Will there be an update regarding connecting times with US airports.
These connection times for ‘Domestic Connections’ are sometimes more than 3x more than what US Airlines Publish:
United Airlines doesn’t state directly connection times, (and trying to reach an actual human over the phone was nay impossible) but they state for a Domestic Flight you must be at the gate 15 Minutes before the flight.
Delta, (airline sim only allows 2 links for new users), has the transfer time broken down from Domestic with Bags and Not with bags. And using their busiest airport (ATL) with bags it is 45 minutes and without bags 30 minutes.
These airlines provide realistic (Is it the actual reality?) transfer times, why doesn’t the game update these transfer times?
I know there are IrOPS etc, but that is when a passenger uses their app to see their new flight, or go to a CSR gate agent. But for the vast majority of the time flights run smoothly and shorter connecting times are doable but more importantly needed in this game, OH YEAH!
Airlinesim does not support different connection times between international and domestic flights, and it is complex to add this even if you wanted to. I don’t necessarily see any benefit in it either.
Thank you all for replying and offering your suggestions.
My main query was will the connection times ever be update as technology advances with how bags (I don’t do bulk cargo) and people are moved within airports, the times currently being used are dated and I think should be shortened.
I think my placement here in the General Boards was not the best idea but rather should have been posted in the suggestion and ideas board. Maybe a kind moderator could fix that for me?
Everything relies on available data (and some in-game balancing). An MCT used/published in general by an airline does not mean that this is achieved at a particular airport (for all airlines).
I did a quick MCT search with ExpertFlyer.com on Top 31 busiest US airports
times are general times to a different airline (if there is a difference) D/D D/I I/D I/I and (ingame for reference)
So I think large US-airports are in general not that far off ingame in both directions, at least for longest timeframe on non domestic only flights. Maybe Martin can/will adjust this on new servers if he finds the time.
Connections times are one of those areas where AirlineSim’s project age really shows: Those times were researched/defined very early on in AS’ history, so they are likely close to 20 years old. Over those 20 years, a lot of things have changed. For example, if I remember correctly, e-tickets weren’t something that had been rolled out everywhere yet at that time. Similarly, there have been a lot of tech developments across all areas of ground operation (including things like immigration/border control) that allow faster transfers today. Last but not least, I figure that a general push for efficiency (by LCCs and ULCCs) has also caused classic network carriers to optimise their processes, indirectly affecting connection times at large.
I think for AS, this doesn’t really matter all that much. MCTs are the same for all players and they are currently tied to our (quite arbitrarily defined) airport sizes. The latter will almost certainly require some sort of review over the coming years and if we ever touch transfer times as part of this review (or otherwise), I’d base them on the actual influencing factors if possible (which, I’ afraid, would be a tricky thing to research at scale).
What bothers me much more than transfer times are turnaround times, as it’s something airlines in reality actually have a lot of control over and which is a crucial to their respective business models. I’d rather focus on that general area
Thank you so much for providing this data it was fascinating to read. I could live with it, wish there was an option to push the connection through with shorter connection times, and if there are IrOPS then the airline pays the penalty.
Thank you for providing a great suggestion. I have been reading your past posts from years ago to current and you seem to be a founding member here on the boards and a great player. I do have a few questions regarding some of the fundamentals of the game and would like to know if it is ok to message you privately.
Thanks again for your helpful suggestion in this and other threads.
Martin thank you for answering my query and thinking about what controls that airlines have in real life to be added to the game, even though they seem to be very complicated to add.
Hi Martin, just a couple thoughts from a player here. I really hope there’s a way to define the turnaround time instead of choosing among the various cargo loading options that is ‘no bulk’, ‘no cargo’, and so on. So if I have 60 minutes on the ground and it would take 80 minutes to load all the ULDs and the bulk cargos. And let’s say the ‘no bulk’ option takes 40 minutes. Then I would like to load up some bulk cargo. I know that it must be more complicated to actually implement this, but just wanted to throw it out there.
We haven’t properly planned/designed anything of that sort yet, but my hope was and is that we will tackle this problem once we have managed to integrate booking classes into current-gen AirlineSim.
My line of thought is this: With booking classes, you can separate a physical cabin (like a single mixed eco+business cabin on short-/medium-haul) into logical booking classes, so there has to be a way to define the desired sizes of those classes. One should be able to apply the same logic to cargo. Bulk and containers are basically the equivalent of physical cabins, and making those available for booking via flexible booking classes should solve the problem as I’d expect the same or very similar tools to be available as for pax classes.
That said, there’s one big disclaimer: Cargo, in reality, works quite a bit differently from pax traffic. And I am not ruling out that we might go for a completely different model here. But that’s more of an “AirlineSim 2” option, which currently isn’t really on the table (we’re focusing on AS 1 and getting as much ASTD stuff into it as possible).
But isn’t “MCT” also a bit misleading because the flight times are computed from take-off to landing? I.e. they don’t take into account taxi and holding times, right?
