What?
Introduce the concept of a “brand”: When an airline is founded, it needs a name, logo(s), brand colors, an aircraft livery etc… In AirlineSim, the name is obviously picked by the player. With this new feature, they could also pick their color(s). But players could opt to pay an agency right at the start to come up with the other things based on a set of attributes they want to convey. Basically, they define their “target image” (full-service vs. no-frills, cheap vs. expensive, modern vs. traditional, leisure vs. business, you get the idea…) and depending on how much a player decides to spend, the “better” the initial corporate identity will be.
Once in place, the target image will be contrasted with the actual image which forms over time as it does today. The closer the actual image is to the target, the better. If it deviates, this means customer expectations aren’t met, which will have negative effects on future bookings.
Since one can’t max out all attributes - you can’t communicate to be full-service and no-frills at the same time - it means you need to pick and stick to a profile or opt to remain “generic”.
Over time, brands will age and a refresh might be in order. This provides an opportunity to adjust brand values. While one could completely replace the brand and its values, “image inertia” will make this a dangerous endeavour. Again, the amount one decides to spend on the refresh might increase the chances of success.
Last but not least, we could tie in the actual names and logos users provide for their airlines, meaning if you want to change those, this basically implies a brand adjustment with all the respective up- and downsides.
Why?
AirlineSim currently has a crude image mechanism that is essentially the all-time average of ratings computed whenever flights take off. It is a way of capturing “softer” product attributes that passengers typically wouldn’t see as a deciding factor during booking, but which leave an impression nonetheless and have an influence on future booking behavior. The problem is that the current system is extremely crude and offers no way of influencing it, especially in the long run. A revised model could play nicely with the overall theme of the DS, namely to diversify business models and passenger types.
When?
TBD
