398 replies to this topic

[Slider]

The "route approval" functionality suggestion is solid. However it would need to be implemented in a simplistic form, such as it cost's $500K (yes, high...but the goal is to curb expansion by reducing enormous "war chests" of capital) to apply for route authority. After an airline applies for the route, it gets approval in like 1 month's time & pays an additional $500K @ "start-up". Also, if the route already has sufficient capacity---like an ORD-ATL in year 3 of a world---the request would be rejected & the airline would have to apply for a route that "needs" additional capacity. The effect of this might be that the airline applies for ORD-MSY & get's approval, however the profit generated would be less than ORD-ATL. Whatever can be done to curb the fantastical "war chests" is a positive.

 

I've started a few airlines, like Elevate in the most recently re-started "world" done well, but become bored w/ the just place an airplane on a route & even in the worst case scenario it is making money....so I have declared bankruptcy....going to "try" & stay engaged in one of the future worlds that is re-set.

[Aslakk]

I try to keep my airline in one "region" and thinking route network building in that area. But somthing I really miss here is the possibility to for a limitid time  to time lease my own planes out to charter traffic. In the real world its not only about routes but also charter activity.  So for exchampel maybe a travel operator could lease some of your planes from september to may flying well lets say OSL - RHO  . a very realistic thing in the real world.  these charter contracts coul be an offer for bidding, so the airline who offer the travel operator best price/value/aircaraft  will win the charter job.  btw  cargo flying could be an offer to similar system if there was cargo planes aviable/or cargo inflight system set ups aviable.

[Austin Chen]

^^ I like the sound of that idea.

[txaggie]

 If we have more realistic demand, ticket pricing

This. 

 

Demand is too much in and between many markets.

 

One thing being the game's database seemingly not differentiating between O&D and connecting passengers at many airports- which is artificially adding demand that's not there in real life.

 

For example, I'm looking at an airline right now that operates a massive trans-continental operation out of Columbus, Ohio. While it is perhaps plausible an airline could develop a hub at CMH and support some level of international traffic- it seems unlikely that there are 51 passengers a day looking for a flight between Columbus and Kolkata, India. And with 44 other hubs in a highly saturated USA, it seems unlikely this particular airline should be finding enough connecting passengers to have any sort of hub operation from Columbus, Ohio.

 

Perhaps the more egregious hub is the one at Grand Rapids- there's actually 2 more airlines running fairly substantial but non hub operations out of GRR, too. 2 flights a week to Tunis, Tunisia? Really? 5 combined flights a week to Moscow's 3 airports? Seriously?

 

Demand seems to be scaled wrong, allowing airlines to become too large in too many markets. 

 

 

Tickets prices are arguably too high at first, allowing for airlines to really blow the doors to expansion open very, very quickly.

[txaggie]

 

[mikeorchard]

I've only been playing in the S4 world for... a day, but already I'm the biggest airline and my hub airport has grown massively.

 

How to stop this? A cap on flights/passengers/aircraft movements per airport of course! An airport should take decades to grow from 24 million to 54 million, not less than a year.

 

Also, echoing what someone else mentioned, anti trust and monopoly commissions. Whilst fortress hubs are realistic, no airline should be able to dominate the way I have in 24 hours. As for how you'd implement that I'm not sure.

 

I feel reputation should be more meaningful and fleshed out also. It appears to have very little impact on the game as it is, but if it did, if the IFE and IFS mattered to passengers and made a difference to the number that chose to fly with you, then managing that and staying up to date would take away some of the grind of simply pressing the new route button.

 

But as I said, this is from a total newcomers perspective. I'm not sure what is planned for v 4.0.

[Superman]

Mikeorchard, well you're playing in the sandbox world its really easy to make a mega airline in that world...

[Hillary Clinton]

The Problem About The Constant Expansion is that you continue to grow. The delivery slots are on your airline and you don't need to fight for the slots because you get aircraft at the same time. Personally, I hope to see more realistic slots. In Fact, limiting the leasing slots. For example, Leasing Company X Buys 200 Aircraft. After that they are being offered to the customers. You book that slots then you receive it. Its kinda similar to real life ones. When Leasing Companies Buy Aircraft they offer the aircrafts to customer and they choose what they want to have. And For the Delivery Time, You should expect something more realistic such as ramp up production as well as the problems like strikes that caused the aircraft delivery halted. I think that by making the aircraft delivering, ordering and leasing system more realistic will make the game more attractive. Also for the terminal, The problem we have is that are building a lot of terminals and therefore, to solve this, adding sessions for time to build terminal and gates so we can slowly expand.  Also, I experience some more problems with the alliance. I see the alliance doesn't help with anything at all. Even Though theres the blue little color and routes but it dont add you profits. It just improve your load factor. I think we should have something like codeshare agreements instead. Thats because, some airline like my airline dont really like to see the alliance taking away profits  !!!

