Welcome to AS!
For your first question - that evaluation is imperfect, because unless you’re operating the idyllic single-cabin, price, staff cost, fuel cost, etc that they present, that number is not to be taken with any seriousness. You can use it to do some comparative advantage work (comparing aircraft) or to see whether a route just pushes a plane too much, but not for that level of analysis to have any degree of certainty.
For your second question, demand is relative, so not all two airport pairs are the same. However, I’d reckon a 9-to-9 should fill any sort of pair. Don’t be afraid to go lower, especially if you don’t want to be obliterated by any sort of competition. 7, 6, 5 bars will be good options too. 4, 3 if done right. The bars of demand should not be your only or paramount source for route evaluation. Think about real life patterns and connections.
I can lead the way to the community tutorials - there’s the official one
This one is here on the forums and is quite good, if old
AS for beginners - an attempted blog - English Boards / Community Support - AirlineSim Community
and there’s this one which is quite good as well, though heavily leans on this external tool called AS Routemap (which is quite useful, to be fair, but not absolutely necessary to start)
What I suggest to all new players is:
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Do not start in a crowded or busy continent or country. US, EU, China… - Why? There are usually huge players, and there’s a decent chance that you’ll struggle to grow at any decent pace. Instead, look to a medium sized country, perhaps one you like or one you could not care less for, to get the concepts of the game. The curve is steep and the text tutorials cannot teach you everything - some things you have to get through practice.
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Avoid the old ORS, for many reasons which will likely not make much sense, but essentially because it is harder to compete against legacy airlines
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And don’t be afraid to restart, mess up - that’s the point of the beginning, make mistakes. And have fun
