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 