Cargo Demand Levels

[DanDan]

Absolutely agree with: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,86903.0.html

Additionally, I wanted to add, that cargo demand levels are very random; this doesnt necessarily have to do with CBD, but lots to do with connecting traffic:

1) Short-Haul-Cargo: There is no demand for shorthaul cargo in AWS, which is actually there IRL (especially in remote areas). I guess when connecting traffic comes into play, that should be corrected somewhat.

2) There is no demand in "Third World Countries" in AWS (basically anything but USA, Japan, bigger European Countries, very limited countries in Asia) - which is actually there IRL. As an example, take South America: They may not have all those small AMZN parcels, but they do export agricultural products a lot (e.g. flowers from Colombia) and import luxury products from Europe, or heavy machinery from all around the world!

3) Heavy Cargo: I have been talking about this before, but I will mention it again, because the concept is just wrong:

- There is way too much "Heavy" cargo. It is claimed currently that 60% of cargo is usually in pax planes as belly cargo (meaning Light or Standard). Plus: most dedicated cargo planes are actually parcel-freighters, carrying UPS/Fedex/AMZN stuff, which really could go in pax planes bellies too: Light/Standard. Even if refrigerated cargo is counted, the amount of "Heavy" is by far too high, especially in the later game-years. >>> Reduce the extent of "Heavy Cargo".

- "Heavy Cargo" is rather the exception than the norm. And heavy cargo in the game has the tendency to not be all too heavy. Make it seriously heavy if you want to reflect reality!

- Two airlines compete for 1000 kg of heavy cargo [ok, lets assume its a light car that some dude wants to have shipped] between Osaka and New York: both end up taking 500 kg... So, do they cut the car in half and weld it back together in New York? Heavy Cargo is Heavy and it should arrive in one piece.
>>> Winner takes it all, let the cargo take the more attractive flight; dont let the increments be separated to less than *enter variable*.

- Cargo can wait IRL, especially on long-haul: yes, time is money, but the reality is, even the flowers from Bogota dont have to fly to Amsterdam every day! It is absolutely sufficient to fly them to Amsterdam twice a week and to Rome and Frankfurt once a week!
>>> Cargo demand should be weekly or switch weekdays, especially if flights are longer-distance, and especially if they are Heavy Cargo compared to Standard or Light.

4) Cargo class limitations/assymetric demand: When setting up a flight, one needs to decide how much Heavy/Std/Light cargo one wants to dedicate cargo-space to. That just does not make much sense.

- First of all, one would need two levers, one for the flight there, one for the flight back, because of assymetric demand. And it would be helpful if demand for in- and outbound flights would be shown on the same page.

- Secondly, blocking of passenger seats would be necessary for both flights separately as well.

- But most of all: If you can carry heavy cargo, you can carry also Std and Light cargo instead in the same space. If you can carry Std cargo, you can also carry light cargo. So limit the space of cargo dedicated to a specific type [747F cant carry 100% Hvy due to belly-cargo], but else just try to go for the "heaviest" or most lucrative cargo. If it is all shipped: go for the next best cargo type etc.

- It is the same issue with passengers: if you can carry first-class passengers, you can also instead carry economy passengers in the first class seats instead.

5) Make cargo price sensitive: That way, people will tend to be more conscious about what planes they use, and not spam the world with two-stop-flights by frequency spamming with 737C. [Btw: I am not sure if the tech-stop costs are calculated correctly].

[LemonButt]

Sami has stated before that cargo demand is boosted for the sake of game playability.  My cargo only airline does $66 billion in revenue per quarter whereas the top pax airline does $24 billion.  I don't believe the demand is very random as it is based strictly on the GDP, commercial activity values, etc. of each airport.  This might fall in the bucket of CBD being too complex for people to fully understand how it's working behind the scenes where it isn't random, but perhaps so deliberate that it appears random due to being too "discrete".  This "boosted" amount can be factored in to the scalars or otherwise to ensure the number of players in the world and demand are in balance.

I do think underdeveloped countries do get a lot of cargo, but that is mostly on military/government aircraft providing aid versus commercial operations to my knowledge.

Heavy cargo doesn't mean big--a can of tomato soup (as I've outlined in other threads) fits the criteria of heavy cargo in the game as density is all that matters.  Cargo IRL is extremely complex, but the arbitrary restrictions of small cargo aircraft not being able to carry heavy cargo makes them inherently uneconomical when in reality is Cessnas, CRJ200F, and Pilatus are all built specifically to handle cargo pallets and are "tomato soup capable".

When it comes to cargo though, I do believe there could be a better "pooling" effect happening where cargo that doesn't ship on Monday rolls over to Tuesday, for example.

Additionally the reason cargo class splits have to be defined is because demand response to supply and the supply needs to be defined.  There might be a better system that says provide 100% heavy cargo and if it doesn't fill, attempt to fill the rest of the aircraft with standard cargo, and then move on to light cargo, but IRL you have a lot of contract cargo where it's not a matter of prioritizing cargo by how expensive/profitable it is, but by the contract terms that requires you take X amount of volumetric cargo or otherwise regardless of the contents.

When it comes to price sensitivity, it is price sensitive, but not as price sensitive as pax and I believe the cargo pricing is working as well as it needs to at the moment.  If the catchment areas are maxed out as I posted, that means that all that cargo supply is going to competing against a lot more cargo supply with overlapping catchment areas.  It won't change many airports, but it will be a game changer for many others that have been "CBD islands" with no major nearby airports overlapping (i.e. Detroit, Minneapolis, Denver, Phoenix, etc).

[DanDan]

Heavy cargo doesn't mean big--a can of tomato soup (as I've outlined in other threads) fits the criteria of heavy cargo in the game as density is all that matters.

oh... well, then the categories of light, heavy and standard make even less sense, the pictures to these categories even less and the whole cargo can be summarized as -pardon my french- waste.

[MuzhikRB]

IRL
commercial cargo could not count on pax planes. because its usually carries only belly pax cargo, and you cannot predict how many of pax cargo will be at each of route.
so usually its only small amount of parcels that can be added to pax planes.