strange passenger preferences

[JJP]

Thank you for the update, Sami.  Your work on this issue is greatly appreciated. 

[JJP]

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!    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!    What is that about?!

I agree. This should not have been the case.

[JJP]

Yikes:

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. 

[sittingbull]

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.    

[GDK]

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!    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...

[GDK]

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??

[ucfknightryan]

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.

[GDK]

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?

[Don Conquistador]

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.

[GDK]

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.

[mideg]

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.

[Powi]

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.

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?

[GDK]

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.

[psw231]

  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 )

[GDK]

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.

[ucfknightryan]

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).

[GDK]

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...