The next release is scheduled for Friday Nov 30!
QA server:
https://ec2-18-219-62-16.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com/Quick Summary:1. In general there will be boost on passenger demand around the globe. But it will be more obvious for lower income countries especially for the domestic routes. To put into perspective, a domestic route in India might experience 7-8 times the current pax demand, while countries closer to medium income such as Brazil might see around 20% boost.
2. It will be in general asier to make money if the route has no competition. The default suggested price has been increased by 50%. Take note that for highly contested routes, this change might not make much difference (but it will be easier for new airlines due to default pricing)
3. There are more varieties of passengers now - they all have different focuses. No more one size fits all! (unless with aggressive pricing and near perfect services)
4. Added a passenger composition popup so you can inspect different compositions of your passenger for a particular route (country, business/tourist, flight preference etc)
5. Alliance member limit has been adjusted from 10 - 12. Top 10 alliance will give some extra boost now (instead of top 5)
6. Champion in big countries is now easier with top 10 airlines receiving bonus points - Rank #2 - #10 have been adjusted slightly upward. Smaller market only offers bonus to top 5 as before
7. Extra UI Update to make inspecting alliance/rival champion points easier
Now if you want to read the details, please continue on:
Passenger ModelThe existing passenger model is already pretty good at "route finding" and reacts to pricing change. However there are several shortcomings:1. Pricing and quality has a rather "flat" relationship. Such as increasing quality by X warrants a ticket price increase of Y without losing PAX in almost all routes.
2. All countries have same expectation on service quality
3. It's almost always good to just max out on per route service level
4. The passenger model mainly divides into 2 group : 1. Budget conscious - passengers that ONLY care about pricing and nothing else and 2. Passengers that care little bit about everything (there's also a sub category that requires lounges). This is rather plain, and also the budget conscious group actually almost never traveled as they expect a really low price
5. Airlines have very little idea on the composition of the passengers - hence lacking information to further improve the route
6. There seems to be golden "ratio" of everything, like company wide service level at X, airplane renew at Y and pricing Z% from the default suggested price. Rather, we should promote different play style and strategy based on the game condition/market
7. Low income countries have unreasonably low demand and almost not playable
In order to address the concerns above:1. Flight quality and pricing no longer have "flat" correlation. In fact, extremely high quality flight might not have be as effective to passengers which expect modest service level
2. Passengers from different country have different service level "expectation" depending on the flight type (long haul, short haul, domestic/international) and country income level. Passengers from lower income country might only be willing to pay so much to fly. Take note that even a single route might serve passengers from many countries, which each group of them have different expectations - It might be wise to adjust service level based on focused market
3. Service level has bigger impact on the flight cost now. Since pricing and expectation for flights now have deeper modeling, setting suitable service level will be crucial to ensure profitability and success of a route.
4. There will be 6 groups of passenger (and within each group they are also sub-group with different parameters). The 6 big groups are (naming not finalized yet...)
5. Added a new passenger composition popup for each route with breakdown of passengers based on various criteria
6. Airline now has to adjust or even pick countries to do business with. For example if an airline has very high service level, it might not be that profitable to enter into low income country (especially to operate domestic routes) as the airline will not be able to charge much more with the high service standard. However, it might still work if the airline funnels enough transit passengers from richer countries which have higher service expectation. Low cost airline will also be feasible especially in lower income countries or aviation market with big passenger pool
7. Boost to passengers demand for countries with income level <= 35. The lower the income the more obvious the boost will be. The biggest increase would be seen for domestic routes. There will still be some increase for international route if at least one end is a lower income country - though the change will be much less pronounced
Pricing 1. Default price is increased by 50% for economy, 80% for business, 68% for first class. This has several implications
a. Suggested price when setting up new flights/resetting flight price will be 50% higher
b. Passengers are in general more willing to pay for their flights, but in general it does NOT mean an airline can increase current price with the percentage above w/o losing passengers. It's a mixed formula so experimenting is required to find the idea price.
c. Business and First class will be relatively more lucrative than before
2. Passengers from lower income country will be less willing to pay for expensive tickets
Alliance 1. Alliance member limit has been adjusted upwards from 10 to 12
2. Top 10 Alliance will now receive bonus instead of top 5 - Bonus for Rank 2 - 10 have been adjusted slightly upwards. Top 4 - 10 all now receive +2 max frequency boost
Country Champion 1. Top 10 Champions will now receive bonus instead of top 5 - Bonus for Rank 2 - 10 have been adjusted slightly upwards. Take note that only big markets will see this change. A market whose #1 champion receives >= 10 points is considered a big market.
User interface 1. A new "star" symbol with be shown next the the from and to airport when editing a route - it brings a popup that indicates Service Quality expectation of the current route from that airport
2. A new "pie chart" icon is added next to the route history. Clicking on it brings you to the Passenger composition popup that shows passenger composition on a route based on Home Country, Passenger Type and Flight Preferences. There will also be tooltip that describes each flight preference category
3. Added Championed Countries per alliance section in Alliance View
4. Added Airline's alliance info in Rivals view