I had a thought of something missing from the game that would make a lot of sense, particularly for low-cost carriers (LCCs); Have a way of having buy-on-board (BoB) sales.
The reason behind this is that currently, the system only allows for complimentary meals/services, which only cost airlines money in return for improved ratings. However, a BoB system would allow airlines to make profits on service, perhaps with much smaller increases in service quality. This could also extend to having inflight shops selling various other items.
Alongside perhaps having a BoB chouce for drinks/meals/headphones etc. in the service section, there could be an extra tab which details items available from an inflight store, and could include things commonly found in airline catologues such as perfumes, toys, model aircraft, watches, scratchcards and branded goods (e.g. stationary, clothing etc.).
Of course, this would have to come with caveat to make the system fair, so of course items for sale would have to cost an airline first, with the airline setting the sale price for each item, thus affecting the profits they make from them. There could also be more demand for some items than others, making airlines have to choose wisely which items should be sold.
I can understand if this would be too difficult to implement, or would take too much time to do so, but I hope it is considered as it would greatly improve realism and really expand the options for airlines, especially if a LCC model is adopted.
Thanks for reading,
Jiggyb2