I Hate that Airport pages show what I recently did!

Okay so here is the basic story. You know how when you click on the page of an airport, for any airline which are based there, it shows where they recently opened stations. Now I hate this because there is another airline there who is much bigger than me. Now, before I open a new route, since I am a new airline, I do a lot of research into what routes haven’t been done, how much demand there is, I research airports, I make a list, I compare them, evaluate which aircraft is best fit. It’s fun, but it is also some work. However, this bigger airline, just looks at what I did and copies me. Instead of doing research of his own. And it is reaaaallly obvious. Just listen to this. He just opened a station at Bodrum, Heraklion, Catania, Rhodos, Dortmund, and Eindhoven. All of these are also most of my new routes. And he has been doing this for weeks now!!! The fact that I only have 31 places I fly to makes it even worse. Out of my newer routes, he copied about 15-20. It makes me so sad that I put research into the game, only to have someone who did no research just use my research. Now what I am saying is I want to get rid of the NEWS column at airports. This is because if he is going to steal my ideas, at least make him check out my page and make him read through my schedule. Make him do some actual work. And by the way, since he is the bigger fish, he can just force me out of the routes. I hate this. Please get rid of the new column. Thank you.

Just to point out that the same information is easily available on the home news screen, not even airport page. Equally anyone can see anyone elses schedule, so it is all accessible information with relatively little effort.

Why not change your tactic? Can I ask why you need to open a station to research it? If you are worried about it (which you clearly are) why not do all the research before opening the station, or as there is no cost to a station, open 100s of them…

Oh and maybe not list your destinations on your airline info page if you are worried about people ‘stealing’ that information…

Well, competition is watching. But it should also show you that you’re obviously a threat to the bigger airline (don’t know which server or place it is…), so take it as a compliment.

And as a challenge! No one can force you out if you have a good strategy and a good plan.

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What he does is he looks at the newest stations I opened. The reason I listed them was for aesthetic appeal. You are right, however, I don’t think he looks at the list because than he would have to go through all of his destinations to cross examine if he already has those. He is probably too lazy for that. Telling you, he just looks at the new ones. I research to find the airports with the most demand in countries, and also the ones with less traffic and no traffic between my hub and to there. I also check aircraft evaluations. Although opening 100 new stations is actually a really good idea. Thank you! I will do that because than I will make him do work and look through all of them! Thank you so much! Have a great day!

I guess you are right. Or maybe he is just lazy to find his own routes. (I am on OTTO)

He is not lazy. He is not copying you. He is only going AFTER you (your airline).

Right onto the point!

I guess you are right. I am increasing my service quality to hopefully win passengers over on routes.

Just like in the real world…

Actually, I would much rather argue that airlines try to find routes with high demand, which do not have another airline already operating there. Sure, if it is a route with extremely high demand, multiple airlines can easily fill the gap. But with the routes I fly on Budapest-Eindhoven for example, the demand is good, but not even nearly as good (especially in real life) as to be able to support multiple carriers.

Than you need a better setup to fill your planes and let your competitor fly empty. That’s it. Don’t try to argue with the given facts that everybody can see what you are doing, just start to become a great airline manager!

Come on, you should know better.
If you start up with 10m cash, a few aircraft and another (“stronger”) player acting as described above, you can only ever run but never hide. The game doesn’t offer enough ways of differentiation as you’d have in a real business case.

I perfectly understand the TOs frustration.

I also understand him but I don’t agree that there is no way to compete against another player. There are ways. And that’s what TO should try.

I can understand the frustration, but I think airport news pages are extremely important for detecting abnormal, or even cheating activities. As cheating players often found and liquidate enterprises in a short period of time, it is hard to access their airline page before it doesn’t exist anymore. With airport news column and the main news column, there are traces that might help with an investigation and expose a cheater.

As for your frustration, I can only reiterate what the other replies said: a good airline manager doesn’t fear competition.

Even if the airport page didn’t show this, there are many ways for a competitor to keep track of what you are doing, even if you opened lots of other stations to “throw him/her off the scent”. For example by monitoring your actual flight schedule, which would always be public.

You made the first mistake when you decided to open a new airline in a country where another (bigger) airline has access to traffic rights.

Yes and no. NEW airlines try to find routes where there is sufficient demand and no competition. Established airlines with a huge bank account fear competition, so some bigger players will go out of their way to eliminate possible competition. There is plenty of examples in real life where routes are operated by two or more airlines in a fashion that no airline partaking in this practice will make any profit. Prime example for this was e.g. CGN-FDH (InterSky vs Germanwings), TXL-MUC (easyJet vs Lufthansa) or the whole VIE low cost carrier war that developed over the last years.

you have knack of noticing stuff and your research looks nice i think you’re way better than him :wink: