There's no need for any airline to have that many. ATL only has 192 in the real world and those don't even all belong to Delta. What they need to do is fix the slot/gates structure. 

If you wanted to watch a video on the topic, this video right here is highly suggested. I put the time set at the point which is relevant to this topic, but you can watch the whole video too, because it is very interesting to watch.

https://youtu.be/thqbjA2DC-E?t=722

I think part of the reason is because it's very difficult to implement the five freedoms and beyond into the game. Basically that's why they have the open worlds which is completely unrestricted, so it's still a little different but it's the closest thing. Because of how the tickets are sold in the game mechanics and how the passengers buy the tickets, it'd be very difficult to implement this until they introduce selling specific connecting flights. However it should be possible to allow international flights from any EU country to a non-EU country with the current system, so I guess idk why that is. The only reason I can think of is to take power away from spamlines.

I think the issue is because real life aviation is much more complex than this game. Ryanair UK is a subsidiary of Ryanair, so it's essentially a different airline which allows them to operate flights like that. Same thing with TUI having subsidiaries in several EU countries which allows them to operate international flights to non-EU countries from that country. The only way to simulate this in the came currently is to have multiple airlines in the same world (when possible) and have them all apart of the same alliance to achieve those connecting passengers that you'd get in the real world. 

The oldest aircraft, at least for me, already show at the top of the list. By clicking on the "Age" column, you can change the order of aircraft in ascending or descending order based on age.

This would be helpful, but idk if there's room especially for those with three class aircraft on a lot of their routes even two class cabins. Maybe only showing economy demand would work and the only column they can really remove is the pin column because I don't know how many people actually use that feature. They could get rid of the distance feature it's not super helpful. Though it's fun to see your shortest and longest flights.

I think the best way for this to work would be that for example with Denver, an airline operating a hub at Stapleton won't want to move all their operations to the new airport. So either they're given an option to close their hub or move all their routes which could happen automatically though highly unlikely for a free game. The other option is that in 1995, the name of the airport changes along with number of gates and runway information. This would be much simpler and be enough to simulate the moving of routes from one airport to the next for airports that close with the opening of a new one. 

You can definitely do that. You just have to have multiple aircraft available when adding a route, so you can put each aircraft on the route for one or however many weekly flights each. Here is an example of one of my aircraft that is clearly based in Toronto that is scheduled on several once per week round trips.

Try buying thousands of used planes at once though. For that even clicking is too time-consuming; one needs a program.

Says the notorious spammer. A realistic fleet wouldn't need the ability to lease or buy that many planes since most airlines have 500 with the largest being 850.

I just right click them to open them in a new tab and just go through as quickly as I can. It's not too bad 

I suggested it before and it only helps the spam lines by allowing them to acquire aircraft even quicker before they have their mega funds and can just buy aircraft.

This is more for the realistic players, but I think the the IFS range categories need to be adjusted. In particular the 2501-5000 mile one because this includes a lot of routes where I think people would want different types of service. Meals on some, snacks on some. Also a lot of transcon flights tend to be in this category combined with longer haul flights where you want different services. 

I think maybe the ranges should be changed to"

0-500

501-1500

1501-2500

2501-3500

3501-5000 or 6000

5001 or 6001+

Most routes more than 5000 miles are gonna have long haul meal service or it can be 6000 instead. I know you can just manually do it every time you start a route, but this can be time consuming when updating the IFS. 

Another option is to attach the IFS to particular aircraft but that wouldn't necessarily work for domestic wide body flights. The other problem is sometimes for cities in the same range, I want different services just based on the city but that's generally fine to do manually. Maybe there should be an option to lock the inflight service on certain routes so it doesn't change when you do a general update.

With the IFE, I would like to see the ability to charge for separate functions rather than the system as a whole. So charge for WiFi and make the video, audio, flight tracker free or make the flight tracker free, the video/audio $5 and the WiFi $10 and even set it either as a set fee or per hour or something

I personally think this is not a good idea for spamliner reasons. 

