Alright.
News on this front.
1. i've consolidated the backend further on the three route pages, should make maintaining/updating/bugfixing them significantly easier
2. in the process i've fixed a few latent bugs that have likely had a direct impact on this age. Along with my prior fix of edit route accidently ignoring competition [likely a significant accelerate to this age, as it stayed in place for a week or so], there was also an issue with edit route ignoring portions of staff salaries and one or two other minor inconstancies which over time add up. at the moment there's 30,000~ routes in the game... think about it this way, if each was off by 10 euros. that's 300,000 euros per hour. now that naturally compounds into new gates [and thereby new routes], new planes [more routes again] further compounding the effect of the tiniest difference.
3. I've altered [partially, need to finish very momentarily] the way that the meal/drink options are calculated, should surpress the peak level down from the prior high of around 40 to a little more reasonable number [won't tell what]. immediately however i need to eat, so this will be finished by the end of the day i believe, barring sudden irreversible and immediate death of myself. [highly unlikely]
4. Between last age and this, the actual base demand has been dropped moderately significantly, definitely noticeably. because of this competition's impact has grown, which likely explains the more powerful effect of 1 euro changes... For the time being, i will be [when i finish 3] weakening the impact of competition a little to counter this to a little more reasonable of a level. no garauntees on how drastic i go, but hopefully it'll be helpful.