Greece to Saudi

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21

Thanks for the explanation.

So what you are saying is that by piling hundreds of flights onto the JED -> KWI route which is low demand in real life he has effectively sucked all the traffic from JED -> DXB because they are in the same region. That's not a "gripe" that's a major flaw.

Everything I had read up to now says do your research, fly real routes where there is real demand, establish connections, get a high ORS rating. Seems none of that matters, it's purely about the number of aircraft you have flying.

Shame really, I quite liked this game but the strategy aspect of it just took a big hit in my mind.

22

You’re partially miss-interpreting this.

There is demand where there are real life flights, though currently direct flights have not the advantage (yet) that they should have. Connections are really the key in this game.

And while frequency is important, it’s not the most important factor. You can only fly so often if there is really heavy demand, or if you have the required connections.

23

Thanks for the explanation.

So what you are saying is that by piling hundreds of flights onto the JED -> KWI route which is low demand in real life he has effectively sucked all the traffic from JED -> DXB because they are in the same region…

No. The number of flights JED-KWI shouldn’t matter to your DXB flight. The number of flights JED-KWI in combination to the number of (connecting) flights KWI-DXB ist what matters to you, because they effectively compete with your flight when it comes to demand allocation for JED-DXB. Add to that via’s in DOH, BAH etc. The more of such connections, the less you get.

24

You're partially miss-interpreting this.

There is demand where there are real life flights, though currently direct flights have not the advantage (yet) that they should have. Connections are really the key in this game.

And while frequency is important, it’s not the most important factor. You can only fly so often if there is really heavy demand, or if you have the required connections.

Agreed. I think OP can understand by thinking that the customers in AS now does not love direct flights that much, they also consider one-stop or even two stop flights if the price, rating, time is good. I think AS does not give too much advantage to direct flight (a bit off from realistic world), and hopefully the new distribution system can somehow acknowledge this issue.  

25

@TriffidPie - your interpretation of situation in JED/KWI/DXB is flawed.

  Destination Absolute Market share Change

1 Dubai 86,013 (-6,748) 12.90% +0.01 (+0.09%)

 

2 Jeddah 63,021 (-4,585) 9.45% +0.06 (+0.62%)

Looking on KWI airport statistics, this could indicate that many Jeddah passengers go to Dubai.

But thee is also a possibility eh simply has so strong connections that he gets many passengers originating west of Kuwait loaded into both his flights to Dubai and Jeddah. After all, Wawe Arabia has 5700+ departures in Kuwai, and count on top of that 600+ departures of Sphynx Kuwait, and with mutual interline they act as one airline out of KWI.

So is it 1) or is it 2) ?

Easy answer, by looking on other servers.

For example, Idlewild.

KWI airport statistics show, that

  Destination Absolute Market share Change

1 Dubai 63,527 (-3,469) 11.00% +0.30 (+2.80%)

 

2 Doha 41,283 (-2,076) 7.15% +0.22 (+3.23%)

 

3 Riyadh 34,385 (-1,915) 5.95% +0.16 (+2.70%)

 

4 Jeddah 29,012 (-1,765) 5.02% +0.11 (+2.20%)

We can see here that KWI-JED are 29,000 seats (and reverse JED KWI 29,350 seats) and KWI-DXB are 63,500 seats per week (and reverse DXB-JED 63,800). This means that even if all JED-KWI pax went to DXB (or all KWI-JED pax were arriving from DXB), they would still comprise less than 50% of traffic on KWI-DXB / DXB-KWI route.

So what would other 50% of that traffic be? Connections from West and North of Kuwait.

This leads to an important conclusion, and that is that the factor affecting your case are connections (and their lack thereof) from West and North of JED into DXB, or those connections are simply not competitive with megahub in KWI. In the Idlewild example above, the "best case" scenario for KWI airline would be to have 50% of passengers from KWI-JED route as going to or from DXB. The other 50 would be connections going someplace else than KWI. And in reverse, the KWI-DXB pax would be comprised only 25% as the "best case" scenario (best case for KWI airline) as originating from JED (or going to JED).

