CARGO - Multiple stops, roundabouts and legs

English Boards Suggestions and Ideas
1

Hello all, this is my first comment and thread on the forum, I hope I'm not being too intrusive. I don't usually pay to play online but this is actually THE-BEST airline management game so I decided to buy several credits to run for a couple of months, at first.

Working for one of the biggest cargo airlines in the world, I've come to realize that it's possible to recreate that company's schedule, with just one and very very big BUT: cargo won't fly more than 3 legs (in AirlineSim).

That's is really innacurate and mostly a drawback for a cargo company, since it leads you to put a couple of massive hubs around the world (no more than four), and then fly all direct flies to and fro those hubs to supply the smaller airports. 

I'll give you an example of what the company I work for does to ship a cargo from EZE to AMS:

  1. A Boeing 767 coming from VCP stops at EZE, flies to SCL, gets more cargo, flies to GRU and then back to VCP
  2. A MD-11 goes to and fro every day from VCP to MEM (most of you now know what company I work for haha)
  3. A 777 flies every day from MEM to CDG/FRA, or even another smaller airplane goes from MEM to IND, depending on how much cargo is on that day, to prevent backlogging.
  4. Once the cargo is in Europe (either MEM-IND-CDG/FRA or MEM-CDG/FRA directly), it flies to AMS

Count how many legs this cargo runs. It takes the cargo 2 and a half days get to AMS, and of course it saves a lot in costs. That kind of flights are really competitive because they lose rating for taking 2 and a half days instead of 1, but they regain that rating by being extremely cheap (you can lower costs for all cargo units in your whole airline, since you will be actually shipping from EZE to AMS using all your connections, and not creating a special connection only for this, like EZE-GRU-MEM-AMS)

With this schedule, worst case scenario is that your cargo is going through 7 legs (EZE-SCL-GRU-VCP-MEM-IND-CDG/FRA-AMS), possibly six (EZE-SCL-GRU-VCP-MEM-CDG/FRA-AMS), but there won't be the need to lease/buy another airplane to fly directly EZE-AMS or EZE-GRU to make a connection GRU-MEM-AMS.

I'm really really sorry for this long explanation, and multiple stops for cargo were suggested in this thread (http://community.airlinesim.aero/topic/4483-multiples-stops-for-cargo-flights/), but what I'm actually trying to suggest is not only that a cargo can make a "roundabout" (like VCP-EZE-SCL-GRU-VCP) and still ship the cargo outside that roundabout, but also I'm suggesting that the amount of legs that a cargo can run should be extended to unlimited, yes, unlimited, flight rating will do the rest, I think.

I wish the programmers see this and check if it's doable, or at least open a new server to test. I'll be more than willing to provide the knowledge my work is giving me to help in any way.

Cheers!

2

Any more than 3 legs adds huge complexity to connections and expands the number of connections geometrically. You know what geometric progression is, right?

3

Each leg multiplicates the amount of possible travel connections for the demand system. So there is a natural limit otherwise the server won't be able to process this. Right now we already have millions of connection at the same time in memory to allocate the passenger and freight.

You are looking at this topic with the view of a mail/parcel transportation (yes, we know the company you are working for). In AirlineSim we do have the focus more or less on "real" cargo. And there your example would sound like this ... EZE-FRA it will go on board a normal (widebody) passenger plane and for the small hop to AMS there is a small cargo aircraft flying  .... or EZE-MIA-LHR-AMS or or or ;)

AirlineSim is trying to simulate the reality as good as possible, but it doesn't mean that we are copying the reality ;)

4

And you can work good with this three leg-system. Look at my cargo airline ;)

But I want to try to establish a trip around the world, like MEM-LAX-TPE-DXB-LUX-MEM. I know, the cargo cannot fly MEM-DXB, but there should be enough cargo for MEM-TPE. I can write, if this works (if you want).

5

@sk,that’s the answer I needed. I wanted to know if it was technically possible. if it’s not, just disregard the suggestion ar take it in a more appropriate level, like “one/two more jumps for cargo”. I’m managing myself pretty well for now, and since I’ve been playing for like just 10 days, I wanted to know a little more about the possibilities for expansion!