It seems that many players here are complaining about the airport slot hogging by using smaller aircraft, this could easily lead to monopoly of an airport. I have this following suggestion which might sound a bit more fair.
1. Differ the price in different hours, so peak hours are more expensive whereas low hours are cheaper.
For example if price of a slot between the 0am -6am zone is 1, 6am -24pm zone are 1.5 etc..
2. For any airlines, the first 25% slots of peak hours are flat rate , that is, according to 1, 1.5; then there is a premium imposed on the next 25% slots , so the cost for each slot now would be 2.5; incremental premium for the third and fourth section so the cost of each slots would be 4 and 6, respectively. However, no such premium would be applied to low hours.
If an airport has 1000 slots at peak hours ( 6-24h) , the price of the first 250 slots are 1.5 for any airlines; then the price goes up to 2.5 for the 251st to 500th slots, 4 for the 501st - 750th slots, then 6 for the 751th - 1000th slots.
The above numbers and hour zones are not fixed, they are just giving an example to how this method works, that is, the more slots you own, the more you pay.
Yes it is realistic to charge a premium for peak time slots. However in order to charge a premium, then airlines would have to charge a premium and therefore it would be about passenger demand for peak time flights. This unfortunately is not the case in AS. The demand between two airports is based on a day and split evenly throughout the day, this to be honest is a limitation. In the real world there would be peak demand on Monday, Wednesday and Friday arrivals around 0800am, and Monday, Friday and Sunday departures around 1800pm. This peak in demand unfortunately does not exist in AS therefore the premium charge would lead to players operating outside of peak times been more successful than those within
I didn't know that. OK , I am going to increase my flights between 0-6 h now, lol.
It's fine, then just take the low time away. So the price of the four 25% sections would be 1 2 4 7, respectively. The idea is , the more slots one owns, the more expensive one has to pay.
But surely that would be contradictory to real life? The more someone owns of something the cheaper the unit cost becomes?
Not necessarily. The more one's salary is , the more income tax one has to pay. It's sort of an idea of rationing scarce resources and in terms of AS, it's the airport slots ( especially popular airports).
Such premium should be charged at least on above 7-bar airports, or the higher an airport rates, the more expensive the premium would be.
For example:
If for 7-bar airports the premium is 1, 2, 3, 5
8- bar 1, 2.5, 4, 6
9- bar 1, 3, 5, 7,
10- bar 1 3.5 , 6, 8
Fair point but even so I don’t believe charging those who have more slots more per unit is a realistic solution. If you treat an airport in AS as a business as it is in real life then business logic would say that you would keep those airlines that are larger, and more established at your airport happier as they are more likely to be there tomorrow. Penalizing your “legacy” airlines and allowing fresh competition in is hardly good for an airport business.
As posted before I agree on the notion that there needs to be new rules around slot control to allow the game to develop in a more realistic fashion. I disagree with the notion that there should be more slot control for the sole purpose of allowing new players to enter large airports from day 1 of starting.
AS is only a simulator so it's not totally real life. In real life there can't be just one or two airlines running between LHR and NYC, or having 80% share of slots in a big airport such as LHR or NYC either... The purpose of this rule is not to punish the older airlines but to limit the abuse of airport slots. As I said, those numbers are not set in stone and will be opened to discussion.
The problem for the newer users is not how long before they should enter larger airports. If an airport is completely full, no matter how long ones have played, how powerful ones have become, they just won't be able to enter these larger airports.
I agree that it is a simulator, but there are a lot of players here who play and pay for the simulator because it is far closer to real life than all other simulators. By making it less realistic you are likely to alienate those that have been paying and playing AS for years.
I disagree with your comment on won't be able to enter large airports. It's a game of patience and bidding your time, as would happen in the real world. I started off in Pearls on AS (well after start of world), with a UK based airline. LHR, MAN, LGW, STN were all dominated by one player. So I found a base and routes that were not occupied at all. Eventually the airline went bust and all the sudden my regional airline was the biggest airline at LGW.
In Gatow I started at LGW when the game world started. Predictably LHR was full very quickly. I didn't even touch LHR for a good 6 months when a few airlines went bust and freed up slots. Now I have one of the biggest airlines at LHR as well. Same goes with aircraft based in AMS, CPH, ARN, GLA, CDG. I went in after slots were freed up by a company going bust.
That contradicts to what you stated that “ but there are a lot of players ...... real life than all other simulators" , a big airnlines like you described just wont suddenly "bust "in this way. If an airlines monopolies the market in this way, it's very likely that it will just keep going on like that.
But I do agree that this game needs a lot of patience.
I think maybe my bad grammar. I agree that yes it is a simulator. I disagree that making it less true to real life as a lot of us are here because it is closer to real life than others. I hope that makes sense but it's been a long day so I'm sorry if it doesn't!
To be honest if you sit and watch a real game world (not quimby) for 3 months you will see a fair bit of movement. In Gatow Dubai has gone in the last few weeks from been the most slot restricted airport, to one of the most open. We shall see how long that lasts...
Airlines not only go bust, guys loose interest, don't want to spend the money, want to save credits, want to start a fresh.
That contradicts to what you stated that “ but there are a lot of players ...... real life than all other simulators" , a big airnlines like you described just wont suddenly "bust "in this way. If an airlines monopolies the market in this way, it's very likely that it will just keep going on like that.
But I do agree that this game needs a lot of patience.
Even on the newly started Aspern, there have been some massive airlines going under. I haven't been watching airlines outside my home country (USA), but inside the USA, the largest airline went bust a few months in, then in the past couple weeks, there's been about 8-10 airlines out of the top 50 that have gone bust, including the #2 airline, the largest airline in New York LaGuardia, and the largest airline in Chicago Midway.
No, I have no problem with your grammar, we just misunderstood each other. It just looks like the reasons why one finally can get big and slots in major airports are because others are losing interest, saving credit, wanting to start a new one ...... That would be less fun. I'd very much like to see how a new, small airlines nibbles and finally defeats a giant super powerful airlines by one's great care and strategies on his/her airlines .