Hello everyone!
I have an airline in Brazil on Gatow. Recently, the only Peruvian airline ceased operations. And with them, all direct flights between Lima and every airport in Brazil.
So, reasonably, I started a route from Lima to GRU and Lima to GIG. My competition started a flight from Lima to Brasilia. But they’re not being filled. Even though they’re on top of the ORS with a rating of 99. I don’t quite understand what’s going on. I have good connections, but even if I didn’t, direct demand from those airport pairs should exist to fill 100-seater airplanes. And it’s not happenning.
LIM-GIG is a flight between two 7 level passenger airports.
LIM-GRU is between 7 and 9.
Something similar is happening with BOG-GRU and SCL-GRU…
Help me understand, please, and let me know if there’s anything I could be doing better. Or if this is just how it’s going to be, so I stop the routes.
The most curious thing to me is that I had the same airline a few years ago and those routes where always full, no matter how much competition I had. I now have no competition, and the flights are not being filled. And APEX in Gatow is at normal levels (around 950)
I’m guessing that Peruvian and Colombian airlines can grab a lot of transfer passengers going from North to South America (which as a travel relation has fairly high demand), so they can fill their flights to Brazil, while you can’t, as you are dependent from direct demand between those countries only.
As I said, there are no Peruvian airlines, so that’s not the case. In Colombia, the airline based in BOG has gone out of business. Only flight between Colombia and Brazil are through another Colombian airline based in MDE. So flights GRU-BOG should be filling by direct demand alone.
@Nesherius I have same problem with server Limatambo. Airlines disappeared, I created there the new Hub where they have stopped (due to bankrupt due to the Fuel prices I guess), but I can’t get any feet on the ground. I was starting in Cincinatti (only cargo was offered at this time), then Cairo, then Auckland, then Belgrade and now in Dubai. Overall more or less the same. Any the community recommended to me all these great Hubs, but ORS seems that this can’t be handled. So, I can feel with you ,but have also no suggestions. I am trying to stay alive in Limatambo server.
Good Luck!
The main reason why you have only few pax is how demand is distributed over the flights.
The crucial point is not only the ORS rating, it’s the frequency. And here transfer flights come into place.
For direct flights the maximum ORS is 100 (only with certain aircrafts possible), for transfer flights 75. Though you are the only one that provides a direct flight, on older server there are usually thousands of transfer flights available - longer flights means usually more transfer flights available.
Here comes the frequency into place: Though you have the best rating, you have to share demand with all the transfer flights. For each of this transfer flights less pax will be allocated between those airports compared to your flights because of the ORS rating, but as there are so many it means a bad loadfactor for you.
What can you do?
Focus at the beginning on short haul domestic flights where you have no competition at all
It’s all obout connections at the beginning, build strong waves and provide more and more connections
Slowly increase the range of the flights you add
From Lima this means start with flights to the 2-4 bar domestic airports, maybe also to Bolivia. Then you can slowly start adding flights to Ecuador for example.
Keep in mind: Flights to bigger airports doesn’t automatically mean more passenger.
Thanks Jimmy! This is great advice and I think many will benefit from them! I do know all of that, since I’ve been playing AS long enough, and I do have those kind of flights already in place. I will keep my BOG and LIM routes for the time being while still adding more and more short-haul routes, and Bolivia soon.
We’ll see how it goes and report back here.
Thanks again!