I think the ORS allows passenger demand to accumulate if the next available connection is scheduled three days later. But how does this affect less frequent flights? For example, if a flight operating twice a week struggles to exceed 70% occupancy, could reducing the frequency to once a week lead to higher load factors due to accumulated demand?
The maximum booking period is 3 days as you say. So if the 2 flights are evenly spaced across a week, with at least 3 days between available bookings, you will not see any increased bookings from switching to one flight per week. As in either case there will only ever be 1 available flight to book and therefore assign available pax.
I would recommend either removing that route if it is unprofitable, assigning a lower capacity aircraft, improving the flight rating via reduced price and/or better seats/service profile or adding in further possible connections for the relevant route.
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Thank you for your answer. It’s not about a specific route I have, but I am trying to create a solid hub-and-spoke system where every single destination has at least one connection to any other, even the smallest ones. I am not experienced in optimizations like this, either in this game or in real life, so the best I have managed so far is ensuring each airport has daily connections to a few selected ones (IST, SAW, and AYT in my case). However, in most cases, you still can’t find >0 rated connections between destinations within any given 3 day period. I wonder if this is achievable in my case, with 8 planes and 40 stations.
No worries, happy to help. A great Hub and Spoke system is all about sticking meticulously to a wave structure, minimizing transfer times and selecting a hub which is central as possible to most destinations.
Most waves structures are either 6, 8 or 12 hours. This way you can maximise efficiency with your fleet. Which one to go with depends on your hub location and the distance to your destinations. One strategy I often follow is 6 hour waves for destinations under 1300km, allowing a flight to and back from destinations within that time frame. I can then add in long/medium haul waves every 12 hours (Under 4000km), which synergise well with the 6 hour waves.
In your case, 8 planes and 40 stations will never allow your passengers to connect to all destinations. A good rule of thumb is to have 1 plane per destination, at least with larger airports (6 demand +). Ensure that every wave has a flight to these destinations (4x per day) and slowly add in destinations with lower demand. Keep doing this until you cant fill extra flights.
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In my current game, most of my planes fly at least 6-7 routes weekly. My hub is COV, which has 6 demand so I didn’t even consider dedicating a plane to a single route, except for Istanbul and Antalya. Maybe I should try it like that