In principle, it should work the same way as before. Relative demand typically has a domestic share that get’s distributed to other destinations within the same region. But that’s effectively based on destination size, not real-world routes. Although I obviously can’t rule out there still being an issue…demand generally feels a bit off at the moment.
They are based on real-world cities and towns (anything above a population 100) that then can continuously “merged” from smallest to largest with their neighbors until only a “good” amount of cities is left and every airport has at least one location in its vicinity. The remaining locations are typically larger cities.
The demand bars are based on the total demand of all connected locations. Larger airports also have a larger capture radius. So for one, LAX just connects to locations further way, and secondly, it might just be pure chance in that the other airports might have other locations in their radius that fall out of the one of HHR (as the circles around the airports cover different areas).
At the moment it is indeed primarily slots…smaller airports will be at capacity earlier and therefore will likely make it difficult to operate a hub. But looking at the roadmap, there are a few things that will or might add more criteria:
- Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO)
- Redefinition of airport handling capacities
- More realistic and meaningful airport expansion (passenger terminals)
Just to name the most concrete examples. One could probably come up with more.