[mxax-ai]

The Problem About The Constant Expansion is that you continue to grow. The delivery slots are on your airline and you don't need to fight for the slots because you get aircraft at the same time. Personally, I hope to see more realistic slots. In Fact, limiting the leasing slots. For example, Leasing Company X Buys 200 Aircraft. After that they are being offered to the customers. You book that slots then you receive it. Its kinda similar to real life ones. When Leasing Companies Buy Aircraft they offer the aircrafts to customer and they choose what they want to have. And For the Delivery Time, You should expect something more realistic such as ramp up production as well as the problems like strikes that caused the aircraft delivery halted. I think that by making the aircraft delivering, ordering and leasing system more realistic will make the game more attractive.

Thing with that is, that an already big airline can buy up all the slots and make it impossible for its competitors or newcomers to expand by any means.

[Hillary Clinton]

If your saying big airlines, You should look at the aircraft. Everything forms up a big airline. Without Planes Slots you don't make routes. Without Routes you cant have gates. We should also add the routes competition system in USA. You need to apply for routes so that too much or impossible competition can be halted. 

[mikeorchard]

Mikeorchard, well you're playing in the sandbox world its really easy to make a mega airline in that world...

 

Hence why I said...

 

Are the other world's much different mechanically though? From what I've read there's just as many mega airlines in those?

[ar157]

Hence why I said...

 

Are the other world's much different mechanically though? From what I've read there's just as many mega airlines in those?

The 2 main differences being that you have 100 million starting cash making it much much easier in the initial start up and the fact that the people who run spam lines in the worlds which aren't S4 are generally more seasoned players.

[Superman]

^what he said

[mikeorchard]

The 2 main differences being that you have 100 million starting cash making it much much easier in the initial start up and the fact that the people who run spam lines in the worlds which aren't S4 are generally more seasoned players.

 

Neither of which appears to make much difference to constant expansion, hence the existence of this thread and thus my points remain valid. None of the points I made in my original post in this thread were solely limited to the S4 world, other people in this thread have made them.

[Pineair]

An airline with 1,000 plus planes isn't the problem. It is the fact that some airlines never replace any aircraft and, for example end up with 100 forty year old tridents yet, if they match the price of an airline with modern, more comfortable and more economic aircraft are seen as equally attractive to customers. Perhaps there needs to be a way of enforced retirement of aircraft that no longer meet noise and safety requirements.

The current rules do not sufficiently penalise badly run airlines.

[Superman]

 for example end up with 100 forty year old tridents yet, if they match the price of an airline with modern, more comfortable and more economic aircraft are seen as equally attractive to customers. 

 Sounds like someone I know

[Slider]

The solution is that no solution exists. This is fantasy world not real world. Charter? Cargo? Noise Abatement? IFE? Everybody want's something. What about competitive bidding from various Tailors for crew uniforms, I want that  !!!

 

As for the free market comment & how regulation was abolished---@ the time of deregulation 300+ entities weren't given a plane & $7.5 in capital w/ access to $15 mil more via bonds. The way to add realism is a foundation in basics---Labor & Fuel. It would certainly be realistic to get burned badly---$100's millions on a poor fuel hedge---or slash wages & end up w/ a strike that halts the airline, followed by either the huge cost of settling the strike or hiring all new employees & training them.

 

Regulation no longer exists, & deregulation w/ dozens upon dozens of airlines doesn't exist (the point was to increase competition)----instead in the US, we got 3 mega airlines due to consolidation & Southwest who has been forced to break their "mold" & buy another airline fly to LGA, DCA, ATL, and some fringe carriers like Alaska & Jet Blue---what is that in total in the US 10-12 airlines? In AE w/ 300 users how can't it be regulated to some degree---The reason that "slots" exist is so that no one airline can monopolize an airport...& when a merger takes place, prime slots are usually coughed up...isn't a "slot" regulation, so regulation does actually exist in the "real world"----how about an airline wanting to start flights from San Antonio to LHR nonstop, any "regulation" gonna be a problem?

