Too high rating on connecting flights

English Boards Community Support
1

I made a brief reserch on ORS and found some ridiculous ratings on connecting flights.

Comparing a high price/long layover connecting flight with a low price/direct flight, the ORS system always rate the connecting flights much higher than direct flight.

For example, on ITM-SIN route, a connecting flight with 3 sectors (ITM-PVG-CGK-SIN), rated 27-30-15 on 3 sectors, total priced 643 A$, total time's

13:14, overall rating is 4. Another connecting flight with same rating on 3 sectors and same price but a shorter layover (total time's 12:13),  overall rating is 6.
 
But a direct flight, ITM-SIN rated -2, priced 472 A$, flight time's 06:14, overall rating is 2!
 
The seat configurations and service profiles are almost the same. Chart as below
 
 
                          Compare of ITM-SIN Route Ratings
Route                                ITM-PVG-CGK-SIN      ITM-PVG-CGK-SIN    ITM-SIN

Total Price                                  $643                            $643                  $472

Single Sector Rating               27-30-15                      27-30-15                 -2
Total Time                                  13:14                           12:13                 06:14
Overall Rating                               4                                   6                       2
 
 
How ridiculous it is! It is not only unreal and unfair but also forcing players sticking with hub routes and unwilling to explore new routes!
2

the fact that the single sector rating on the direct flight is -2, this must mean the service and seating is much worse. since the rating for each individual leg is always calculated the same way, the service simply can't be the same

are you refering to flights offered by yourself? please provide this information to see, if there is a bug or if it is a matter of different service and seating.

3

There may be a few more factors than just price and connection. Are you 100% sure about same service and seating? And if so how? Also I see you schedule for SIN-ITM has just been activated, is this a new route? If it’s an old route i have noticed if you muck around with the schedule or cancel flights then for the next few days you will get a lower rating

4

I’m guessing default + 50% pricing won’t help either. Maybe start with +20% if a brand new route. If someone else operates the route then see which flights are fully booked and price according to that

5

The route on Aspern ITM-SIN is dominated by connecting flights with a higher ORS score of around 40. Ian is right about the price - to score above/around 40 with +50% you need the higher end of economy seats. You could adjust the seat/service offering, or the price. Both would improve the ORS score. If you fill the plane with default +20% then try increasing it to see what margin the route will offer you.

6

the fact that the single sector rating on the direct flight is -2, this must mean the service and seating is much worse. since the rating for each individual leg is always calculated the same way, the service simply can't be the same

are you refering to flights offered by yourself? please provide this information to see, if there is a bug or if it is a matter of different service and seating.


The single sector rating is mostly based on price. Equipment/cabin or blablabla, combine them all, and divided by price. So if you make a test, it’s very very easy to make your flight rating higher if you adjust your price, not the service, not the seating. If I lower the direct flight price from $472 to $350, the rating would be around 35.

I contacted one of the three connecting operators and he confirms that the seat/service setting is just all ‘Standard’, company image is 2 bar, which are all below the direct flight operator (me). So this could not be a problem and so I started the topic with ‘almost the same’ for less distraction.

I’ve got some ideas why the ORS made these mistakes. abbv. Overall Rating(OR), Single Sector Rating(SSR), Total Time Consumption(TTC),Standard Time Consumption(STR),Overall Quality(OQ, include image, cabin, service, blablabla), Single Sector Price(SSP), Direct Flight Distance(DFD)

SSR=(OQ/SSP-1)*100

STR=DFD/(680km/h)+0:30.

680km/h is an average aircraft air speed in real world. 30 mins for takeoff and landing.

So for ITM-SIN route, STR would be around 8hrs

All above is ok,but in ORS system…

OR=Weighted_mean(SSRs)+(STC-TTC)*3

Which means if have a jet plane so your total flight time is less than STC, then you’ll get 3 points bonus per hour less, and if connecting flights makes the trip longer than STC, you’ll be punished for 3 points per hour.

Still seems OK for this formula? You made a same mistake with admin!

In real world!

OR=(Weighted_mean(OQs)/Sum(SSP)-1)*100+(STC-TTC)*3! A totally different formula and totally different result with same parameters! The ORS formula calculated time waste but completely lost money waste in connecting flights as a factor!

