Question about ORS Ratings (connecting flights)

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1

Hello together,

I’ve just checked the ORS ratings for a connecting flight, and they don’t make sense to me.

I guess this question goes particularly to the AS team (@lenana), but if others have some kind of perspective to offer here, I’d appreciate it.

So, the situation is as follows:

  1. Option 1 consists of my IL partner’s flight as well as my own. The ratings are as follows:
    Leg A: 35
    Leg B: 36
    Total time: 06:54
    Total cost: 312 $
    Total rating: 37

  2. Option 2 is the competitor’s.
    Leg A: 30
    Leg B: 32
    Total time: 06:59
    Total cost: 373 $
    Total rating: 39

How on earth is this possible? The competitor’s flight is worse in every single aspect - price, flight ratings, time - but still manages to get a higher rating. And it’s not even close (except for the total time), because his price is way (!) higher than mine, and his ratings are significantly lower.

Or am I overlooking something here?

I’ve seen some similar cases, but none as extreme as this one.

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2

We can try and diagnose this without needing to really dig deep into the algorithm.

Is this the exact same three cities?
aka if Origin is ABC and Destination is XYZ, are both of these ABC - DEF - XYZ? or do we have a ABC - DEF - XYZ and a ABC - RST - XYZ? It is usually preferred the shorter distance of those two when compared to a nonstop flight.

And then what are the connection times in the intermediary airports? A closer time would be more preferred…

3

Thanks for your reply, jetcruise! :slight_smile: Hm, now in principle this actually makes sense, but not to that extent.

To answer your question: no, they’re not the same cities. My flight is the (much!) shorter distance, i.e. shorter flight time, but the connection time is significantly longer, namely 2:20h vs 1:26h.
So that’s what makes this difference, and it’s that significant, more than price, flight rating, and total duration? That would be quite ridiculous - 1 hour of transfer time less vs. 2 hours less flight time, 60 dollars, and 5 rating points…

Edit: By the way, I should mention that this is a server with the new ORS, i.e., (as far as I’ve understood) price is a significant factor here, so I just don’t understand how those 20% don’t make a much bigger difference.

4

Yes, it looks like the connection time is hurting the overall. Shorter connections always rate higher.

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5

Thank you! :slight_smile:
Unbelievable that this one factor would make such a huge difference. But okay, good to know!

6

@Tal0n and @jetcruise0707, once again, there’s a weird case, and it’s in total contradiction to the other one.

Option 1 (my flights):
Leg A: 34
Leg B: 32
Total time: 07:21 h
Connection time: 01:06 h
Total cost: 444 $
Total rating: 44

Option 2 is the competitor’s.
Leg A: 32
Leg B: 30
Total time: 08:25 h
Connection time: 02:03 h
Total cost: 428 $
Total rating: 45

How is this possible?

This time, I win in terms of

  • total time (over an hour less),
  • connection time (almost an hour less),
  • ratings (2 points each leg);
    there’s only a price difference of 16 $, much less than the case before.

Last time, my flight was rated two points lower while beating my competitor’s in every aspect except for connection time.

I just can’t figure this out. Are there any other factors that might contribute here, or is there a mistake?

(I would also really appreciate an official answer on this one. :slight_smile: )

7

I’ve just discovered an even more extreme example. Now, this one is really absurd.

Option 1 (my flights):
Leg A: 32
Leg B: 32
Total time: 07:04 h
Connection time: 01:01 h
Total cost: 438 $
Total rating: 42

Option 2 (competitor):
Leg A: 0
Leg B: 37
Total time: 09:45 h
Connection time: 03:49 h
Total cost: 397 $
Total rating: 50

Option 3 (same competitor):
Leg A: 27
Leg B: 37
Total time: 12:15 h
Connection time: 05:19 h
Total cost: 397 $
Total rating: 44

Option 4 (different competitor):
Leg A: 31
Leg B: 19
Total time: 10:51 h
Connection time: 01:07 h
Total cost: 575 $
Total rating: 37

I’ve done my best to keep connection times short and still, it doesn’t matter at all suddenly? The 40$ price difference suddenly weighs more than 5 hours extra?
Also, my competitor gets a higher rating despite having a flight with a 0 (!!) rating. Seriously?

The second competitor (option 4) is still closer to my rating than mine is to option 2, despite taking almost 4 hours longer and being 140 $ more expensive - and again, having a terrible rating.

I really need an explanation on this one. Otherwise, quite frankly, I sense there’s something fishy going on. All of the airlines with higher ratings are among the ten biggest companies in the game world.

1 Like
8

Unfortunately, someone with more experience with the new ORS will have to answer now. The first example you gave was simple, these aren’t.

9

And actually, at least one of them directly contradicts the first one. :slight_smile:

10

I do have some experience with new ORS…

So Case 1 seems to be a price thing, the total rating is indeed a combination of the average of your LEG A and B holdings, the connection factors, and the overall price. The price for Option 2 is $16 cheaper, and the service in your itinerary legs is marginally better. Comparing a 44 vs a 45 the difference is 1 pt, aka a wash.

