I have opened a world where the purpose is essentially to model a real-world airline. Frequency won't be a focus, but the idea is to generally replicate the fleet and routes of a real carrier to the extent possible.
To that end, it would probably be best not to pick very small carriers - however, if you find yourself reaching the size of the real airline with a lot of time left, I might encourage one/all of the following:
1) If creating an airline that has regional affiliates and/or subsidiaries, create those routes as well (I plan to play as United Airlines and include United Express; if someone played as Qantas, it might be reasonable to include the JetStar family; Singapore Airlines could include SilkAir and Scoot; etc.).
2) If the airline has no such affiliates, it might be sensible to add any airlines that may be closely associated or tightly-knit partners (merged-but-separate carriers like BA/IB, AF/KLM, and LAN/TAM come to mind, but this might also include relationships like someone who was American or Delta also building Alaska Airlines as a last resort).
3) If the airline has previously closed hubs, you could include those past operations into your current system (such as someone recreating the peaks of CVG and/or MEM for Delta).
4) Finally, if all else fails, create reasonable growth of your carrier that doesn't exactly replicate the real world. Perhaps a Scandinavian carrier might operate additional holiday charter flights or have an additional hub in Sweden, but it's not likely that it would open a hub in Beijing.
My intention isn't to be the police, but I would request that folks only join if they intend to abide by the spirit of this world! Let's try to keep it fun for everyone.
At any rate, here is the starting info:
Start Year: 2000
Game Length: 10 Years
Starting Gate: 3
Start Aircraft: 5x 737-700
Unlimited Bases/Unlimited Foreign
Starting Cash: 500,000
Maximum Players: 65
Password: rwThe purpose of the unlimited domestic bases is for someone who may be bold enough to undertake a Southwest/Ryanair type carrier, and the unlimited foreign bases are so we have the ability to open overseas focus cities to allow fifth-freedom flights and tags (I'll need a ton of them to recreate UA's NRT and GUM ops, not to mention the GUM-HNL island hopper!).
Based on discussion in the previous thread (
http://stephenm.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=13020.0), the following are anticipated players and their proposed airlines. I'll try to keep the airline list up-to-date as the world goes on to avoid duplicates, so it might be helpful if additional players post their intended carriers as a reply to this thread.
Africa- EgyptAir / Ethiopian / South African
Asia- Air China
- Air Asia
- Japan Airlines
- Korean Air
Australasia- Ansett Australia
Central America- Volaris (combined with Southwest)
Europe- Air Europa (combined with Czech Airways)
- AirBerlin
- British Airways
- Brussels Airlines
- Czech Airlines (combined with Air Europa)
- EasyJet (combined with Emirates)
- AF / KLM
- Lufthansa
- SAS
Middle East- Emirates (combined with EasyJet)
North America- Air Canada
- American Airlines
- Delta Airlines
- JetBlue
- Southwest Airlines (combined with Volaris)
- United Airlines
South America- LATAM Group (merged LAN and TAM)
