46 replies to this topic

[berubium]

I'd rather see a world with 500 airlines with a nice mix of small & medium sized airlines & just a few biggies than a world with 100 mega-sized airlines with one weekly frequency in a jumbo jet from their hub to every nook & cranny of the globe...

The suggestion of limiting aircraft production is a very good one. There should definitely be a significant pool of used aircraft to choose from at the beginning of the game to make up for the slow production of new planes. If Airbus & Boeing can only produce 500 planes each a year, we could limit that to say 1500 each & it would still have a significant impacting change to the game. With fewer planes from each type available, perhaps some players would choose to build a commuter airline instead with smaller more readily-available aircraft & actually form meaningful strategic alliances to create connections. Maybe more airlines would look into operating Russian planes since fewer Airbuses & Boeings are available.

I guess this is straying a bit from the topic of demand, but my first sentence criticizing the jumbo jets flying from point a to timbuktu once per week kinda speaks to it a little.

[Sheepy]

The limits are way too high. Should be 100 airlines per world.

If you're prepared to pay the considerable (five times larger) server fees...

Also, in reply to the person above me, if order levels reached those present in AE, then more lines would be opened. I am however in favour of a longer production queue. Additionally, although it may seem 'good' for more Russian planes to be made, only 12 or so IL-96s were made anyway...

[Moldova96]

Think in the real world there are 1,000s of airlines globally, just beacuse a lot of people base in the US, Europe and Asia does not mean you can't get a niche airline in Africa, Central Asia, Oceania.

[9M-TKS]

The limits are way too high. Should be 100 airlines per world.

then there'll be too little competition

[Mr Tree]

It's what Sheepy pointed out that will keep it from happening. Yuxi sure isn't getting rich right now, and how many of us use adblock?http://www.catswhobl...locking-adblock

[polarscribe]

"Too little competition" is a feature, not a bug.

The fun part of Airline Empires is opening up routes and building an airline, not endlessly clicking through to change prices on routes by a dollar or two. That's FarmVille crap and it's what turned me off Airline Mogul after being a longtime player there. You go away for a couple hours and your entire airline is losing money because 10 people open a hub atop you and there's 80x 767s flying (to pick a random city pair) DFW-ORD.

In the real world, you couldn't have 10 airlines open a hub in the same city. It wouldn't work. Everyone in all these games wants to run hubs in the same places, ergo you end up with the games sputtering out into "who can spend the most time clicking to change route pricing."

Fewer airlines = more fun, less stupid.

[Sheepy]

Competition is expected, and it's quite easily managed if you stick to a fleet of under 500 aircraft, which is really plenty. The only real places with issues are ATL, LAX, LHR and JFK.

[QK Flight Industries]

This is all very nice and all, but what I think would really improve is putting a limit on number of airlines allowed to declare HQ, hubs, and build terminals at airports. Say 5 airlines create hubs at a certain airport. Limit 3 for hubs, 2 for build terminals. Even if we doubled those numbers (10/6/4) that would greatly improve areas with great popularity. At the beginning, I used to operate from LAX (SoCaler typing here) myself but gave up since there was way too many airlines already in and I flunked too easily. Now, if I were forced to start somewhere else, it would have made it easier and also spread out competition.

Just some thoughts...

[polarscribe]

That's why I opened my airline's hubs in places like SMF, SAN, MSY, etc. But they're getting crowded, too.

Something needs to be done to slow things down... maybe it's not fewer airlines, but fewer planes, as the aim suggests. Maybe once your airline reaches a certain point in size, you run into regulatory hurdles, antitrust, etc.

[berubium]

Also, in reply to the person above me, if order levels reached those present in AE, then more lines would be opened. I am however in favour of a longer production queue. Additionally, although it may seem 'good' for more Russian planes to be made, only 12 or so IL-96s were made anyway...

That is a good point. A longer production queue seems like it would be a pretty good compromise.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the russian planes myself, but I could see airlines choosing them if they're looking to grow faster & all their Boeing & Airbus production slots are full...

I think QuoraKlamath's suggestion should be considered as well. That also kinda ties in to earlier suggestions (in a different thread) to limit terminal construction at many airports because of the lack of real-life available space...