Obviously it’s a mathmatical mistake. If some one could understand this and agree with most part of the conclusion, this bug should be posted to admin.

7

To make a test I use an Excel sheet.

A 2-sector connecting flight, both sectors' quality are average(100), prices are low(83), you'll get a same Single Sector Rating (20) for both of them.

In current ORS system, combining them would get 4 in Overall Rating.

But in real world, if the quality is still 100, combined price is 166, you'll get a Overall Rating of -56!

That's why usually in real world, connecting flight's price is much lower than a direct one!

Questions? Make a search, PVG-DPS or PEK-SYD or anything in Skyscanner!

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9

Using standard seats and charging 50% is excessive so this is quite honestly why you have such a low rating.

In terms of the ORS maybe the total average rating is combined with time taken to come out with a total result. Therefore if your competitors are charging a reasonable price with better seats then in may appear higher. To be honest in the real life if I was been offered rubbish seats at a grossly inflated price I'd be tempted to look at other options

Thanks

Ian

10

Using standard seats and charging 50% is excessive so this is quite honestly why you have such a low rating.

In terms of the ORS maybe the total average rating is combined with time taken to come out with a total result. Therefore if your competitors are charging a reasonable price with better seats then in may appear higher. To be honest in the real life if I was been offered rubbish seats at a grossly inflated price I'd be tempted to look at other options

Thanks

Ian

I confirm again that you can just ignore the difference of quality (seats/service/equipment...) of these flights.

It's an unnecessary distraction.

$643 could not be a good price if $472 is a bad one.

I'll appreciate if you could read the suggested formulas and conclusion carefully.

11

Hi Nigel,

Although I appreciate you put a lot of time into your reply and agree in principle with your calculations do we not need to address why your route has such low ratings, this is under community support anyway. I have suggested two points...one has been disregarded by maths, which I can see where your coming from, although you also have to appreciate D+50% is a lot with standard seats. However the other point I made which you ignored or missed...

Also I see you schedule for SIN-ITM has just been activated, is this a new route? If it's an old route i have noticed if you muck around with the schedule or cancel flights then for the next few days you will get a lower rating

The proof in the pudding as it were....

In contrast to your SIN-ITM (which has been mucked around with) have a look at SIN-KBR... ALL direct flights including yours (which have been there for more than 3 days) are giving ratings 9 or above. All via flights (inc ground transport) are attracting 0s even with better aircraft.

The reason my comment above I have noticed in the past with a big schedule refurb that the bookings arn't there as they were before for a couple of days before they return.

Hope this helps

Ian

12

Nigel, with leisure seats and 4 star service in Y and 50% price increase, your ORS would be -8/21 on 1200km stage length route. That is based on 100% price ratio  ORS being 32/82. If your service is worse and seating is worse (e.g 2 bar service and standard seat) you would get ORS between 9/66 and 29/77 with 100% price. Now as you can see above, the 50% increase makes your ORS drop by 61 points. So if you have ORS 9/66, a 61 point drop would bring you to ORS of 5. Pretty close to what you have. I do not think there is a bug.

13

Hi Nigel,

Although I appreciate you put a lot of time into your reply and agree in principle with your calculations do we not need to address why your route has such low ratings, this is under community support anyway. I have suggested two points...one has been disregarded by maths, which I can see where your coming from, although you also have to appreciate D+50% is a lot with standard seats. However the other point I made which you ignored or missed...

The proof in the pudding as it were....

In contrast to your SIN-ITM (which has been mucked around with) have a look at SIN-KBR... ALL direct flights including yours (which have been there for more than 3 days) are giving ratings 9 or above. All via flights (inc ground transport) are attracting 0s even with better aircraft.

The reason my comment above I have noticed in the past with a big schedule refurb that the bookings arn't there as they were before for a couple of days before they return.

Hope this helps

Ian

I agree maybe some other factors exists in ORS's formula, such as 'consitency'.

SIN-ITM is an old route but I've changed the schedule time and flight number so you may consider it's a new flight. No flight cancellation recently.

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SIN-KBR is another problem with ground transfer, which will largely reduce the overall rating. So I think you should stick with major routes.

LAX-JFK route is a good example. You can see FNL106+FLN103 SSRed 40/33 and total priced $616, flight time around 13hrs, overall rating is 31. A direct flight, S4 1005 SSRed 14, priced $360 (as little as a half price?), flight time around 5hrs recieve it's overall rating at 38. That's rediculous enough I think. The only possiblility is admin forget to put price difference factors into ORS's formula.

