New player question: How to get passengers for longer flights?

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1

Hi!

I'm a new player trying to make a 10hour flight work, I've set up everything so it's working now and the aircraft is flying, but no passengers or cargo want to fly with me!

I don't think the airports involved are to small, one of them is a "large airport (demand 8)", and the various destinations are also demand 8 or 9 airports.

Competition/Price can't be the problem either, I checked the online reservation system and I am the only airline flying direct flights for these connections. All my competitors are flying connection via other airports that end up with 50-100% higher price and 50-100% longer travel time (I'm using the low default price to start with).

The aircraft I use is a 4 year old Airbus with max (+5) popularity with passengers and good conditions (90%+).

In the wiki I found the following: "Demand system This system uses several parameters (in no particular order: route, connecting flights, price, service, aircraft type, journey duration and more".

So let's go through these one by one:

Route: Demand 8 to demand 8, should be fine.

Connecting flight: (none) better then competition.

Price: better then competition.

Service: Rating 33 for flight and rating 90 for travel time (not sure what this means, but competitors seem to win on service and lose on travel time so should balance out).

Aircraft type: max (+5) popularity

Journey duration: better then competition.

So why do I have zero passengers?

Not even a single one want to fly with me despite my connection being (as far as I can tell) superior in almost every way.

Thank you in advance for the help.

2

Well ......... there are a few things ...... as I can see you startet 2 days ago on Meigs .... and your Hub is Goteborg.....

First of all ..... the 8 Demand bars mean only it is a big airport. Since you are brand new ... and have no working Hub .... the only passengers you might get on your flight is direct traffic. One thing is if you activated your shedule immediately or with 3 days delay .... that means first flight will be after 24hrs of activation or 72 hrs. Each Airport in the Game will update the passengers only once in 24 hrs. 

BUT ......  Scandinavian Countries are a tough Area to Start with... What you should focus on in the first place is offer Daily connections to europe and within Sweden to establish a proper HUB system. Passenger like daily connections so they will have at all times good connections. I would suggest you start from scratch ... open up a new airline with 10 mio starting capital and then Lease Dash8, EMB or CRJ's ...... the more you get in the beginning .... 5-6 aircrafts should be possible to get ... you start your flights to Europe.... bring them to GOT and distribute them in Sweden and vice versa ....... do not try to start Long Range flights with big Aircrafts like a 330 until you have about 1500 to 2000 daily departures from Goteborg, because otherwise you will not be able to fill the planes. I was trying to fly to GOT with a 737-900ER and had to cancel the route from CLT simply because I was not getting enough Passengers. At the Airports you are flying to try to find a good Interlining Partner. It will cost some money but is usually worth it to fill your planes in the beginning.

Good Luck

3

Well ......... there are a few things ...... as I can see you startet 2 days ago on Meigs .... and your Hub is Goteborg.....

First of all ..... the 8 Demand bars mean only it is a big airport.

I'm trying to fly from Stockholm Arlanda (ARN) which is one of the biggest airports in Scandinavia to bigger airports in Japan currently, and that is the connection I'm having problems with finding passengers for.

Since you are brand new ... and have no working Hub .... the only passengers you might get on your flight is direct traffic. One thing is if you activated your shedule immediately or with 3 days delay .... that means first flight will be after 24hrs of activation or 72 hrs. Each Airport in the Game will update the passengers only once in 24 hrs.

 

Yes that's why I wanted to wait 2 days with asking the question here, to give at least one daily 24 hour update chance to tick, but no passengers booked for any of these Japan flights :(

4

When I consult the ORS for ARN-NRT, I get a whole different picture:

Yes, you offer a direct flight - but it doesn't appear on the upper end in the ORS. So it must be really bad, as other connections with longer journey times are still more attractive.

I can't see, what service you offer - but I can see, that you are using standard seats for a long-haul flight, so that's a least one of your problems.

But anyway, it's still true, what BenjaminA330 wrote: to successfully operate long-haul flight, you need other aircraft to feed your flight at both ends of the route.

So even if you optimize things and probably get some passengers - you will never be able to operate a profit with your current flight plan and setup.

5

So it must be really bad, as other connections with longer journey times are still more attractive.

I can't see, what service you offer - but I can see, that you are using standard seats for a long-haul flight, so that's a least one of your problems.

Since the airplane I bought has a range of 6,660-11,850 km, I assumed the default seat layout would be appropriate for that distance, but apparently I was wrong.

Also how does the customers know what the seat layout will be before even trying out my flight? :S

If this game was working realistically all passengers would jump at the cheap price and short travel time right away, and only at a later stage abandon for others it if the service was not appropriate.

Seats I did already upgrade fairly quickly once I realized it was a problem in the rating, the new configuration already has planned flights within two days but those are not getting bookings either it seems.

The on-board service has +3 and +4 rating for economy and business at those distances so shouldn't be that either.

