Airline Club

Hi everyone! I'm new to the Sim and do absolutely love it! Thanks to patson for the great concept and work behind it and everyone else who contributed to it!
(I started to contribute my very little part by submitting missing city numbers in bluesky's "Missing Cities" online sheet)

There are however some aspects, that are not yet very clear to me. I've read quite a lot and also searched the forum, but there is not for everthing a description. That's why I started this thread, someone else might will find it useful too. Now, let's get to my points:

- Headquarter/Bases: There's the possibility to up(/down)grade the HQ and the bases. What is it exactly good for? What I've read is, that it increases the number of slots available. Is that all? Or are there other benefits of upgrading? From what I've understood, the scale of the HQ/base does not influence the number of domestic/regional routes, they can be increased (only?) by building more bases, right? Also, do we know what HQ/base scale numbers mean, i.e. is the jump from 1 to 2 the same as from 2 to 3, or is it proportional/exponential?

- Delays/cancellations: I've read they are only influenced by the condition (%) of my planes. Is that really all? When looking at the departures tables I have the impression that my airline is affected more often than most other airlines. But currently all my planes have a condition of within 75-95%. Would that mean, that most airlines have on average a better condition of their fleet? Or are there other factors influencing delays? Or maybe just my perception is wrong.

- Auto airplane renewal: I think I got it from searching the forum, but just to be clear: This has nothing to do with maintainance for exisiting planes, but it does automatize the replacement of planes whose condidtion falls under the set threshold, right? So it is an option for those with big fleets or no time. If I think I can handle my fleet "manually" then I can ignore this function, right?

- Fall in demand when changing frequency: Not really a question, but an observation I made: I have the impression that almost always when I change the frequency of a route (increase AND decrease), my passenger numbers fall in the following 1-3 weeks. Is that just me, or has anybody else observed that? Is it deliberate? In case of a decrease I could understand it, as that may make passengers worry about whether that route is going to be shut in the future, but in case of an increase of flights it doesn't make any sense to me.

So long,
CEO TransAfrican

Tahnk you very much for your answers! Glad that I had understood most of the things correct.

One additional question: What do you mean by RNG (concerning delays)?

Concerning adding cities I'll just occasionally add something when I find time - so I'm not sure if there'll be a "done"

Just something to add

- Base scale is also one of the criteria to determine whether an airline can build a lounge (also ridership ranking) and the level of the lounge
- The demand of a route - i assume you refer to how likely a virtual pax will travel with your route - increasing frequency in general would make ur route more appealing - so i would expect a bit more pax (unless it was already at very high frequency before the change, ie 14+ i think), LF could be lower simply because the increased capacity (harder to fill all seats). Lowering frequency on the other hand would make the route less appealing, the impact would be more pronounced if it was reduced from a already low frequency (like 5 times a week to 3 times a week)

I never knew that the frequency is affecting how appealing a route is :O

It also gives different effects according to situations.

For connection flights if either the transit flight has high frequency then it's fine (cause passenger can adjust the schedule to avoid long layover)
However in general passengers do want more frequency flights (cause that fits schedule better) - except for budge traveler. For "swift" traveler, frequency is extremely important

Great that some others can benefits from this thread and thanks for the additional input patson!

Another field on which I'd like to have some clarifications is country market openness. From what I understand it is the choice of the HQ that decides for all my routes on what connection possibilities there will be.
1. So is it irrelevant what the openness of my destination country is (except of course it is closed completely), I will keep the possibilities of my HQ-country?
2. If my HQ is in an open market 7+, will I have those 7+-rights for all my bases, even if I open e.g. a base in a country with openness 5, or just for all the flights out of bases in 7+ countries?
3. An airline that operates out of a country with openness 0-3, where foreign airlines cannot build bases, does it have the right to build bases abroad? If yes, in all countries?

Yes, thanks, this helps! Good to see that for each route it's the departure and arrival airport that counts and not the HQ.

So these are the country openness thresholds:
- Sixth freedom: YES 7+ <-> 6- NO
- Open bases: YES 4+ <-> 3- NO
- Flights to: YES 2+ <-> 1- NO

With exceptions due to friendly or hostile country relations.