14

LAX-JFK route is a good example. You can see FNL106+FLN103 SSRed 40/33 and total priced $616, flight time around 13hrs, overall rating is 31. A direct flight, S4 1005 SSRed 14, priced $360 (as little as a half price?), flight time around 5hrs recieve it's overall rating at 38. That's rediculous enough I think. The only possiblility is admin forget to put price difference factors into ORS's formula.

I think what is happening is that price is compared to the service/length of each leg individually.

So if one route has a much longer detour it can still have a very competitive price if the price is checked versus the distance flown, not the direct distance the customer seeks to travel.

15

I think what is happening is that price is compared to the service/length of each leg individually.

So if one route has a much longer detour it can still have a very competitive price if the price is checked versus the distance flown, not the direct distance the customer seeks to travel.

This is a problem for the ORS: I do think that in 99% of situations in real life everyone will choose a cheaper direct flight than a connecting longer and more expensive flight. If you want to travel from LHR to CDG why would you choose a LHR - MAD - CDG flight that is taking much more time, is more expensive and you have to change plane and wait in another airport. Maybe the ORS should be much more balance to favor the direct flights if the price is the same or cheaper and the total travel time is less. Every comparison should be made related to the direct flight (if it exist). As I recall there was a post from the AS team that they are working (or have on the already long to do list) on a new ORS calculation system. 

16

I think for game-ability's sake, price ratio for connections do not reduce ORS so much as for direct flights. Otherwise, you would not be able to build a business on connections. And the ultimate goal is to have hundreds of connections, with 2-3 pax generated per connection, and flying intra-network.

17

I think for game-ability's sake, price ratio for connections do not reduce ORS so much as for direct flights. Otherwise, you would not be able to build a business on connections. And the ultimate goal is to have hundreds of connections, with 2-3 pax generated per connection, and flying intra-network.

Thank you guys for your patience to read this post.

I agree with you and it’s a game ballance between interlining and direct flights.

That’s why our game world is filled by jillions of hub to hub flights, some hub to non-hub flights, but very very very few non-hub to non-hub direct flights, which is not realastic. In real life, even a 5 bar airport could have a A320 direct flight to another 5 bar airport!

But the ballance of current system is not good enough which bias to connecting flights too much. It just make the game too easy and even boring when players choosing their routes. You just fly hub to hub, then hub to hub, then hub to hub, then… you win! It’ll be much more interesting if a player can get large profit when he find a unique direct route, and the time slot in hub airports would not be that much important as now (which would be more interesting too).

It’s true that make a correction to the formula would make an impact on sytem phylosophy and admin may have to do more to rebalance it. At last I just hope a new and more realastic ORS is in progress.

18

You can still fly a 5-bar to 5-bar airport on heavy routes, with a smaller aircraft e.g. ATR72, CRJ700, or Q400. With turboprops you will get lower rating than with CRJ700, but also your operating costs will be less and you can charge less than default to maximize your ORS rating potential.

P.S. When you have massive network, even 5-bar to 5-bar airports will get full loads because you will be transporting quantities of passengers who will take A-5Q-5X instead of A-Hub-5X (5Q, 5X being 5-bar airports)*

* Note: I am not there yet but I have researched airlines with huge networks (those where you just see a huge red zigzag of routes instead of individual routes) and I see they can full loads even between small airports

19

At last I just hope a new and more realastic ORS is in progress.

AS have said they are working (with no release date specified) on various types of passenger demand, including price conscious customers etc. I guess this will allow LCCs to be implemented and to fly between secondary 5-bar airports whose feeding will be supported by ground networks.

20

Very interesting calculations and theories above, Nigel. I just wanted to point out this very interesting situation (see attached print screen).

Searching for connections in C class between airports A and C.

I am offered this route, via B. (Incidentally, I am the operator of these flights, so if you want you can ask about more info).

Flight A - B has a rating of 32.

Flight B - C has a rating of 33.

Flight A - C via B has a rating of 63!!

This is no way supports your theory that the rating for flight A - C is the average of the ratings of the legs minus some time penalty!

Care to explain - or at least comment - anyone?