Need some advice on strategy

Hi!

 

I've been playing a little over a week.  And, I'm trying to understand the purpose, if any, of hubs.  Now, I understand their real-world use, and I understand that in the game, they offer some bumps to passenger throughput, but I'm not seeing where it's all that much to speak of.

 

 

For example:

 

STL to ORD shows 833 passengers

STL to SDF (louisville) shows 198 passengers

ORD to SDF shows 335 passengers

 

If I had STL set up as a hub with routes to ORD and SDF, I'd expect to see some of those 335 passengers that want to go from ORD to SDF to take the flight to STL.  Those 198 passengers from SDF to STL would start to nudge up, to, say, 220 passengers.

 

 

I don't think I'm seeing that.  I do see the "blue" passengers, but it seems they are more of a penalty on the 198 passengers I'm moving already than they are an increase in volume.

 

 

Am I wrong here?  (That's totally possible....I may have done the math incorrectly.)  Have I, perhaps, not given it enough time to make a difference?

 

 

Thanks very much!

Connecting (read: blue) pax only pay 50% fare on routes they're on.

Connecting (read: blue) pax only pay 50% fare on routes they're on.

Agreed.  So, what it looks like to me is that, by opening a hub, you're just lowering your profits.  I say this because, it seems  the "blue" passengers are just taken from my already existing full price passengers.

Not necessarily. If you run enough routes out of a hub eventually you can use connecting pax to shore up low demand routes and boost frequencies.

Personally I've seen a guy run a huge ass global hub out of some flyover town in bum**** middle of nowhere.

I was testing this in the sandbox, and I'm not seeing any throughput of blue passengers in my hub after 6 weeks.  However, someone has gone and put an airline between some of my spokes.

 

I did note that demand between my hub and it's routes has dropped by over 100/day.

Opening hubs has the effect of creating a generating process in which connecting passengers build up - ie, in the early stage of the game, when hardly anyone has hubs, you will not immediately see a benefit.  But as the game months and game years pass, you will be able to fly increasing numbers of connecting passengers and thus fly greater numbers of that passenger type.

 

Also as time goes by, you can possibly charge greater prices and the passengers will pay it.

 

If you have a lot of hubs, and make a point of flying hub-to-hub whenever possible, the number of connecting passengers from all those routes multiplies, which meansyou can revisit old routes and put more flights so as to capture those connecting passengers waiting in the wings, so to speak.

 

Hence the reason why hubs are so valuable.

TMairliner, i am playing in sandbox S4B as Leerjet air and have over 50 hubs already.

 

It's slow going at first, especially in the earliest stages of the game.

 

As you fly more routes/more flights on a route, the number of connecting passengers slowly accumulates and builds over time.

 

Hence to take full advantage of hubs, revisit those routes periodically and keep pushing the boundaries.

TMairliner, i am playing in sandbox S4B as Leerjet air and have over 50 hubs already.

 

It's slow going at first, especially in the earliest stages of the game.

 

As you fly more routes/more flights on a route, the number of connecting passengers slowly accumulates and builds over time.

 

Hence to take full advantage of hubs, revisit those routes periodically and keep pushing the boundaries.

 

Thanks Book Siberia!  

 

I think I had in my mind that you're limited in hubs to just a couple.  I'll re-think what I'm doing.

Really so long as your planes (not necessarily individual routes) are making money you'll be fine.

For example: say I fly JFK-LHR and the average ticket price is $69. I'll throw 21x weekly flights with 21 different aircraft on that route which is destined to be a huge loss. But I'll offset those losses by routing those planes through profitable routes.

Hubs will help put butts in seats through connecting pax. Basically the more destinations the more connecting pax.