be compensated. One can still yield the full demand, if one flies outside night time.
Quote
It is simple:
1) Now we have inactive hours and normal demand hours. Nobody want to fly at night.
2) Create peak hour. The game will now have 3 different demand of normal, high an low. Still, nobody will fly at night, but everyone will be scheduling their flight to start at the peak hour. And this will prevent people from supplying 2400/2400 seats all departing at 0700 hours.
How this will prevent everybody scheduling all capacity departing 0700, if 0700 is a peak hour? Or if the peak hour is 1200, how does it help that all flights are scheduled to depart 1200?
The peak hour will work just like the inactive hours in night, it will not affect the demand of the entire day.
The effect will be the demand is going to be (or partially) broken into smaller time period. If the peak hour is 0700-1400 then this period will have the highest portion of the daily demand (1.3 times demand), 2300-0500 still the inactive hours (0.6 times demand) and any hours other than these 2 period will remain the same (1 times demand).
If you are going to schedule your flight, then you will more likely to spread it between the peak hour and normal rated hours, just avoiding the night flight. It will not cause all competitor to squeeze the flight in the peak hour because the normal rated hours are still perfect for LF. So the players will most probably make some flight take of at 0700 and some take of at 1700, not all at 0600.
As I said, the peak hour is working similar to night, multiplying the normal demand by a fixed constant to raise the demand at particular time only. It is not shifting all demand to the peak hours. So, if everyone is scheduling to flight only at the peak hours, then they are scheduling themselves to the death and a new competitor will come and schedule it only at the normal rated hour, and he win everything.
It seems that there is a strong opinion that there is almost no demand at night, I would have to argue against this as almost all of my 210+ aircraft fly during the night. Obviously this is not a big factor for international traffic as it flies through the night but for other routes a high percentage of my flights leave after 00:00 and or arrive before 5:00. As I have reached the point of having 210+ aircraft I would have to be operating a fairly profitable airline and I have to wonder if those of you that feel there i no demand at night haven't tried it due to the early posts on this topic or haven't given it any time as you need good CI, RI, and lower pricing to get a decent LF.
Trial and error is the name of the game in AWS, I only started around January and feel I am doing quite well as I try things out to see what results I get and learn from my experiences. Take a look at 1 or 2 of the good players to see what they are doing and try out some of thier strategies for your own airline. Watch the other players at your HQ when you start a world and see which strategies work and don't work. Everything we need to know is in the forum, some is fact, some is opinion, the newb guides at the top the general forum and game forums are very usefull for getting started.
Good luck to all ( except Northern Spirit Airlines in ATB )
Yes you are right that night flight is making profit too. But very very less compared to day time flights. And in order to get high CI and RI, you need to spend more on marketing. Also you need to configure a more comfortable cabin to attract people. And long haul flights are almost not affected by 'night flight' at all.
But, it is definitely not a good choice to fly night flights before you set up a strong airline with a stable income. We are not saying no demand at night, but is less.
Quote from: sami on May 30, 2010, 09:23:33 PM
Oh, have to add that the pax distribution system update has been in plans for some time but no estimate yet (and "in plans" means here just that "should update it some day soon", so no exact data yet) ;)
<hops up and down impatiently>
I really hope this update is coming soon.
</hops>
Having a very dense 800NM+ route turn in to a money losing disaster because one of the other competitors decides to drop 35+ ATR72-500 flights a day on it is highly irritating. Both because flying a route 47 times per day shouldn't provide you with much of an advantage over someone who flies it 33 times a day (if the flights are evenly spaced that's flying every 30 minutes as opposed to flying every 45 minutes), and because no one wants to spend an extra hour flying on a regional turboprop if there's an alternative at a similar price. Heck, the poor guy was hurting himself too, since he also flew B738s on the route, and based on the numbers I can see (market share and estimated number of pax)I doubt he was getting any more people on them than I was (~55 pax/flight).
Quote from: ucfknightryan on June 16, 2010, 05:14:45 AM
Having a very dense 800NM+ route turn in to a money losing disaster because one of the other competitors decides to drop 35+ ATR72-500 flights a day on it is highly irritating.
Seems your competitor comes with a strong will to kill you...