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Strategy Discussions
patson:
Hey everyone! I am going to talk about some possible game play strategy here and things that you may or may not know! ;D
Flight route considerations:
It is very important to consider all the connection flights before you plan the route.
The Obvious:
Of course direct demand matters but it's a small part of the overall demand.
The not so obvious:
Most of the demands come from connection flights. For example if you have a lot of routes flying to the EAST of your HQ, consider a route flying to WEST. Virtual passengers would only take connection flights that make sense. For example if your HQ is in Las Vegas, and you have a route going to New York, a reasonable choice is to have a route to some west coast city. Flying to Miami will not drive up connection demand on your existing Las Vegas <-> New York route as it's simply to weird to fly all the way to Las Vegas from east coast and then flying back to east coast again.
But there's more:
If you are a smaller airline that serves smaller airports, consider flying to airport hub of mega airlines! When your airline is small, major airlines can actually boost your ridership greatly! Consider this, Air Canada (Hub in Vancouver and LAX) has high capacity flying to the Asia, while your Las Vegas airline serve some smaller airports that Air Canada does not cover, now connecting to Air Canada's hubs all of the sudden open your airline to the asian market even though you do NOT have service to it. And that new demand is MAJOR! Take note that most asian passengers are not aware of your airline (as you have no service to it) but once you build your airline reputation (more like a global brand), more asian passengers will start taking note of your airline and start flying with you
Of course in long run major airlines are going to be your competitor for major airports, but if you are flying to 2nd tier cities, they can actually be your good partner ;)
Gateway airports
Some airports are naturally gate way airports. For example due to it's geographic location (cities on the coast).
One interesting example is Hawaii, there are several "vacation hubs" in hawaii but those are smaller airports that major jets cannot land on. So this makes Honolulu airport a "gateway" airport. All the passengers that want to travel to Hawaii would have to fly to Honolulu first and then take connection flights (smaller jet) to other islands.
Another crazy idea (sorta) to expand to Asia w/o purchasing those expensive long range airplane is to setup a hub in Hawaii, and then use mid range airplane to fly to hawaii and then to the Asia. It probably will work but then you need to compete with all those direct flights...still you might be able to find a niche market there.
And has anyone thought of using Alaska as a hub yet? ::)
Airline secondary Hub
Sometimes it might make sense to create a hub in 2nd tier city to serve domestic flights (as slots are easier to get in 2nd tier cities and upkeep cheaper in smaller scale ones) and have your HQ serve longer range/international flight. Just make sure there's high capacity link between your HQ and hub
Adding hub in foreign country/continent also is a good choice as 1. It opens up a foreign market (passengers from your country to the other country) and domestic market (passengers in that other country can use your airline to fly domestically) at the same time. This would also help freeing up your route quota on regional and intercontinental flights (cause routes within that other countries are counted against "domestic routes" limit)
Setting up in lower income country might not be such a bad choice, yes demand could be low but it's relatively cheaper to upgrade the base and the upkeep is lower too! And low demand is fine as far as that country is an "opened market" (check the openness of that country), then passengers can just make a stopover there and travel to other higher demand countries
Ah....there are many many more interesting strategic options here. I am just writing up a few to start the conversation :) Lemme know if you have any questions or any strategic gameplay you have discovered! :o
patson:
O and routes not making profit might still have values
For example some short range flights that are not profitable...it could drive up demand on your other longer range routes due to connection flights
Blackrowan:
damn you patson...why you giving away my Alaska idea!!!!!! :p
Arctyc:
--- Quote from: patson on July 08, 2018, 12:19:22 pm ---O and routes not making profit might still have values
For example some short range flights that are not profitable...it could drive up demand on your other longer range routes due to connection flights
--- End quote ---
Is the price passengers are willing to pay affected by demand?
For instance if I have no competition from Airport A to B with 1,000 passengers direct demand, and I have capacity for over 1000, would I be able to charge a higher rate and still fill seats if I lowered my capacity (or increased demand above my capacity) on that route?
patson:
--- Quote from: Arctyc on July 20, 2018, 10:11:08 pm ---
--- Quote from: patson on July 08, 2018, 12:19:22 pm ---O and routes not making profit might still have values
For example some short range flights that are not profitable...it could drive up demand on your other longer range routes due to connection flights
--- End quote ---
Is the price passengers are willing to pay affected by demand?
For instance if I have no competition from Airport A to B with 1,000 passengers direct demand, and I have capacity for over 1000, would I be able to charge a higher rate and still fill seats if I lowered my capacity (or increased demand above my capacity) on that route?
--- End quote ---
yes, price and demand are always related. Some virtual passengers care a little bit less about price while some are more sensitive. So you would want to do a bit of experiment to see what is the sweet spot. You might be able to make more profit by selling less seats but with higher price
It's kind hard to say what is the ideal price. cause u also want to factor in many other things like:
1. Do i want to hurt my competitor by artificially set a very low price to kill your rival's route? (assuming your route has enough capacity to absorb the passengers, otherwise it wouldn't work)
2. Do i want to provide a reasonable price to increase ridership so i can gain more airport loyalty and airline reputation? (which is directly related to how many passengers you transported)
3. Do i want to set a cheap price on certain link to stimulate demand on other of my routes?\
etc etc
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