 

100% disagree about 100 gate limit. I really enjoy building 200 gate terminals in DFW DEN and ATL and having a realistic airline. The thing that needs to be changed is how many slots a gate give you. 50 weekly slots for 7 days? thats only 7 daily departures, most airports can handle about 10-14 per day depending on the gate size. While no, I am not a spamliner, DISCLAMER: I am trying it out in R6 right now without significant results, but thats not what I am turning into, I promise. I do often flood the market of routes and lower prices, but not to spamliner levels.

I would disagree and say that most airlines operate at an average of 5-8 flights per gate. The problem is that both a CRJ200 and an A380 take up the same amount of a gate, in the real world, a crj could be at a gate for half an hour while an A380 is generally at a gate for 2 hours. The gates need to move away from slot based to a time based system. And have set turn around times for each aircraft type. But I do agree with you that sometimes 200 gates feels necessary to have a realistic number of routes and frequencies. United will have 90 gates at Denver after the gate expansion and really only have 5-6 flights per gate, some reaching 7-8, so I think a 100 gate limit is reasonable even with the current system despite my opinion on changing it to time based.

(edit) maybe only allow 200 gate terminals at hubs but then again I've seen airlines with 200 gates and a hub and some small airport (Chattanooga for example) but they only use 1 gate. It's completely and utterly ridiculous.

I think a really good feature that could improve the game is the ability to extend runways at airports with shorter runways to accommodate larger aircraft. I think it could have a cost that is similar to building a new terminal at an airport.

 

Let me know your thoughts. 

Absolutely no, this would only cater to spammers who would send A380s to small airports to create their artificial demand. And paired with the 200 gate terminals, that would be totally disastrous for people trying to play more realistically. I'd even say to decrease the gate limit at terminals to 100 mainly because I'm not sure of any airline with more than 100 gates at any singular airport. 

24 * 7 = 168 hours in a week. 50 slots/week/gate = 3.36 hours for a turnaround. That works for 747's and A380's, not so much for literally any other type of aircraft. I think that the gates should be changed to where each gate nets a certain number of hours per week instead of slots per week, and each flight takes up hours from a gate depending on an aircraft's turnaround time, being that a 747 would take up more hours than a CRJ200.

Although that's not how runways work irl and the gate slots are probably somehow related to the number of landing slots available at the airport.

It's really difficult to implement. Because slots used timetable to operate. AE doesn't have those timetable system, this would add lots of complexity and it would take lots of resources to implement in the game.

I was thinking less time based and more just the slots like we get 50 slots a gate, so instead of leasing one gate for 50 slots, you just lease the slots. It's still not super realistic but I don't think this game could every fully replicate the real world. But maybe the time based system could work because airplanes have 140 hours to use, so maybe it could be a similar system with the gates/slots. 

I was thinking because some airports have just a single gate that it's a race to whoever get's there first if anyone does. What if instead of leasing gates, we went to a slot system which is honestly closer to real life. This way an airport with fewer gates, especially ones with only 1 gate can get more flights and more competition. One airline could lease a single gate which is 50 slots right now but only use <=7 of those slots. Or even an airport with 3 gates could have 3 different airlines flying there, but again using less than 7 slots of their total 50. You could even apply this to international routes where a lot of the time an airline may only have 1 gate but uses 7 or fewer slots. Based on this, I think moving to a slot-lease system would be better than a gate-lease system. 

This also brings the idea of gate sharing either by alliance partners or just through common use airport gates. Maybe there could be a hybrid system where if an airport has more than X number of gates, airlines can lease the gates for themselves with while keeping an X' number of gates reserved for common use and then for airports with less than X number of gates, all their gates are common use and shared among all airlines flying to the airport. 

I like this, but I'd also push the A320ceo and 737ng into the later years as well so an airline could choose between CEOs and NEOs or 737NGs and 737MAXs

We're all part of an aviation university class.

I was wondering if that was the case after I Googled AIE 

Although closely aligned, Switzerland is not part of the EU.

That's not what I said, I said it was possible implement the ability for both French and Swiss airlines to operate out of Basel-Airport due to how the EU and other such flights work in the game.

