I’ve come here to post as a recent newcomer to the game. I really want to learn how to succeed, but as a newcomer, there are some serious hurdles to jump just to survive as an airline.
The first problem is the sheer size and complexity of the game. I actually like this problem and view it as part of the fun. There really isn’t a tutorial or a new player area, so I had to scour YouTube and the forums and google just to figure out how to start. A newbie zone which only players with accounts with less than two or three months old would be extremely helpful. Also, maybe some guides written by the guys with 7000 airplanes detailing how they clawed their way to the top would be fun to read.
The next problem is the realism factor. This game claims to be very realistic, and it is when you consider the scheduling, the aircraft stats, and the demand models. However, the realism is lost when you examine the largest enterprises on each server. On Gatow (and I won’t mention names) there is one guy with 11 companies and over 7000 planes. In real life, American Airlines is the largest airline in the world with around 1550 planes. In fact, this 7000 plane fleet is twice as large as the top 10 Airlines in real life combined. And he is only one of the large players.
A new layer of complexity is needed to slow down this oversized growth and allow for more players per server. It should be hard to get to 1000 planes, and damn near impossible to get to 1500. In real life, governments interfere, labor costs become overwhelming, airports auction slots, maintenance costs skyrocket, etc.
One way to kill the bloat would be to increase costs exponentially instead of linearly. For example, once you hire a certain number of employees, they unionize and labor costs explode. Or, once you control a certain number of planes, you have to buy a maintenance facility and start rotating planes…costs skyrocket and it’s much more difficult to manage. Then there’s slots. In real life slots cost money. Cheap in some places, absurdly expensive in LHR. Also, some airports reserve slots for local or smaller airlines for various reasons. Airlines are allowed to buy and sell slots to one another. Finally, the country markets do mirror real life, but I seriously doubt Columbia would allow a gigantic American corporation to set up a subsidiary and dominate the Colombian market…
One other issue is this: I am currently based in CCS, in Venezuela. I have the local market covered with logical scheduling waves. I’ve opened one round trip route to Lima, Peru. Somehow, no one else on earth is flying this route. Even if I fly 100 year old planes held together with duct tape, I should see demand. But no, there is zero demand even after two days in the scheduler ( I selected activate flight plan with 3 days wait). My domestic flights, however, are completely full. I’m flying 25 year old 737s with good service to 2, 3, and 4 bar airports 3 times a day. I’m convinced i could put seats outside on the wings and they would fill. I don’t understand why it’s so easy to get domestic passengers but so hard to find anyone among these throngs to fly to Lima when I’m the only show in town…