Conclusion: your problem is lack of connections from North and West of JED that would fill your flights to DXB, and the second problem, is the strong hub in KWI that gets pax who want to go from West of KWI (Africa and Europe) and North of KWI (Turkey, Middle East, Russia) t DXB. But your "problems" do not end there, there is also a huge hub in DOH (which I would say is competing with you more than the hub in KWI for connections to DXB, there are 88,000 seats from DOH to DXB and 20,000 to JED), and also a new airline that just started up in RUH will be your competitor or Saudi connections to DXB.

Airlinesim provides a lot of analytical tool itself, and when you couple them with AS Route Map (which is an excellent analytical tool to analyze passenger flows and connections), you can get pretty clear picture of what is going on.

Your best course of action: sign interlines with airlines in DOH, KWI, and other Arabic countries, such as Lebanon, Egypt, UAE, Iraq, Jordan etc. as well as in Europe. Any destination you fly to, should have a major interline partner (though AK would say to you you can do very well without interlines, but that can only experienced player such as AK do, you as a newbie would have no chance to survive without interlines).

Your problem is not that AS would be flawed. Your problem is you have so much strong competition in nearby hubs which suck all connecting passengers from West and North who could otherwise be traveling on your airline. Your only course of action right now is to sign interlines with those mega airlines, and become their feeder (for now, and if they wholeheartedly permit it), and as you generate cash cushion, you start adding flights especially to other Middle Eastern countries (with interlines there), and then flights to Europe (with interlines there), etc.

26

...

Your best course of action: sign interlines with airlines in DOH, KWI, and other Arabic countries, such as Lebanon, Egypt, UAE, Iraq, Jordan etc. as well as in Europe. Any destination you fly to, should have a major interline partner (though AK would say to you you can do very well without interlines, but that can only experienced player such as AK do, you as a newbie would have no chance to survive without interlines).

 

…

Not in this situation.

JED isn’t what I’d call a preferable hub. Possibly for central/west-Africa <> Gulf states. But 75min minimum transfer isn’t exactly great.

Looking at the TO’s airline, his hub is at the edge of his route map. Obviousely he can hardly survive without interlining partners.

27

That's a brilliant analysis. Thanks very much for taking the time.

I've managed to survive a month so far so will press on and see where it goes.

28

Not in this situation.

JED isn’t what I’d call a preferable hub. Possibly for central/west-Africa <> Gulf states. But 75min minimum transfer isn’t exactly great.

Looking at the TO’s airline, his hub is at the edge of his route map. Obviousely he can hardly survive without interlining partners.

It's because I have concentrated on internal flights and JED is on the West coast.

The big guys next door fly to pretty much all Saudi airports already so will have no reason to interline anyway.

29

It’s fascinating how resistant you are to advice, although you keep asking for it.

30

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. What advice have I resisted?

31

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. What advice have I resisted?

About the interlines.

32

oh I see,,,, no didn't mean it that way, just not sure why the big neighbours would want to since they already have direct flights to all Saudi airports.

But I'll certainly be looking for some other interline arrangements.

Thanks for the help.

33

Ask them and find out - most of the players will support new airlines if you kindly ask in game.

34

Maybe you forgot something:

All passengers in AS are rich (up until today).

They don't care if they need to fly from Jeddah to Dubai through Kuwait or Planet Mars. 

So I think it's silly if you keep sweating small stuffs about "an information that AS reflect real life data so do research on that". 

Of course AS use real life data. But the factors affecting real life data and factors affecting AS are absolutely not comparable.

For example: the rich passenger part.

If passengers really care about their money, everyone in AS will fly LCC. 

35

Not true - they do try to fly direct which is also well reflected in ORS.

36

Not true - they do try to fly direct which is also well reflected in ORS.

Of course they do try to fly direct. But AS reality told another trivia, that rather than filling up direct routes, they agreed to distribute their flying experience to anything listed in the ORS. (I don't know when did these passengers have a meeting then decide that one will fly direct and others will do stopover in Kuwait or Doha or Bahrain or Riyadh, etc.)