Wow thanks Lawrencelot for the hard work! i always want to write up something like that but are always too busy to write more code lol
Several things to add!
More large airport pro:
- Larger scale airport can accommodate bigger jet (like A380), smaller airport (scale smaller than 5) might only allow certain smaller models to fly
- Larger airports are usually located in geographically favored position (gateway cities i would call). For example west coast cities in the US - they are ideal for connection flights to Asia for as it's in the middle of other US cities on the right and all asian destinations. Virtual passenger in this game will be reluctant to travel the opposition direction from their final destination. For example a passenger from Las Vegas wants to fly to Hong Kong and there's no directly flight. 2 Airlines offer direct flights to Hong Kong - one from Houston to Hong Kong, another one from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. The passenger will very likely to fly to LA first then to Hong Kong as it's a shorter route. Of course there are factors like price/quality of flight and airline loyalty that would be in play. But in general short the flights, more like a passenger will opt for it
- Larger airport usually have bigger airlines based in it. BUT wait??? how could that be a pro? Yes, more competition is real, but at the starting phase,
bigger airlines could actually boost your routes. Here is the reasoning - due to route limitation, big airlines usually pick larger 1st tier cities as destinations, that mean your new airline can fill in the void to offer routes to 2nd tier cities, now bigger airlines also have high capacity link to all the overseas cities, which means all those overseas passenger can travel to this large airport, and take connection offered by your airline to those smaller cities!! It works just like in real world!
More Small airport pro:
- Smaller airport are in general easier to "impress" (raise loyalty), that means it will open up more slots for your airline more rapidly
- Smaller airports HQ have lower upkeep and cheaper to upgrade
- Smaller airports charge you much less for airport fees - that makes smaller airplanes more viable. I code it such that it's very hard to be profitable if both the departure and destination airports are major ones. Both of them will charge a premium and it's relatively to fly low capacity airplanes
Also picking HQ is very important (as Lawrencelot pointed out all the points up there) and there are more:
Your airport HQ determines your home country. There are country mutual relationships in this game and your nationality affect how other country will react to your new airlines and passenger demands.
Hostile countries will not even give you any change to operate in their airspace!
Your home country also determines what airplanes models are made available to you. For example Russian company would not sell you any of their airplanes if you are based int he US, nor a north Korean airline can purchase any Boeing models
Some less opened country will not give "5th freedom of air" - ie The right to fly between two foreign countries. Therefore if you aim at operating a lot of international flights, you would want HQ in opened market (market openness 8+)
Ah...that's my dose for today...it's getting late
But thanks again for the help Lawrencelot !