[jrodneyfranks]

What about more realistic bankruptcy proceedings? Instead of just disappearing with aircraft going directly to the used aircraft market the user is allowed to reorganize under some circumstances. Maybe a bankruptcy oversight panel, of 3-5 players, to determine if the line can be salvaged. If it can the user agrees to their restructuring and carries on in the game with say a 7 year credit penalty. It may be very helpful for new users who are most likely to go bankrupt and provide advice, from the panel, to someone trying to run a rough route. 

 

In the event the airline cannot be salvaged, the panel takes bids from multiple players and divides it amongst them, with each airline paying a fair share of the bankrupt line's debts. These are not perfect, but may be doable at some point in the future.

 

I agree in reducing the number of flights at small airports. At the beginning of a world perhaps make the operator decide the business model (point to point or spoke and hub) with pros and cons to each. Examples of the pros and cons would be reduced travel times and boost in popularity for point to point or reduction of maintenance costs and turn times for spoke and hub. 

[Hillary Clinton]

What about more realistic bankruptcy proceedings? Instead of just disappearing with aircraft going directly to the used aircraft market the user is allowed to reorganize under some circumstances. Maybe a bankruptcy oversight panel, of 3-5 players, to determine if the line can be salvaged. If it can the user agrees to their restructuring and carries on in the game with say a 7 year credit penalty. It may be very helpful for new users who are most likely to go bankrupt and provide advice, from the panel, to someone trying to run a rough route. 

 

In the event the airline cannot be salvaged, the panel takes bids from multiple players and divides it amongst them, with each airline paying a fair share of the bankrupt line's debts. These are not perfect, but may be doable at some point in the future.

 

I agree in reducing the number of flights at small airports. At the beginning of a world perhaps make the operator decide the business model (point to point or spoke and hub) with pros and cons to each. Examples of the pros and cons would be reduced travel times and boost in popularity for point to point or reduction of maintenance costs and turn times for spoke and hub. 

 

I agree with this. So when we declared as bankruptcy, we will stay in the point where we can't spend on anything and keep cutting the cost. Maybe we can add in like loan garuntee. I think this will give better chance for the airlines to stay alive in fact might become stronger.

[Hillary Clinton]

What about more realistic bankruptcy proceedings? Instead of just disappearing with aircraft going directly to the used aircraft market the user is allowed to reorganize under some circumstances. Maybe a bankruptcy oversight panel, of 3-5 players, to determine if the line can be salvaged. If it can the user agrees to their restructuring and carries on in the game with say a 7 year credit penalty. It may be very helpful for new users who are most likely to go bankrupt and provide advice, from the panel, to someone trying to run a rough route. 

 

In the event the airline cannot be salvaged, the panel takes bids from multiple players and divides it amongst them, with each airline paying a fair share of the bankrupt line's debts. These are not perfect, but may be doable at some point in the future.

 

I agree in reducing the number of flights at small airports. At the beginning of a world perhaps make the operator decide the business model (point to point or spoke and hub) with pros and cons to each. Examples of the pros and cons would be reduced travel times and boost in popularity for point to point or reduction of maintenance costs and turn times for spoke and hub. 

 

I agree with this. So when we declared as bankruptcy, we will stay in the point where we can't spend on anything and keep cutting the cost. Maybe we can add in like loan garuntee. I think this will give better chance for the airlines to stay alive in fact might become stronger.

 

"We should also add the routes competition system in USA. You need to apply for routes so that too much or impossible competition can be halted. "

This was phased out by the 1980s.

 

I take issue with forced retirement of old aircraft; In some more remote regions and in cargo service, or indeed charter too, older planes still see service. Old jets should probably be less economical to use then they are at the moment so operating one on a trunk-route is a bad idea; but on a route with no other competitors, i take no issue with a 60 year old 737-100 flying it. [Or a 80 year old CL-44, if it's pretending to be a cargo airline]  D:

 

Plus to the passenger, I'm sure there's not a huge difference between a Delta DC-9 and a Delta MD-80.

 

Well How About When it comes to the merger? In any case, airlines in RL makes gates and hub swapping when they merge or sometime being asked to sell off the terminal to an airline. For Example, When TWA was ending or ceasing operations, it sell off alot of hubs and gates to give themselves more money to operate. As well as the merger of an airline when the court tells the airline that it need to giveoff the gates in an airport.