Base requirements

[TheKevinShow]

I find it a little weird/ridiculous that airlines can create bases anywhere around the world without connecting flights between them. I was just looking at one that had a bunch of bases in Southeast Asia and then one in France. No connection between them. I hardly think that's realistic, and airlines should be required to have a connection between a base and a potential base before making the latter a base.

[CHR]

This was already discussed here. Actually, I think there might be another topic on it somewhere...

[StephenM]

You make a valid point, but I believe that the base system in AM is fairly restrictive as it already stands. I have played in other games where there has been no protection for airlines from other airlines creating bases and thats what the focus is for AM's base system currently is. We may consider it though in the future.

[Virgin Serbia]

A requirement to open a route to the airport before starting a base would be logical. I've seen quite a few US West coast, or Japanese/Chinese airlines starting new hubs on the other side of the pacific while their biggest aircraft was a Dash-8-100...

[pseudoswede]

Define realistic.

An airline in real life, with legal approval, can open a hub anywhere in the world without having to connect with it. TTA provided an example with Cape Air.

Can it happen in real life? Yes, which is plenty enough reason for it to be realistic and allowable.

Does it make business sense to do it? The answer would be a resounding "no" the majority of the time.

[neldot]

As the starter of the mentioned previous thread about this problem, I'll repeat what I suggested there.

As happens in real world, it's fair that players can choose to start an hub wherever they want. However (as in real world) players that choose to connect all their hubs amongst them should be rewarded by an increased bonus for all their routes. A "network bonus" that adds up to the existing hub bonus.

Better still, the "network bonus" could even (realistically) allow to have higher prices in routes with many competitors.

[Virgin Serbia]

As the starter of the mentioned previous thread about this problem, I'll repeat what I suggested there.

As happens in real world, it's fair that players can choose to start an hub wherever they want. However (as in real world) players that choose to connect all their hubs amongst them should be rewarded by an increased bonus for all their routes. A "network bonus" that adds up to the existing hub bonus.

Better still, the "network bonus" could even (realistically) allow to have higher prices in routes with many competitors.

Agreed. And higher prices on flights to alliance members hubs too.

[TTA]

As the starter of the mentioned previous thread about this problem, I'll repeat what I suggested there.

As happens in real world, it's fair that players can choose to start an hub wherever they want. However (as in real world) players that choose to connect all their hubs amongst them should be rewarded by an increased bonus for all their routes. A "network bonus" that adds up to the existing hub bonus.

Better still, the "network bonus" could even (realistically) allow to have higher prices in routes with many competitors.

This would require a rework of how loadfactor is used for the sole reason that you already earn way too much money way to fast. Effectively, the game would need to account for hub connecting traffic. So if there is not demand from the flight, you receive a small amount of demand from other flights, but this is not likely at the moment since the load factor for flights is mostly (if not only) based on Point to Point traffic. Hubs have no real benefit in game other than preventing every airline setting up like Southwest.

This also does not take into account airlines that only have one hub. Why should they be left out of the network bonus? I some times only one want to operate out of one hub. ( I normally play for realism not to be the best ).

The idea is that we need A -> (B) -> C flights. B = hub.  So passenger flies from A -> (B) and 5% or so of the people on that flight go onto C to effectively 5% go A -> C via (B). This is more logical than a network 'boost' because you don't really get a network boost in the real world. And airline can operate fine without connecting any of it's hubs. It simply does it for international traffic. It's rare (there are cases though ) that you'd fly from A -> (B) -> (C) -> D. There is hardly a real life reason to fly between two hubs unless you're flying international or to very small regional airports. Normally when I fly out of my regional I only go through one hub.

[neldot]

The idea is that we need A -> (B) -> C flights. B = hub.  So passenger flies from A -> (B) and 5% or so of the people on that flight go onto C to effectively 5% go A -> C via (B). This is more logical than a network 'boost' because you don't really get a network boost in the real world. And airline can operate fine without connecting any of it's hubs. It simply does it for international traffic. It's rare (there are cases though ) that you'd fly from A -> (B) -> (C) -> D. There is hardly a real life reason to fly between two hubs unless you're flying international or to very small regional airports. Normally when I fly out of my regional I only go through one hub.

This seems logical to me. 

[bry12]

I find it a little weird/ridiculous that airlines can create bases anywhere around the world without connecting flights between them. I was just looking at one that had a bunch of bases in Southeast Asia and then one in France. No connection between them. I hardly think that's realistic, and airlines should be required to have a connection between a base and a potential base before making the latter a base.

I agree with you in this. I think it would add to realism and fun here in AM if airlines are restricted more whenever opening a base and creating a focus city. I even think it best that the bases for home base isn't per continent but per Country. Thus, airlines cannot easily clogged one whole continent. and would need to have the particular aircraft needed to fly from say Asia to Europe even if it has an alliance at Europe it still need to confirm with the necessary requirement.

[CHR]

Regarding restricting airlines to a single country, this would create a bias towards certain countries (like the US), where there are a large number of large airports.

The underlying assumption of AM is that there are continental/regional open skies agreements. This ensures that each region has a decent number of big airports (even if Europe and N. America end up with more than everyone else).

Actually, on a slightly tangential idea, perhaps Europe/Asia/Middle East could be rearranged.
There could be West Europe, East Europe/Middle East/maybe part of west Asia (or even Africa!), and then East Asia.
As the Middle East is considered part of Asia, it seems to me that the whole system is fairly arbitrary anyway. There would be a decent number of airports if one had all the Middle East and much of Eastern Europe.

On that note, perhaps Central and South America could be merged too. Together, they have less than Asia, Europe or North America. And if everything was being rearranged, perhaps Australiasia could be mixed in with South-East Asia too...
Of course, all this changing would only serve to make North America even more attractive - with the most airports out of any continent already and little logical way of splitting them up (short of actually dividing the US in half - which might be possible with states...).

[BINDU]

Regarding restricting airlines to a single country, this would create a bias towards certain countries (like the US), where there are a large number of large airports.

The underlying assumption of AM is that there are continental/regional open skies agreements. This ensures that each region has a decent number of big airports (even if Europe and N. America end up with more than everyone else).

Actually, on a slightly tangential idea, perhaps Europe/Asia/Middle East could be rearranged.
There could be West Europe, East Europe/Middle East/maybe part of west Asia (or even Africa!), and then East Asia.
As the Middle East is considered part of Asia, it seems to me that the whole system is fairly arbitrary anyway. There would be a decent number of airports if one had all the Middle East and much of Eastern Europe.

On that note, perhaps Central and South America could be merged too. Together, they have less than Asia, Europe or North America. And if everything was being rearranged, perhaps Australiasia could be mixed in with South-East Asia too...
Of course, all this changing would only serve to make North America even more attractive - with the most airports out of any continent already and little logical way of splitting them up (short of actually dividing the US in half - which might be possible with states...).

Smart Suggestion..... But, I think that we should do it as follows.

US and Canada taken together split in half. Everything west of Missouri, and everything west of Manitoba is one "continent". Everything east is another.

Combine the current south american and central american continents could be combined as 1. And to make it easier to make money in those countries, we can halve the gate costs, (ie 50,000 euro airport gates cost 25,000), terminal costs, and base creation costs.

Europe could be split North South with the border as follows: http://img408.imageshack.us/i/europemapforam.png/

The Middle East and Africa should be combined as 1 with similar halved costs.

Asia should be split north-south, with the Indian northern border being the dividing line.

Leave Ocenia on its own, but again with halved costs