Inventory - route management
standard price
AS has defined a "standard price" for every route based on the trip length. You can assign a price that is between 50% and 200% of that standard price. The standard price model varies between gameworlds due to balancing reasons.
There is a minimum price you must not under-cut. It is the price you need to get to cover all direct costs of a flight when the flight is fully booked. No need to do the math, just click flight details once a flight has been entered into the system. It's the last row, I believe.
Since the minimum price would only cover the direct costs, you will - in almost all cases - ask a higher price anyhow, as you have to cover indirect costs and you probably also want to make some profit.
setting prices
When starting a new route where there already is competition, you can use your competitors' prices for orientation. Keep in mind, that they might have strong feeder networks and thus many of their pax might be transfer pax. So they might be able to ask higher prices and still book full, while you can't. Also, smaller a/c are obviously either to fill than big a/c. so if a competitor operates 20 daily CRJ100 flights with 30 seats each, that draws a very different picture than 20 daily B73X flights.
If there is no competition, start with with a price between standard price and standard plus 20%. Better make sure your first flights are full and then adapt prices, rather than suffering the cost of half-full flights.
setting onboard service
You can also assign an onboard-service here. Only those available for the trip length are being displayed on this page. it is possible to assign invalid service profiles when assigning them during the scheduling process. In that case, no onboard service will be conducted, leaving you with a lower ORS rating.
Keep in mind to either use the "apply settings (for return flight also) " buttom or set prices and service for the return flights manually.
Any changes to the route settings will only affect flights that will be entered into the system from that point on forward. So, if you increase prices for a route you already serve daily, the first flight with the new prices/service levels/etc. will affect all flights departing in 72+ hours, as they have not yet been booked into the system. The same applies to changes in seating configuration of a/c. the flights already booked into the system remain unchanged.
if you haven't activated your schedule(s), you can do so now. Congratulations! You are now starting actual operations as an airline.
wash, rinse, repeat
From now on, you should check the load factors and profit margins regularly and adapt prices and/or service levels to maximize profits. Also, if you see that a route is not working at all, consider re-scheduling that a/c to operate routes that make you money. You can still come back to the non-working route later on, when there are more transfer opportunities available.
Btw, just because the profit margin isn't very high or even negative, this does not mean, you should automatically discontinue that route. While at the beginning at a good location, you should be able to make good money off all your flights. Later on, a flight with 90% transfer pax, that creates a small loss, might still be profitable, if those 90% transfer pax help you fill one or more other flights, that might compensate for the loss incured by this particular flight.