I agree and honestly at times I'll never spend a penny on advertising until like the last year of the game and finish with 100% reputation, but also I usually have my reputation at 90% anyway. 

great idea don't let it go to your head

We had an update just 3 days ago, so I'm sure stuff will hopefully continue to be added. This is a very good idea, so it should be added to the game.

Thanks! I honestly didn't even know there was an update lol 

It's possible given that airlines in the EU are free to operate between two EU countries without stopping in their home country starting Jan 1, 2000 in the game. It would probably be something like this. After a certain year, both Swiss and French airlines can operate out of the airport. Like for Dallas Love Field and the Wright Amendment where the restriction lifts October 12, 2014 in the game.

I kind of wish there was a way to remove a terminal and go back to the standard leased gates without having to remove every flight and add it back. I know I'm probably the only one who has thought of this or even wants it to be a feature.

Another idea would be to lease more gates instead of expanding a terminal as this would be quicker due to less capital being required. Then maybe you could transfer flights using the terminal to leased gates and then demolish the terminal. Idk, this probably seems very stupid and I'll get responses like "wHy DiD yOu BuiLd ThE tErMiNaL iN tHe FiRsT pLaCe ThEn"

I think the concept of "pooling" unused hours makes the game more unrealistic.

 

If I understand correctly, 

 

AC#1 is deployed to fly only between points A<->B as many times as it can, but has 2 hours unused, which we'll assume is less than an A<->B trip

 

AC#2 is deployed to fly only between points C<->D as many times as it can, but has 3 hours unused.

 

So you want to combine that to 5 hours of flight time that you can use on AC#3 which may fly P<->Q, just because AC#1,AC#2, and AC#3 are the same type?

I think the idea of pooling would work as long as you maybe assign the aircraft a base. Let's say you have 5 aircraft of the same type based in city A, then you have an X amount of hours allocated to that aircraft type for city A. As you add flights out of city A using that aircraft type, the number hours in the pool goes down until you receive more aircraft and assign them to that base. This means that an aircraft could have a schedule like: A->B->A->C->A->D->A where it operates three round trips a day. It would free up that hassle of having to do this manually when you have enough aircraft hours to operate the flight(s), but the hours are spread across multiple aircraft. I don't think we could make it to the point where an aircraft could go: A->B->C->D->E->C->F I think it needs to be round trips to/from the assigned base. In the real world, especially in the US, an aircraft could be operating in/out of Chicago one week, then fly to Los Angeles and operate out of there for a few days, then fly over to Houston and operate out of there for a few days, and so on. I don't think the pooling would be that sophisticated, but rather only operate out of an assigned base as I mentioned earlier. An advanced programmer could make it so that the system would look at your entire network and the type of aircraft you've chosen to operate, the round trip block time and figure out the best flight schedule for each aircraft, but that's probably too much work for this free game.

However, I do agree that it would be better if there was different demand based on day of the week rather than a set number.

I know that there's probably never gonna be an update to this game, but I think it would be cool if BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) was added to the inflight entertainment. I suggest this only because more and more airlines are heading toward that, at least for domestic flying that is. This could also be a cheaper option for airlines trying to operate a LCC. 

Also in the realm of LCC and ULCC airlines, I think there needs to be a way to have ancillary fees for checked bags, carry-ons, seat selection, etc. These options would dramatically lower the rating, but also help you charge low prices on base fares and still make a profit. Right now the only ancillary fees that can be added are for food and entertainment. The only problem would be figuring out the variables on how many checked bags and carryon bags there would be as not every passenger has them. Though for simplicity, it could be that every pax has one checked bag and one carry-on. Also, for simplicity, it would have to be either no fee to select a seat or a fee to select a seat. I think it would be too difficult to code a mixture where some pax pay to select and others don't.

Edit: I would also suggest the ability to charge for WiFi, but not charge for the on demand music/video/flight tracker/etc. So you can have seat back on demand entertainment offered for free but wife costs like $10 or maybe you charge $5 for entertainment and $8 for WiFi