It seems that AS passengers good prioritise seats too much in AS. Most of my aircraft use Economy or EconomyPlus, but I noticed how badly rated my Standard seats are in the eyes of passengers.
Here is an example of travelling from Tokyo Narita to TPE airport in Taiwan (all prices are for economy class).
I offer a direct flight on a Boeing 737-600 BGW (a highly favoured aircraft) with Standard seats to TPE from NRT. Flight time is 3 hours and the ticket price is $280. The onboard service is very good and my company has an excellent reputation.
Passengers, however, would rather jump on one of my Dash-8s (with Economy seats) north to Sapporo and then catch an interlining flight on a CRJ-7 all the way south (past Tokyo) to Taiwan. The total price is $400 and the total travel time is 7 hours. They will even spend 8 hours and $525 on a route through Hong Kong using routes offered by my competitors.
In fact, my flight doesn’t even show up on ORS as an option so there are probably even more options ahead of mine. For business class, my flight does make it on the ORS list, although it is one of the worse choices available.
I can understand for business or first-class passengers, but for economy class who would pay almost double and spend more than twice as long travelling for better seats?
i read in the old german board that some players in real life prefer to pay much more for a flight if they get a service, like a piece of chocolate and a softdrink
so i not wanna know who much more they would pay for better seats
but not care too much about the ratings, they are useless, the only thing what realy counts is a good network and good IL partners
if you have that you must not care much about seats and service for the ORS
Over a period of fifteen years or so, RyanAir has become the second biggest airline in Europe. Easy Jet is the fifth carrier. Half of the flag carriers have followed and reduced the quality of their service to hardly better than low cost airlines. That clearly shows how much the average passenger is willing to pay for leg room and good service
AS passengers are not real. AirlineSim is a computer game. The game puts your on-board service, type of aircraft, number of flight attendants, type of seats and ticket price in a formula and calculates the rating of your flights. That rating (as shown on the ORS) decides how much AS passengers "like" your flights. So my advice would be to check the ORS and make sure your ratings are competitive.
By the way… if your variables (plane, service, seats…) are the same on every flight, you don’t have to check all your routes on the ORS. In other words, if default price + 10% gives you a rating of 95 on route A-B, default price + 10% should give you the same rating on route B-C.
These virtual passengers fly from everywhere to everywhere. That means a good network and good interlining partners are indeed very important. But also on these combined flights, AS passengers will check the combined rating. And if the number of available seats is bigger than the number of passengers, (combined) flights with the highest ratings will get most passengers.
I realise that this isn’t reality … or even an attempt to simulate reality … but the problem is that I think the balance in the game is wrong. Seats, in my opinion, are too highly valued by passengers. In my opinion, this has a negative impact (a small one) on the game because other facts do not matter as much. For example, in my limited experience, it is harder to set up a feeder using very small aircraft because passengers are too happy to double their travel time and travel cost (by using land or air transport), just so they can ride in better quality seats for the longest part of their journey. In other words, the main factor is seats, not a well-designed network. The result is that the game is less fun in this aspect.
Likewise, the cheap-seat option is not as viable as it could be, and this restriction on playable options means less fun.
My opinions of course!
In the meantime, I’ve installed fancy seats and the passenger numbers have increased as expected…
you are right. And if we start thinking, we can make a whole list of things that aren’t very realistic in the game.
Reality is: people can spend a limited amount of money. If an airline offers special rates - lets say a weekend trip to Malaga - that plane will be fully booked with people who would otherwise spend the weekend at home. In other words, cheap prices create extra passengers.
In the game, the number of passengers is fixed. Cheaper tickets don’t create exta passengers. But what would happen if ticket prices became the deciding factor ?
On a new server, the first few weeks everybody would make big profits. Then, as competition grows, airlines would have to drop their prices in order to attract passengers. Because passengers buy the cheapest tickets, everyone would gradually lower his prices to the point where nobody makes a profit anymore.
That’s why on-board service (type of seats and so on) are more important in the game than in reality. And to be honest… ticket prices do play a role in the game.
Billiam, your observations are absolutely correct!
Sobelair, I have something to add to your insightful input;
I am of the opinion that the premise for calculating the ratings formula should be changed (a little bit!). I believe that for passengers who fly economy class, the focus and the biggest factor should be PRICE! Now if there was indeed a formula, then it is natural that ratings would actually be based on ‘VALUE FOR MONEY’ and not price alone! Thus just offering the cheapest seat alone won’t always win the day!
For Business class passengers, I think the focus or emphasis should be more on ‘COMFORT and TIME’ and price should be secondary! In other words, a more comfortable seat, good service and saved time should almost always win the day. However, like in the earlier instance, since the ratings is based on a formula that has includes other factors - I believe the passenger philosophy for this class should be prioritized based on “COMFORT AND TIME” and price should only come into play when you have two or more services that are equally matched!
For First Class Passengers - it is simply COMFORT, SERVICE AND TIME, with almost no monetary consideration. Flights that have superior service and take as little connections as possible should always win the day regardless of cost!!!
Programmatically speaking, I do not think it is that difficult or that much of a hassle to implement a change to the premise for Flight Ratings! (That is becos I assume that the team is using an Object Oriented software programming approach)
You are correct, passengers in AS always choose the best value for money. That’s why ULCC models like those of Ryanair and Spirit just don’t work in AS.
I think your idea is great and I hope it’s not too hard to implement. It shouldn’t really change the game a lot, but it would make it much more realistic.
My concern is not exactly realisim (although I like realism too!). My problem is that AS does not reward creating a good hub with good connections. You can put a lot of effort into a very clever schedule in which your passengers will move from one flight to the next with minimal wait… and still fly empty planes because all the passengers take a spend twice as long and twice as much money flying on an airplane with nicer seats. By prioritising time and money, you have to be a better manager to attract passengers. As it stands now, you just need some nice seats and good connections don’t even matter.
[font="Trebuchet MS"]Greatly appreciated if you could help me with this (if you know a thread or wiki info, I’ll be more than willing to do my part!)[/font]
[/size][font="Trebuchet MS"][size="3"]When you [/size][/font][font="Trebuchet MS"][size="3"]speak about a good network, what do you exactly mean by this?
Not sure if I understood you well: when the passengers check the ratings, what are the checking exactly? For example, I fly a direct flight, all the others in the ORS are flying a two leg one. My first rating is 93 the second, which is overall, is 83 (why the difference, by the way, since this is a direct flight?). My next competitor has an overall rating of 55 but each of the two "legs" have 97 and 94. Which one does matter?
check the flight information page and have a look at the tab that says flight rating. There you see the different factors that influence the rating: price, on-board service, seats, terminals and the overall image of your airline. These factors are combined and give a price performance ratio. And that gives basically the rating of your flight as it will show up on the ORS.
Passengers always prefer a direct flight, so your flight should be above the two leg flights.
The first rating is based on the price performance ratio of your flight. The next line says overall rating and that one is decisive. For a two leg flight, the two overall ratings are taken into account and then a penalty is applied because the flight has two legs.
I don’t know what influences the overall rating of a direct flight. I have asked it several times but the AS people ignored my question.
The type of plane probably has an influence… I have a narrow body and a turboprop flying the same route. Both have the same seats, same on-board service and the same ticket price. The 737 has a rating of 100/99 while the Dash has a rating of 100/92 or so. But it could also be the popularity of the plane.
