Hi,
long post but try to stay with me:
Passengers with a "mind":
I know this might be a little bit hard to quantify but I'll give it a shot anyway.
Right now we have only one type of passenger. It's the same passenger on a cheap flight from A to B for low prices as the one on an expensive flight with a high service level and good seatings. The passenger does not care how he get's from A to B as long as Price and Value is "fair enough".
I'd like to see a passenger that does care how he gets from A to B. There should be demand comming from very price sensitive passengers as well as demand from passengers that care about the service and comfort levels. I suggested only two types but this can be much more complex.
The overall balancing of how this is distributed is, of course, not that easy but I'm only suggesting and dont want to make the 2nd step before the first.
Something that can be resolved / regulated with this model:
1) Airline Sizes / Slots
Due to demands comming from different passenger "classes" only 1 airline cannot be able to cover each and every area. Right now we have airlines with thousands of planes because there is only 1 type of passenger. Because of that there is simply too much to go around creating those ridiculously huge companies.
With the above suggestion, as you develope an airline, you'd basically have to specialize and define the market you wish to target. The advantage of this would be different players will be competing in different markets creating a dynamic game world.
For this to work, obviously there has to be more impact from Image. I can safely assume the majority of people think of Ryan Air as a cheap airline with a rather poor image. Obviously a regular passenger looking for a good service and is willing to pay higher prices will not consider this kind of airline. So if you operate a low-cost airline your image will be poorer and you will most likely only attract price sensitive customers.
Now you might ask, what prevents a big "good image" airline from creating a fleet with "cheap seats" and special pricing for those specific routes?
In doing so they get a very mixed image and with the above described effect they will not have a clear customer base. Worst case, they cannot fill their planes anymore and would have to create a subsidary especially aimed for the other market. Something Delta Airlines tried with "Song" to attack JetBlue so they dont affect the image of the Delta Airlines brand itself
Demand:
I really wish for a game world with overall passenger demand cut by at least 40% to 50%. What we have now are airports with all slots taken and no space for a newcommer to attack an established airline. There is no fight over passengers because there is too much to go around. It is absolutely impossible to "bring down" even a badly managed airline either because there is too much demand or all slots are taken....we had a very good glance how bad airlines are managed when the AGEX was down. At this point all game worlds remain "static" except for the odd occasion some big guy quits the game.
I want fights with another airline no matter if I'm being attacked or attacking....this is what competition is about for me.
Thanks for taking the time reading this.