Does lowering prices even help?

Hello,

I am fairly new here but yes I have read/watched the tutorials so let's start off by saying that.

Airline is Hanseatic Airways on Otto.

My question is: does lowering your prices even help to 'snatch away' customers from other airlines? Because looking at this, it seems like the pax are a pretty elite bunch. I assume they must be getting champaigne and shrimp cocktails in coach for them to pay over DOUBLE my price:

BKjxZcG.png

Sure, I'll be the first to admit that my rating is not the best it could be. But is it seriously worth paying DOUBLE the price on a short-haul flight? How is that realistic? Or am I missing some other factors which could lead to my competitor being more succesful in this case?

OFb8wnT.png

So my question is, why is my competitor SO much more succesfull than me (with a bigger plane even) while his price is DOUBLE? I mean he has been there longer so yes I would expect SOME reluctancy of pax to take my newer airline. But not in such an extreme amount.

have you check your ORS rating? http://otto.airlinesim.aero/app/info/ors

anyway, i would assume you're on trial period and unable to check it.

so, as new entrant, you need to offer something better against established competitor, so not only price.

checklist from your screen shot:

1. seat config - try to compare what kind of seat the competition offer, vs your offer

2. flight attendant - did you assign enough FA to serve the pax,

    --> you probably install not worse type of seat, resulting in cattle class - high number of pax and not enough FA to serve them well

3. staff mood - try pay better salary to increase staff mood,

    --> the salary to be paid at weekend closing before mood change, so salary changes might take at least a week to have any effect

so yeah, lowering price doesn't really help unless you improve your overall product and service offering. 

have you check your ORS rating? http://otto.airlinesim.aero/app/info/ors

anyway, i would assume you're on trial period and unable to check it.

so, as new entrant, you need to offer something better against established competitor, so not only price.

checklist from your screen shot:

1. seat config - try to compare what kind of seat the competition offer, vs your offer

2. flight attendant - did you assign enough FA to serve the pax,

    --> you probably install not worse type of seat, resulting in cattle class - high number of pax and not enough FA to serve them well

3. staff mood - try pay better salary to increase staff mood,

    --> the salary to be paid at weekend closing before mood change, so salary changes might take at least a week to have any effect

so yeah, lowering price doesn't really help unless you improve your overall product and service offering. 

Yes I have recently purchased credits and can check ors. However putting in Helsinki - LHR doesn't even give me any of my flights? That's odd.

You were right about the flight attendants and I decided to assign 1 extra for Economy class.

Still my point stands; I can understand people maybe paying 30 bucks more for the more comfortable flight, but DOUBLE? How is that realistic? I think a very large portion of the population would take the cheaper flight any day. In my opinion this is a big letdown and a flaw in the simulation. But again, I may be missing something else here that I didn't think of and then I will take my words back, of course.

Okay a comparable flight (hel ham) gives me ratings between 64 - 70 on ORS, while the competitors are lower. Perhaps my rating is a bit lower on the longer flight to LHR but still I think I am missing something here?

Does your flight connect to other flights? Do you work in waves?

Does your flight connect to other flights? Do you work in waves?

I do have some interlining yes but perhaps thats the problem, that I have less connectivity than the competitor.

I guess I'll just add more interlining agreements.

Though I do work somewhat in waves I prefer to maximally utilize my aircraft. Perhaps that just doesn't work as well. There are some connectins per flight but not as much as the rest. The tutorial teaches a 100% wave system, but then half the time your planes are on the ground. My system is more irregular I guess. But HEL - LHR should be such a high-demand route that one would think point-to-point traffic would fill up an Embraer 195 right?

I do have some interlining yes but perhaps thats the problem, that I have less connectivity than the competitor.

I guess I'll just add more interlining agreements.

Though I do work somewhat in waves I prefer to maximally utilize my aircraft. Perhaps that just doesn't work as well. There are some connectins per flight but not as much as the rest. The tutorial teaches a 100% wave system, but then half the time your planes are on the ground. My system is more irregular I guess. But HEL - LHR should be such a high-demand route that one would think point-to-point traffic would fill up an Embraer 195 right?

I have a lot of flights, which consists more or less, only of connecting passengers. So eventhough some routes, may seem profitable, there might be no direct demand. So until your hub is big (2000+), working in waves, will help you a lot. Then after that, go utilize the aircraft better :-)

It is still relatively short time since a server start and flights get full even at very low ratings. Players frequently charge double at server start to earn most money possible, as there is huge demand but very limited supply. Even after several weeks form server start, there may be routes that ave not been tapped and have unmet demand, which can be exploited economically with huge prices. Later on, other factors come into play, as better ratings get you more pax, and for the better ratings, factors like seats, service, image and price come into play. And yes, price is important in a value for money relationship.

And yes, price is important in a value for money relationship.

I will say that price is the most important as all the other can somewhat be compensated by pricing.

Well I'll see if I can make some profit. Some of my routes have no competition at all and they are at like 100 percent so I am very happy about that and raised the prices a bit. Some other ones were so low I immediately cut them. And I also have a route with no competition but the demand is apparently just too low to fill the plane (HAM - Kaliningrad in russia). I might cut that route.

I guess in about a week I will weed out the non profitable routes and focus on the profitable ones.

I was very new wen I started, I actually have 2 competing airlines who are also based in my hub (I think they absolutely hate me, haha, they didnt even want to interline) because I didnt check beforehand.

In my first enterprise, I had no idea of what I was doing, and managed to survive by finding point-to-point routes which were too small for the big competitors to bother with. Every day I would stop some routes and try some new ones. Challenging, and a great learning experience.

In my second enterprise, a larger competitor at the same hub offered an interlining agreement early on. I hoped I have helped him at least a part of how much he has helped me. The game is more fun when you see more cooperators than competitors.

Now in my third enterprise, I thought I would try to cooperate with the guy whose hub I had invaded (not maliciously; I'm just interested in that part of the world). He rejected my interlining request quickly. C'est la vie!

I will say that price is the most important as all the other can somewhat be compensated by pricing.

Some food for thought…

In a simple and often linear numerical world like AS, if I can compensate everything else with pricing, why shouldn’t I be able to compensate pricing with everything else, or at least with a subset of this everything else?

:wink:

Some food for thought...

In a simple and often linear numerical world like AS, if I can compensate everything else with pricing, why shouldn’t I be able to compensate pricing with everything else, or at least with a subset of this everything else?

:wink:

Reading your message, I would answer that if you can compensate everything with only pricing, but need at least two things to compensate pricing, then pricing is the most important criterion :)

Some food for thought...

In a simple and often linear numerical world like AS, if I can compensate everything else with pricing, why shouldn’t I be able to compensate pricing with everything else, or at least with a subset of this everything else?

:wink:

Which you basically can ;).

Now in my third enterprise, I thought I would try to cooperate with the guy whose hub I had invaded (not maliciously; I'm just interested in that part of the world). He rejected my interlining request quickly. C'est la vie!

I guess you’re quite lucky he just rejected it. Others will proceed to contact all your other IL partners and request them to cancel theirs with you, or he will cancel it with them. Not everybody here believes in friendly competition.