For AE 4:
I'm thinking we should separate the concept of ticket sales and actual flights operated. Say if an airline operates ORD-LAX, ORD-JFK, and ORD-SFO, he can choose which tickets to sell (LAX-JFK via ORD, SFO-JFK via ORD, etc). Passengers wanting to fly LAX-JFK would choose among all possible itineraries (LAX-JFK nonstop, LAX-ORD-JFK, etc) instead of actual flights.
This system has several advantages:
1) It easily facilitates a realistic connecting passenger model. Currently all demand is O&D, and connecting pax are generated based on hub traffic. Under the proposed system, the connecting pax would be real pax taking costs and flight times into account. Airlines flying LAX-DFW-JFK would compete for LAX-JFK passengers as well.
2) It allows for more flexible routings and stopovers. For example, if an aircraft doesn't have enough range to fly DFW-PVG, you can fly DFW-NRT and NRT-PVG and only sell tickets on DFW-PVG.
This sounds like a lot more micromanagement, but you would be able to choose default "rules" for new routes - sell tickets corresponding to flights only (no connecting pax), sell tickets on all possible itineraries (within timetable constraints), etc.
Comments, suggestions?
Sorry for the late comment but I would like to leave my comment too
The idea is pretty good, but:
HUBs: connecting passengers will be allowed on "hubs only" I suppose, right?
STOPOVERS: this could be a good stopover solution, but what about right traffics.... you need to fix them as well... if you want to run a LHR-SIN-SYD and you are based in UK you would need to step up a hub in SIN and have traffic rights for opening the SIN-SYD leg (even if not selling the tkts...) that is not possible with actual system
... but of course you can fix it all, boss
So if route AAA-BBB has a daily demand of 100 pax and BBB-CCC has 100 as well, if you set up a AAA-CCC fare for which there is demand of 50 (and you get them all, without competitors) your routes AAA-BBB and BBB-CCC should step up at 150 each. this means that as you offer more and more destinations your "already existing flights" needs to be increased in frequency as well, that is of course more realistic.
Now let's see the hard side.... I guess it could be complicated to build up the tkt fares on a big network....
Let's make an example:
You have 100 routes and you add 1 more you could be willing to add... let's say, realisically .... 60 fares....
if you put in line a new plane and open 6 new routes you need to add 6*60= 360 fares... tha't quite a job
But definitively is a great idea, and we could say a more real route developement in AE, less point to point and more hub. But we need to increase costs somewere to balance this...
Regarding the comments on more small words I would say that dimensions of 300 airlines (as R5) are good...