I understand that the current demand is derived from real life airline schedules and then multiplied by a factor of X (somewhere I recal X being three).
I understand that this is perhaps the "easiest" way to get the demand for the game, but one drawback on that is that it then means that most PAX in AS want to travel between big airports. For example this method of deriving demand has 0 for LHR-SYD as in real life there are no nonstop flights between the two. More importantly, it has 0 or near 0 demand for the likes of HAM/DUS/BRU/PRG to LAX/SFO/DEN/SEA, and there are countless other examples of such.
Real life data is available, but I understand that it is rather costly so I came up with this idea. In the future, put X to a value of 2/3X, and then make up the remaining 1/3 using your "best guess".
That way we would really have people travelling from GOT to JFK (as some do in real life although no direct flights exist), That would mean that the hub and spoke model would be vastly different from todays game worlds.
Maybe you haven't understood the system so far. The demand of your examples is not 0 in AirlineSim too. We do use real life airline flights as a base, but use them to develop a demand between regions and the airports of the region.
You have not understod the game at all. The demant is calculated by the numbre of different connections you offer. You could make a perfect route PRG-LAX just that you need much feed in both places. Starting whit as Dreamlier flying Porto-Chengdu will have a 0% demand but if you have lots of feed to Porto by flying to many European destinations and maybe having a large partner in Chengdu you will possibly even have 100% booked whit a good service.
Here is a airline http://stapleton.airlinesim.aero/app/info/enterprises/46425?4, it is one of the most impresive airlines I have seen and it is based just in 4 bar airports. Even of the little demand from Bodo it has many long haul flights and is very big. Here you can see Bodo airport in real life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bod%C3%B8_Airport . Most of his passagers do not have Bodo as origin or final destination, they just have is as connection airport.
I could give you Emirates Airlines as a real life example. Look how many conecting passagers they have and very few of the passagers actually want to Dubai. I my self and flying whit Emirates when I want to Africa or Asia.
Try the game and look carefully before sugesting things that alredy exist again.
You have not understod the game at all. The demant is calculated by the numbre of different connections you offer. You could make a perfect route PRG-LAX just that you need much feed in both places. Starting whit as Dreamlier flying Porto-Chengdu will have a 0% demand but if you have lots of feed to Porto by flying to many European destinations and maybe having a large partner in Chengdu you will possibly even have 100% booked whit a good service.
Christian
No I do understand that principal, in fact if you look at my airlines that's how I've made them to work.
The thing that I was talking about was that there is a small number of people in real life that do want to travel from say PRG to LAX, they just connect somewhere (most likely FRA or LHR) to get there. So you have a A320/B737 flying from PRG to LHR and FRA to take care of those people who want to go to LAX. That is a different scenario of what you are saying where people would travel for example IST-PRG-LAX (do the connection is PRG). As you said, if you have enough feed, you can fill a A380 between PRG and LAX. But then you are satisfying the demand between LAX and say IST.
What I was concerned about was that is AS also aware of those "hidden" people who want to go from PRG to LAX. And as sk clarified, it is.
Look at Czech Airlines it is very small and needs a giant investment to become large. What you are talking about can be changed. For example very many of the passagers of BA are not going to Britain they are connecting, but almost all passagers flying whit SAS are passagers which want to Scandinavia or are coming from Scandinavia. Really is there a difference if I am connecting in Copenhagen or in London. Passager that are not leaving the airport basicly do not care.
Back to what I said earlier, if The Czech Republic would do a major investment in their airline and airport it can become as large as BA and could be one of the world leading airlines.
As a example. What is the difference connecting in Dubai or Kuwait? You are not leaving the airport at all, and there are the same aircraft you will be flying.
As you can see I connect a lot of small and medium sized airports in the US, Canada and Europe. The fact that by using small aircraft and a transfer rate of over 75% I can still run a fair profit suggests that there is in fact demand between small cities and even other continents. The problem is just that demand might be to low to just connect two cities but you need a kind of a web as each additional destination will offer additional supply and demand to your network.
My impression is , that Airlinesim takes the sum of all flights between two countries or regions and evenly distributes them among its airports according to airport size.
So lets you have two countries - e.g. Germany and South Africa. In real life there are connections betwen Johannesburg-Munich, Johannesburg-Frankfurt and Cape Town - Frankfurt - other important airports include Durban, Port Elizabeth and Berlin, Cologne, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf and Hamburg - but these are not connectet.
The total Demand on three mentioned routes is X lets say 1000 per day (total fictional number). Now what happens in Airlinesim is that it takes 1000 Passengers and artifically distributes them among all the aiports in Germany and South Africa, according to the size. Therfor Frankfurt and Johannesburg might get the most passengers, and then the rest follows accoring to the airport size. This leads to an interesting development: On the three mentioned real exisiting routes the demand is actually lower then in real life because the demand is "transferred" to other non exisiting connections. So now even connections betwenn small airports such as Sun City and Rostock Laage might have a demand, though only a very small one of 1 passenger. To make a profit out of these tiny demands you'll have to combine them and this then creates the need for a hub and spoke system...