The stupidity of Multifreq

[Fitch]

 So were playing this game where the goal is to build an airline and compete with other airlines. Now someone has come in and gone against the grain of the established players.

 You gonna try and Laker these people out? or are you going to adapt to the changing market and deal with it??

[csturdiv]

If everybody adapts to the actions of those few that are doing the multi-freqs, there would be complete insanity.

[lasdlt]

I know what everyone's talking about.  I'm gone for two days and 25 of my routes are now in the low 40% from an airline running +6 frequencies and dropping fare to less than $50.

My question is what is more gamey/exploitive?  Is running many 1 frequency routes exploiting the engine or is running higher frequency routes exploitive?  Or is neither exploitive?  And if that's the case, Fitch is right.  I'll just have to deal with it, or focus on my other world instead.  Because setting back 20+ routes to a profitable status is not in my idea of fun.

[skywaker9]

Its a valid strategy.  Its also a stupid one.  My main competitor at two of my hubs (the one I call a "Stalker airline" in another thread) is running 2 or 3 freqs on a number of routes.  The result is mostly annoying for me but disastrous for them.  I was at about maybe $50M in value above when I first started competing, now I am about $800M more valuable and the gap is increasing every day even though I only carry 3k more passengers.   Of course it doesn't help that they lease a lot of their planes while I own all of mine but that's another topic...

[East Texas Airways]

In terms of this particular sim, multi-frequency routes are mainly used only to reduce competition (if you can get people to drop routes, which most of the time does not occur or to hog gates). 

One thing people must remember is that real life airlines generally do not run very high multi-frequency routes with the same aircraft.  For example, Southwest runs 20+ or whatever daily flights between DAL and HOU.  However, these are generally flown by different airplanes.  While they may have 20 daily flight frequencies between these two airports, this does not mean that one airplane flies all of these routes, or even 2 fly 10 each.

Most airlines which fly into larger airports would run what (in the sim) would be considered a one way flight.  For example (and very simplified).... Plane A starts in DAL and flies to HOU.... Plane B starts in HOU and flies to DAL (this would not be considered a round-trip for an idividual plane).  Plane A then flies to LAS from HOU.  Plane B flies to LAS from DAL.  Plane A then flies from LAS to DAL and Plane B flies from LAS to HOU, and you do it again the next day. 

If you follow the logic, even though the planes technically are not flying round trip (back and forth), they cover the same logic just by using one way flights.....

Sorry if this is cofusing, I think i confused myself just typing this.. haha

[pseudoswede]

Its a valid strategy.  Its also a stupid one.  My main competitor at two of my hubs (the one I call a "Stalker airline" in another thread) is running 2 or 3 freqs on a number of routes.  The result is mostly annoying for me but disastrous for them.  I was at about maybe $50M in value above when I first started competing, now I am about $800M more valuable and the gap is increasing every day even though I only carry 3k more passengers.   Of course it doesn't help that they lease a lot of their planes while I own all of mine but that's another topic...

So then why complain about your competitor doing multiple frequencies? Obviously their business plan isn't as strong as your's. You can eventually turn back around and put a massive plane on the route (with multiple frequencies) and really drop their profits.

[Hal]

Fly to airports with less pax. There would be less competition or no competition. Don't care about this airline with multrifreqs he earns not enough money to more expand and to replace planes, the  maintainance expenses for his old planes will overrun his earnigs.

[lasdlt]

So in the end, what nets more money?  Which is more profitable?  A multifrequency or a single frequency?

[CHR]

That is a bit of a trick question. Almost always, putting another flight on the same route (multifrequency) will make you more profit on that route. However, this is often only by a small amount. You can usually make more profit by doing two flights to different cities rather than two flights to one city. For example, you might make $50,000 on a 1x flight or $65,000 on a 2x flight. If you were to do a 1x and another 1x, you could make $100,000.

That said, if you have a sufficiently large airline that you are unable to find routes (or time to find routes) for all your planes, it may be more profitable to actually increase the frequency of flights. Rather than having planes sitting around doing nothing, you could have planes doing 2x routes and making marginally more money.

[gisa]

Sorry to pop in here but I have a question related to this thread.

So then, in theory according to what is being said, routes with a frequency of .5 would be the most profitable then right?  Because two different cities at .5 would yield more than 1 city with 1.0...

(Sorry, curious noobs like me need to be educated)



Mr. Gisa ^^

[CHR]

Yes. 0.5 frequency is more profitable. However, you can only do two per aircraft, so you will need to do a combination of 0.5 and 1 to fully use the aircraft's hours.

On a slightly different note, it is also more profitable to use smaller aircraft, as this has the same effect of having a smaller number of seats.

[gisa]

Thanks for the answer CHR.  Can I ask one more question?  You said you can only do two per aircraft?  Is this because planes can't *teleport* or is it a rule?

 

Mr. Gisa ^^

[CHR]

In short, it is because the aircraft can't teleport.
The 0.5 route in real life would be done at the beginning/end of day, there is a more detailed explanation here: http://stephenm.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=9747.msg88829#msg88829.

[Hal]

There is possibility to set more 0,5 routes to one plane. The other routes must be set from other hub to the same airports.

[Dasha]

I don't see the problem... If I want to fly a frequency of 3 or 4 because it's more realistic... I'll fly it. You can jump on your head all you want.

If you don't like it, think of a way to change my mind.

Competition is a big factor in the game and if you can't handle it, fly a different route.