Airline Club

Recently I opened a new line from my HQ in Sofia to Palermo. After the mandatory 5-6 weeks to build up airline awareness I went to increase the frequency of the flights, however the airport was not assigning me any new slots despite my awareness to have increased more then sufficiently and despite having 200 slots unused.

At that point I started looking more into the mechanic of it and at the airlines flying from Palermo. It turns out there is only 1 HQ and one base in Palermo. The airline with a base had 11 routes, mostly long haul routes. The airline with the HQ however has 53 which probably accounts for more then 50% of the slots at the airport and as it turns out that airline is an AI airline.

Also because of the mechanics of the game I suspect that both of those airlines hold additional slots that they may never intend to use, due to the mechanics of the game, which automatically assigns slots based on milestones rather then interaction.

*side-note (just as I was writing this additional 11 slots became available over the 200 so I was able to increase the frequency of my line)

This brings up a specific problem that might not be that big or urgent right now, but would become a pain if the player population ever increases which I assume will be the ultimate goal.

There is a need for a means to "eliminate" AI players as the player population grows or an airport becomes busy and a need for an ability to expand airports during the game.

The first part can be handled softly by programing the AI airlines to close any route which gets 2 real player competitors and close shop if they reach fewer then 10 routes. This way they would be seamlessly retreading as the players expand, still serve their purpose and not impede the ability of 0players to compete with each other.

The second part needs more complex solutions and I think it should be tied together with a future "growth" system, for cities and airports in general. That part deserves it's own discussion though and I plan on throwing a few things together if there is an interest at all.

I'm unsure how the AIs work. Alex probably knows as he's dug into the code, but the AIs seemed to work fine before the auto renew aircraft function was available so they may work in different ways than player run airlines. The alternative is that you could put them out of business one by one by just putting a fraction of their routes underwater since they don't adapt and wouldn't know to close up their routes, as well as being unable to change their pricing.

I've also noticed a few select airports are almost impossible to get slots on despite low usage ( which is probably an effect of the slots ).

I also believe that this is the motivation for the planned expansions, other planets or extra solar stuff. Even if you take an AI out of business, you won't be able to replace their utility. It's unlikely all of their routes will be replaced especially the low capacity ones that go to unpopular destinations. They run low cost routes to deliver transient passengers for player controlled airlines. One of my most profitable early routes was by linking a major hub of mine to a large AI hub that didn't have a connection to any nearby large hubs. The AIs don't need to make profit, and they never need to expand.

As an aside, I'm fairly sure the slots are primarily based on airport loyalty, which builds up with flight quality and number of passengers. Awareness only affects likelihood of passengers to take your flights.

First my bad, It's Naples not Palermo, I mixed the two up.

I didn't know about the last 20% never being assigned, however that just exasperates the problem even more. Again as it is, the problem is probably isolated but as the player population increases it will start to appear more often.

In terms of AI airlines "going bankrupt"....

Exactly for the reason they have a utility I proposed that a soft phase out be programed where they retreat from routes that start to be served by real players (2 or more) over time and only fold if the majority of their routes get phased out. In the case of Naples more then 500 of the 1000 (800) slots are being used up by the AI airline with an HQ there. Surely the problem I'm describing is clearly visible...

Oh DAMN that might explain some of my troubles on my IC routes when I woke up this morning (apart from PEK YVR which was much more directly your fault).

I kind of think "unprofitable" AI airline should survive (and regenerate, ideally) in underserved areas like Africa, where it's not clear to me the AI airline ever could be profitable. The availability of connecting flights is crucial to breaking into markets.

Alternately, rather than shuttering entire airlines just delete their routes that are at less than 20% capacity.

Good suggestions! I guess the AI u r suggesting is different from the ones i deleted. When i first created the game, i basically find the 250 airports with most possible traffic and create airlines in each of them. Creating AI in closed country especially those closed economy ones sound like a good idea

AI airlines are profitable (some of them) as their costs are usually super low - they have level 1 HQs (that's cheating, cause all of them exceed route limit and some of them fly high frequencies with a lot of small planes) They were all generated even before my dear Air Canada lol

Some have them still have billions of dollars in the bank hehehe. They are losing money slowly though - especially those in highly competitive markets

Well take this whole purging as an "in-game" event then kekeke

MAJOR GLOBAL ECONOMIC DEPRESSION! Many airlines mismanaged over the years have declared bankruptcy due to piled up debt.

How about that ? 

All in all I think I lost about $10 million of weekly profit after repairs were made. Ooof.