Hi all! I am brand new here but have played a “competitors Sim” for many years. My main issue is that I have trouble finding out what is the possible number of passengers available on a specific destination.
Right now, I can see I have Demand =6 on my Base airport and 3 on my planned route destination.
I have 74 seats in my ATR-72 but can’t find any info on how many passengers that may actually fly if I start this route. Maybe I have missed something in the Manual but would be grateful for help.
Hey first of all. Maybe it’s best if you give more information on the route then we can help you better. The passenger demand is based on real world data and there are no numbers on how much demand there is aper from the Bars. But if a airline flys that route in real life then it will probably work out. One thing to keep in mind is that even tough the bars indicate a high demand it isn’t always the case on specific routes. That’s why you just need to try and see what works or compare real world schedules. Hope it helps
Hi and thanks for reply! 
Well, the route is from Gothenburg to Visby in Sweden , GOT-VBY which I last flew irl with an ATR-72 in 2016, so I know it is ‘for real’ 
I have leased a ATR-72-600 with Y74 seating and scheduled it for 6 trips/day, all days/wk. No other airline is flying that route. The first flight is planned for tomorrow, 5 oct but so far only 2 seats have been booked! 
I have no idea how this will work out and the whole idea of “need to try and see what works” does not feel very professional to me. I find it very strange to start a business without knowing what the market share possibly can be?? I guess I have to wait another 24 hrs real time before I will get the answer… 
Knowing the route i can tell you that it wont work without help. There is not really enough demand for people who want to fly only this route most people want to connect onwards. Either you schedule connections with more planes or you get yourself interlinings with other airlines who provide connections.
Demand further than the bars, is a closely held secret of the game, and one of the few things that one cannot ‘cheat’ (and trust me, over the years everything has been subject to attempts to exploit it in this game). Figuring out demands is not easy, especially because while they are roughly based on the real world, many of the phenomena brought by the low-cost movement in incentivizing routes is not there. This should be fixed sooner rather than later with the ASTD, but for now we have the good old game.
It also depends on the world you play in - if it has an old ORS or a new ORS, for example. This will directly influence the seats and service you’ll need to remain competitive. Especially because I doubr you are the only airline in Visby and airlines in Arlanda/Bromma/Skavsta could very well be more competitive on the layover than you on the nonstop. As you can guess, pricing and journey time is important here also.
Still, current schedules on FlightsFrom show it’s just a twice weekly flight on a Braathens AT7. While we know this is a post covid scenario and off season there’s a significant gap between that and six daily flights.
What I always recommend is that you fly at the beginning to destinations once a day - then, if it fills, you can expand the schedules. But spread your risk for the beginning…
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Ok, but how could I get that information before I start scheduling?? 
Ok, thank’s for your reply. I guess I am slowly understanding how this sim is working. Completely different from my past experience, beeing in “real-time” and not “game-time” makes it quite challenging in the beginning at least.
I think investigating demand is one of the most cruicial aspects of starting a new airline but if it is like you say, more like “trial and error” I don’t think this is a game sim for me. I want facts before I start risking my money.
When I worked in Singapore in the 1980’s we did a market survey with all the Swedish companies there and got a very positive response. All of them were longing for a small “taxi-flight-company” so we were planning to start with a long range Lear Jet. Of course we would never know what our “Load factor” would be anyway but at least we had a hint of the demand 
I know, starting an airline is one of the most difficult and risky things you can do in the world and obviously even in the virtual one.
I have made a reset now and started all over. Won a bid for a CRJ-700 NG on lease and have scheduled it GOT-BLQ (Gothenburg-Bologna) one round trip a day. I could not see any other flights between GOT-BLQ so I hope I will get my first plane filled. Still waiting for transfer flight from Toronto though 
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As mentioned,I did a “reset” and went for a CRJ700 NG, scheduled GOT-BLQ (Bologna) i roundtrip/day/7days/wk. Bookings Y20%/C25% so far, but one more day until departure. We’ll see what happens
Only one flight return? That is efficient use of the CR7? Surely you can squeeze more in…
And even then - if you only fly one trip a day on a plane, that is only gonna be 14 flights a week that have to cover that entire lease payment. Even when a flight is full, on small planes this can be an issue.
No, I am just watching bookings and have added another route later , GOT-FCO (Rome). It looks promising so far, at least Y38/C50% for BLQ and Y25/C50% for FCO bookings so far. I am afraid to set up more routes before I know what the outcome will be… Will the bookings increase with time as my routes are more established? You see, I have no idea of how this Sim works…
Trying some routes for a couple of days to test demand wouldn’t cost you endless amounts of money. 
And as jetcruise already said the demand is more or less (sometimes less than less ^^) oriented to reality, so this can help you.
Connections are booked once per day. Passengers originating at X airport book at a certain time for their entire itinerary, including second-third legs. In the world I play in mainly, Limatambo, GOT books at 18:08 LT (see below). This time will change in every world and every airport.
What this means is that if I am a pax from Gothenburg flying nonstop to FCO, or from Gothenburg to FCO and onward to, say, Malta, I book at the Gothenburg time. But if I am a pax from Bergen wanting to go to FCO via your GOT-FCO leg, I book at Bergen time.