Case 2 is quite weird…

One - in Option 2, Leg A: Is that ground network? It makes absolutely no sense to me otherwise.

If it was looking for say Heathrow to Santorini and there is a Gatwick to Santorini nonstop, naturally, Gatwick would be considered. And in the eyes of pax usually, they’d prefer to take the National Express over (or simply go to Gatwick instead) rather than say connect in Milan or Frankfurt. That is the only way I see the 0-rated leg working THAT well. The time difference is because the GN is set to leave at even times throughout the day, and it doesn’t matter as much the time between GN and a flight rather than the time in layover flight to flight.

The other three need to be compared, rather than the second leg.
Option 4 is out, I think, surely? The other two are far superior. I see why you included #4, but the very high cost and bad individual ratings push its competitiveness down.

Then that leaves #1 and #3. And from here some slight speculation.

#1 has a shorter conx time (5h19 vs 1h1), shorter overall journey in air (7h04 - 1h01 = 6h03, vs 12h15-5h19 = 6h56) and more uniform legs (32/32 vs 27/37).

Then we’d need to see the weight of the legs, because for example, if the itinerary was Nice - Fiumicino - Tel Aviv, you’re gonna care more for the rating of the FCO-TLV leg because it’s longer proportionally, and that is a slight boost to #3.

#3 is also about 10% cheaper than #1. And I guess the two-point difference is a balance between those two. Again, I guess.

Image can also fight into this, to some degree, though it would probably be reflected into the individual leg segments.

And an overarching question - is this because your flights do not fill, or is it out of sheer curiosity? Because if there is a two-point difference (for which your competitor might need to fork out some more operating costs, and you still fill your flights (in your particular first case, at an 11% higher price pt), then you’d end out the true winner there, regardless of the ORS result, surely?

11

Hi, jetcruise! Thanks for taking the time to answer all of this.

In response to the different parts:

  1. Case 1 you said was an easy one. Well, but the weird thing is that it’s in direct contradiction to the case I presented a few days ago, remember? There, it was all about connection time, because my flight actually had a $ 60 (!!) price difference, which in that case was actually even 20% (so double the difference as in the cases I presented this time).
    My ratings, my lower price, as well as shorter overall time wasn’t enough to beat the other flight, which got a 2-point higher rating.

Now, apparently, a $ 16 price difference (less than 5%!) is enough to beat my flight, which wins not only (again) in ratings and overall time, but also in connection time.

How is this possible?
I know, it’s a 1-point difference, and you might say it’s a wash, but given that my flight should beat the other one resoundingly, it’s not good.

  1. To respond right away to your question about why I’m wondering about this: It’s not that my flights don’t fill. I’m doing okay, I guess. However, theirs fill up much more quickly, and these two airlines that came up here repeatedly are among the biggest in the game world, as I said, and it just seemed weird to me that they would consistently beat my flights even in terms of rating when (almost) all the factors speak against them. Given that they are now able to buy numerous a/c per day, I do feel at a disadvantage. When even a flight that contains a leg with 0 rating points beats mine, it’s just weird, you know?
    And then I’d have an advantage in price, but lose in terms of rating, whereas in other cases I’d have a disadvantage in price while being better in other aspects, and still lose.
    But yeah, in the end it’s more about curiosity, although it does bother me a bit that I do all these things right, but they’re ending up ahead in the end.

  2. I checked: no, it’s not GN. It’s just a short flight.
    Of course, as you speculated, the second leg is much longer (00:40 vs. 05:15). Still weird that a 0 rating wouldn’t influence more, and that he has a 6-point advantage in the end - again, in complete contradiction to the very first case, in which connection time seemed to matter so much.
    Same for 3) - you said it was a balance, but it’s just weird how, again, these five hours extra don’t weigh more than a 10% price difference, when in the original example a 1-hour connection time difference was apparently enough to make up for (and even win against) a 20% difference in price.

  3. I included option 4 only to show how, despite being so much worse in every single aspect, this competitor’s flight still comes quite close and still gets a 37 rating. How can this one even be close when it’s 30% more expensive, takes almost four hours longer, and has worse ratings everywhere?
    I included it because it’s the same competitor that won out against me in the very first example. It just looks weird and even suspicious to me, that’s all.

Thank you again for taking the time to analyze. :slight_smile:

12

Thank you for the detail! I am not gonna lie - currently quite puzzled by this whole situation. I know that feeling of powerless when your competitor grows faster can be quite discouraging…

1 Like
13

Would it be possible to get an explanation from the AS team, @lenana? I’d really appreciate it.

2 Likes
14

Hey there, sorry for the wait! There seem to be a few contradictions indeed… You already mentioned your server employs the new ORS, but would you mind sharing which server you’re playing on and which connections / routes you’re referring to? :slight_smile: