. . . there seems to be a complete lack of demand between some airports in Ellinikon that I assume must be some sort of bug or error.
For example there is little to no demand between DFW and OKC, and I am the only airline on the route except for one other that only has a weekly flight.
The above route is probably the best example but I have also noticed similar lack of demand between PER and AKL and to a lesser extent between PIT and CVG (this also seemed to be a problem in Aspern).
For DFW-OKC and PER-AKL I have been getting almost zero bookings, and I assume that other players are having this problem as well with DFW-OKC because I am the only airline on the route with a daily flight. Other airports close by to DFW with a similar 4 bar demand have much more service, and I can only assume that this is because airlines have attempted to fly to OKC but had to pull out due to lack of bookings.
I understand that the ORS/booking system is very complicated and it may be difficult to find out why this is happening, but I thought I should at least bring this up in case other players are having similar difficulties or if it may be a relatively easy thing for the AS Team to investigate and fix.
I'm not sure about the PER-AKL flights, but as for OKC...
I have one of the largest airline conglomerates on Aspern, and I cannot get anything above 40% flights full in/out of OKC. I have tried DFW, IAH, MCI, ORD, MDW, CVG, DEN, and many other airports without getting any kind of profits from OKC. I think I still have some flights through OKC, but not many anymore. I had just figured it was my flight ratings were just very poor.
. . . well, from what I know about Airline Sim, the demand between airports is at least partially based on the actual number of flights between them in the ‘real’ world. A quick look on flightstats.com show that there are 9 flights a day between DFW-OKC, so I think this therefore must be a bug or error. I’m not sure how the AS Team gather real world data, but I assume that it is a complicated process where a few airports can accidentaly end up with incorrect demand data, OKC being a likely suspect.
I don’t expect OKC to have that much of a demand itself. About 3.6 mio (depending on when the US stats have been updated (sk is currently on that so they are the oldest around) a year and airport officials say that OKC mostly depends on DFW and Dallas Hobby to connect to everywhere. http://m.newsok.com/no-hub-no-problem-for-will-rogers-world-airport/article/3946311
According to wiki, southwest and american are two of the major carriers on DFW - OKC and OKC - Hobby. Both airlines operate major hubs there with 1000s of connections. I assume, that most pax on those routes connect there in real life.
So early in the game, you simply might not offer enough connections yet.
There are routes like this in which you will get zero bookings no matter how large your airline is. It happened to me before when I used to have a flight from the Detroit to Nairobi.
Not much you can do about those other then just not flight that route.
Well, I had an airline based in Leeds/Bradford airport. I’ve tried to make a flight from Leeds to Glasgow International. As a result I got no demand though there’s a daily flight between them in real life. So I think there’s a little problem about the booking system.
It's not a problem about the booking system, this one is working fine. If you don't have any booking on this specific route, you should check your offer on this route and the oponents as there is a demand ;)
If you don't have any booking on this specific route, you should check your offer on this route and the oponents as there is a demand ;)
I'm sorry, but I did specifically state in my post that . . .
I am the only airline on the route except for one other that only has a weekly flight.
So there really was no opponent for me on the route and my prices were set at default. Did I need to set my prices at less than default in order to get any passengers ?
Needless to say, I have pulled off the route because I was getting zero bookings. Some airline has now started 4 daily flights, let's see how long they last, I expect not long.
I don't expect OKC to have that much of a demand itself. About 3.6 mio (depending on when the US stats have been updated (sk is currently on that so they are the oldest around) a year and airport officials say that OKC mostly depends on DFW and Dallas Hobby to connect to everywhere. http://m.newsok.com/no-hub-no-problem-for-will-rogers-world-airport/article/3946311
According to wiki, southwest and american are two of the major carriers on DFW - OKC and OKC - Hobby. Both airlines operate major hubs there with 1000s of connections. I assume, that most pax on those routes connect there in real life.
So early in the game, you simply might not offer enough connections yet.
. . . American Airlines has 9 daily flights between DFW and OKC, 7 with MD-80's and the other 2 on regional jets. Not ALL of that traffic is going to be connecting, some of it has to be O&D. It's at least a three hour drive from Oklahoma City to Dallas so I expect that some people would actually fly instead, not a lot perhaps, but enough to fill up a daily 737-300 flight, which is all I was offering on the route.
Anyway, it's not a big deal, I just can't fly to OKC I guess until my hub is much larger. I thought it was an error, but if it's not, then it's not . . .
But AA is not running such a small network. They do have a large hub at DFW and feeder a lot of passenger - so if you start more routes or interline, you probably will increase the bookings.
There are some routes in AirlineSim that does not reflect the reality. Flights between Brazil and some Latin American and African countries won't go well, despite of having a good demand in real life. As an example, it doesn't matter what I do, but GRU-LIM (IRL, 3 daily flights + 4 weekly by TAME + 3 weekly by LAN Perú) and GRU-MEX (2 daily flights IRL with B773 and A333) won't fill up. Also, GRU-LAD (Luanda, Angola) fills up to ~10 paxs per day, which is much lower than real demand. TAAG mantains 4 weekly flights in this route plus 3 weekly flights to GIG (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
I’m ok with this, it’s impossible to reflect the real demand in every route. I think this will be improved in the future. Also, demand in Brazilian airports need to be updated. It seems the big data for Brazilian airports is from three or four years ago. Since then, there was a big increase in demand.
I’m not complaining or demanding AS Team to solve this right now. I’m just giving examples that there are data lag and demand incompatibility everywhere in AS, but the game, in general, is ok.
There’s the opposite too. Some routes would be a certain loss IRL and they are possible in AS.
You are right - south america has been one of the first continent to be updated and that has been some years ago. Currently the US and some other not updated are on my update list and the other will follow again afterwards. IIRC a connection between Angola and Brasil did not exist on the time, the relative demand has been extracted from the real life schedule. But you won't want to have new relative data, as this would lead into a "everyone has to reschedule his whole fleet" ;)
But keep also in mind, that having flights in real life to or from a hub of a real life airline, does not mean that there is such a high demand. If you remove all passenger from the Emriates aircraft (just an example, you can also say Singapore Airlines or others), the flights would be rather empty. This means you may only have few passenger on the route, but if you can offer a network (by your own or via interlining), you may gather some more transfer passenger using this route too. And also be aware, that real life aviation does not mean "full flights". If there is a 10 times daily connection, some aircraft may be fully booked, other are only operating with 50-70% (I remember good old LH AB6 times between FRA and HAM beeing filled with some twenty passenger and no freight) ;)
This shall show, that reading a real life timetable and hoping that this will work in AirlineSim too, does not meand to be successfull.
I'll admit OKC is very much an outlier as I have tried it from many hubs and am lucky to get above 60%. I did supply AS with the PDEW (Passengers Daily Each Way) table for every single route in the US which shows the O&D for each route.
I'll admit, it has to be a handful for the demand calculation and to have the right figures. I gladly offer my help for this since it is a giant task and I have all of the data for the US.
For reference Q42013 had 236 Passengers Daily Each Way from DFW-OKC and 572 from DEN-OKC
I’ve experienced the AKL PER issue on ellinkon also. I had the only flight on the route and had zero passengers for multiple days. In real life, air nz is putting daily 787s on the route.