The pax wanting to take itinerary A book in the order of the Online Reservation System (ORS)'s hierarchy. This takes into account segments up to 3 legs, and is based on the desirability of the legs of the journey and as part of the wider itinerary. You can check the ORS’s rating for an itinerary per class by going to Database → ORS.
A couple of things to note.
- The ORS books in a proportional way. So it will not be 100% going to the first, then after all seats are taken, it will go to the second, etc. It goes a proportional way booking a certain % before moving on, though the numbers no one is truly sure about.
- There is a main difference here to note between the Old ORS and the new ORS. The main difference between these two server styles is the weighting of factors in this booking system, which as it is the “heart and soul” of the game produces differences in playstyle between the styles. To grossly oversimplify, the old ORS prioritizes luxury at any cost whereas the new ORS prioritizes more ‘value for money’. There’s a lot more details on this available floating in this forum.
For a specific route, things to note.
- A nonstop is always more desirable than a multi-stop (as you can imagine) - though a multistop, made appealing, can and sometimes does trump a nonstop in the ratings.
- Service matters but so does price. When you change either keep in mind you’ll also affect the ratings of not just the nonstop, but also for any connecting itineraries.
- You can check how many pax are connecting for a specific flight (on a specific day) by heading to multiple places: Load Monitoring tab, a plane’s Flights tab, Inventory. Since it does change every day, the amount of pax connecting does fluctuate.
- The ORS extends the main benefit of interlines - pax can book the flights in one itinerary between your airline and a partner airline or even three airlines. This can help book since it will mean your flight is not only in the GOT - FCO ORS ratings, but also the for ex. ARN - FCO, GOT - MLA, and ARN - MLA (if you have an airline connecting ARN - GOT and another airline doing FCO - MLA). So pax can take the same flight, that GOT - FCO, but for multiple purposes, so you have more chances of being high in ratings for at least some of those itineraries. If that makes sense. I believe the main term used to describe it is the network effect, and its a multiplier effect, it grows when your network grows. The main way to capitalize on this is through waved departures, to ensure small layover times, which in turn increases desirability of multi stop options through your hub.
I can guide you to further resources:
- The Handbook (handbook.airlinesim.aero) is the official tutorial and is newly revamped.
- There’s crowd-done tutorials such as Yukawa’s, and Matth’s. Though keep in mind some of these are older, so be wary, particularly on the ORS parts.
- Youtube: Pinto’s series is one of the best (even if it’s done on a private world) but there is others, such as Dashsolpher.
A non specific AS resource is Wendover Productions, whom does great work on the actual airline business. It is not AS specific but the concepts resonate well.
Economics of Airline Class
How airlines decide how to fly
How airlines schedule flights
Hope that helps 
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Well, as I know you know, your safety net and fall back capacity is way bigger than OP. 
Though I can advise OP to reset if he feels necessary to get a fresh start.
Yes, thank you. Now I think I am getting to understand it a bit more 
Interesting that I can do a few days testing without going into bankrupcy. 
Oh, this sounds even more complex than I could imagine! But thank you very much, this will be a good source of knowledge for me
I made a few changes here, Revised the first departure time from 07:00 to 05:00 UTC and managed to squeeze in GOT-BLQ, GOT-FCO and also a late GOT-BMA (Stockholm Bromma). To my surprise, the BMA return flight was early booked 100% even with my first late schedule departure 21:10 UTC!
I guess the revised departure times will not show up until a few days?
I think it doesn’t look so bad?
I did make a not-so scientific preliminary “Brake-even-calculation” before I started and saw that I would need Y=43(64) and C=4(8) to break even on the GOT-BLQ route. Now, when I have 3 routes, I had to revise my calculations… Maybe the added routes will change the overall figures. In reality, the leasing and staff cost would be spread out on my 3 routes instead of one, so I had to make a new calc, without fuel&cargo aspects, right now,based on bookings only:
p.s How does “red-eye-flights” work here? I mean night-flights on short routes. I know it could work on longer routes, but who wants to take a flight BMA-GOT after midnight? Apparently 64 persons liked that departure at 00:40!
d.s
The time of the flights has no impact at all. Maybe it gets changed with ASTD but who knows.
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Ok, thanks! I am still so much into the other Sim where flights departing between 23:00-05:00 were doomed! This is better
Old tutorials from Alfapiomega are also a valuable resource on route planning, interlining, passenger demand, ORS etc. Just discard the part that is no longer applicable in user interface. But the game mechanics regarding what you need (what route to fly) is well covered even though the tutorials are up to 10 years old.
Airlinesim 2012 tutorials playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL999FE6D0B80E5ADD
Airlinesim 2013 tutorials playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpVUxdiS7yw9S42dkc3ZNLwNK_AZ4IRRt
Airlinesim 2014 tutorials playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpVUxdiS7yw8inNjRSmdp9mBRleh36qGB
Airlinesim 2015-2016 tutorials playlist with switchover to new intrerface halfway
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpVUxdiS7yw_JfoTuXbTyJKeFJx3ldvnk
Airlinesim 2015 tutorials update
Airlinesim for begInners, first learning lesson:
repeat 5 times loud please: “Other sims do not exist and I will forget about them.” 
seriously: Airlinesim has its own peculiarities and is sometimes unexpectedly different from other sims, so don’t expext stuff from other sims working here and the opposite.
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Oh, thank you! Will study them all 