6

All I am trying is to tell you that these 8 Bars only show it is a big airport with a in general high demand of Passengers and Cargo. Since your Airline is brand new and your Image is (which is normal at that time ..... not existend) you should not think that because a real world route that works for SAS is working here perfectly as well. AS is a Hub based game .... the more connections you offer the more passengers you will get. And once again .... compared to other Starting Areas like USA, Japan, Indonesia and India for example where you have a very strong domestic market, Denmark, Sweden,and other European countries ...... Denmark and Sweden are extremely difficult to start. Not impossible but you really have to start with small airplanes and create a strong hub. As I said I tried ARN, GOT, CPH and I can fill only CPH and i have an IL partner in Denmark. I did not have one in Sweden since there was none at the time and i couldn't fill a 737 .... and I am operating the 3rd largest Airline here on Meigs .... As Spezialist pointed out .... on LR Flights you need to compete with others .... best seats and best service ..... and good IL Partners and a strong Hub with good connections .....

7

Since the airplane I bought has a range of 6,660-11,850 km, I assumed the default seat layout would be appropriate for that distance, but apparently I was wrong.

Also how does the customers know what the seat layout will be before even trying out my flight? :S

If this game was working realistically all passengers would jump at the cheap price and short travel time right away, and only at a later stage abandon for others it if the service was not appropriate.

Seats I did already upgrade fairly quickly once I realized it was a problem in the rating, the new configuration already has planned flights within two days but those are not getting bookings either it seems.

The on-board service has +3 and +4 rating for economy and business at those distances so shouldn't be that either.

I doubt that you will have many passengers on the flight. You can not offer any connections to your Passengers at all ..... neither in Japan .... nor on Sweden ....  With a cheap ticket and a quick flight you might get a few passengers that only want to fly from Stockholm to Japan. But you are not offering a daily service .... so the passenger  can for example fly with you on sunday but he can not fly back with you on monday since you have no flight there ..... You may like it or not .... but if you want to be sucessful in this game, and we where all in the same position like you are now  and had to learn the hard way with resets and restarts .... the best way is to start small ..... build  a strong hub .... and then go Long Haul ....

8

Can't the passengers book other flights or transportation if I don't offer connections within Sweden or Japan?  :wacko:

Within both Sweden and Japan going by rail is cheaper, faster and more convenient then going by aircraft, so potentially anyone in Japan or southern half of Sweden within 500km of my airports should be a possible customer due to excellent rail connections.

If I can't offer a return flight from Tokyo Narita that date the airplane is departing from Osaka instead, which is 2 hours away by Shinkansen and vastly superior to 12 hours extra travel time and twice my price from competitors flying via their hubs.

I guess the game just doesn't work the way I thought, but thanks for your answers. :)

9

Can't the passengers book other flights or transportation if I don't offer connections within Sweden or Japan?  

They will only book connection flights with other airlines if you have interlining agreements with airlines at your two endpoints. The AS wiki addresses many of the issues that you have brought up here. 

10

I didn't start my long inter-contenental (I hope I spelled that right) until I have at least 1000 flights a week from my hub. Also make sure you interline with a partner that also has about 1000 flights in that airport, this way, you'll be sure to have enough connections for transfering passengers. On a typical flight, I'd say 80-90% of the passengers were from my "own connection" or going to an "external connection".

11

I didn't start my long inter-contenental (I hope I spelled that right) until I have at least 1000 flights a week from my hub. Also make sure you interline with a partner that also has about 1000 flights in that airport, this way, you'll be sure to have enough connections for transfering passengers. On a typical flight, I'd say 80-90% of the passengers were from my "own connection" or going to an "external connection".

Just correct your spelling.  :)

"inter-contenental" - inter-continental

I totally agree with you.  :D

12

Start off small, don't think that you need 5-star luxury expenses, Lease around 2-3 Turboprop (not jet) aircraft and fly to varied destinations (not the same place 40 times a week) then find a big sized airline to interline with who flys to most/all your destinations BUT has a different hub. Build up your economy/buisness ratings until you can start to adjust to a higher price.

My main piece of advice is be patient, it will take at least 1-2 weeks until you're getting nearly all fully booked flights.

13

You can also find a very unsaturated market to go into, however allow for a demand of 5 and above. Sometimes even with great ratings, connections and prices your flights are still awfully booked. The trick is just to experiment with different places, i got lucky on my second location (attempt) and i am growing steadily. My first attempt in Monastir went horribly, i had a 1 year old B737-700 flying to FRA and LHR and other popular destinations in Europe with solid rating for my flight and little competition. The highest booking after 8 days of business was 45% and i had an average load factor of 19%. Bearing in mind i had interlining partners with >1000 aircraft. So don't get disheartened if things don't go your way, just keep on trying out different things and you might hit the jackpot. 

Gd Luck :)