[polarscribe]

Thinking about this, I think what should be done is establish limits on the number of hubs and tighten the limit on gates at non-hubs. In the real world, any airline getting so big as to attempt to run a hub in every major city of the US would run into major obstacles based on antitrust and fair competition laws, not to mention gate space and runway availability.

No airline could run more than 10 hubs, say, and no more than 7 on any one continent. It would force players to plan their expansions instead of going willy-nilly everywhere. First movers would still have an advantage, but couldn't ruin the game by basically taking over every route and city.

No more than 5 gates would be allowed at a non-hub city. I have been to most of the largest airports in America and have never seen a 15-gate outstation for any airline anywhere.

Of course, there would always be Open Worlds for people who don't want to play with semi-realistic restrictions.

[pseudoswede]

Thinking about this, I think what should be done is establish limits on the number of hubs and tighten the limit on gates at non-hubs. In the real world, any airline getting so big as to attempt to run a hub in every major city of the US would run into major obstacles based on antitrust and fair competition laws, not to mention gate space and runway availability.

I do agree on this. There should be a limit on the number of hubs an airline can have. Five hubs (with the ability to add unlimited number of gates) and maybe five focus cities (ability to have up to 20 gates) would be nice.

[BritAbroad]

I agree with smaller numbers of gates at non-hubs, and the introduction of focus cities. Not sure I agree with putting a cap on the number of hubs....

[Sheepy]

I am assuming you would still be able to build a terminal at a non-hubbed city if this happened?

[polarscribe]

Yes, but you would still be limited to the capped number of gates for a non-hub city. Otherwise, you could effectively build a hub-sized operation without technically making it a hub, skirting the intent of the restriction. The advantage of building a terminal would be saving on gate fees.

[polarscribe]

Double.

[polarscribe]

Again refining my idea... don't put a hard limit on the number of hubs, but limit the number of hubs per continent to somewhere between 7-10. If an airline wants to get supermega, they can, but they have to do it by broadening global reach, not dominating every single potential hubsite in a country/region.

[Feerspoir]

I normally operate low-cost airlines with no hubs, just bases (i.e. no connection passengers, just terminals to save on fees), trying to mimic real world low-cost airlines.
With your proposed models, it would be impossible for me to expand into something like Ryanair, for example.

I do agree with the longer production/delivery queue for airplanes. I think this is a must to curb the current too fast expansion speed. That and higher fees and taxes should put the expansion speed at a semi-realistic speed.

Edit: The 2nd hand market needs to be refined a.s.a.p. It's just silly to buy a 20 year old aircraft for the same price as a new one just because it's the only one in the market. I know you can just rent it and then buy it, thus paying the "realistic price", but if you want to buy say 20 at once, it gets too time consuming.

Edit2: Concerning demand - domestic demand needs to be much higher (maybe just using the formula "normally calculated demand x 2" for domestic routes?)

[polarscribe]

The idea that low-cost airlines don't have "hubs" is a fantasy anymore. They may not call them that, but passengers certainly can and do make connections at such sites. Furthermore, call it a "hub," call it a "base," it's still a large operation to maintain that costs a significant amount of money no matter what name you put on it. Running 15 gates and hundreds of flights is not slightly more complex than a 2-gate outstation, it's hugely more complex. Airline Empires should reflect that fact.

The vaunted "point-to-point" of Southwest Airlines is now about 30 percent connecting traffic, and more than that at places such as Chicago-Midway, Phoenix and St. Louis.

And I'm open to tweaking the number of non-hub gates allowed. Maybe it's 7, not 5. That gets you 50 flights a day, and I daresay there's hardly any airline in the world that has a single outstation receiving 50 flights a day. Southwest's 10th-busiest station only serves 100 departures.

[Sheepy]

The thing is, if we limit the number of hubs and the number of gates at non-hubs, we end up with airlines operating 1x weekly A380s everywhere. It would be better off if an unlimited size terminal be possible. Maybe we could increase the benefits of hubs, so that a larger hub is more appealing, however, we shouldn't limit an airline's ability to expand in a certain city.