What's the strategy for meal pricing?

[peterkirby]

I'm at a loss for figuring out how to "set it and forget it" with my meal pricings so that they rake in the most. I assume that they have a profitability curve similar to the flights, such that at a certain tipping point, changing in either direction results in less income. I've just got no clue what that sweet spot is.

Another question is whether this changes based on the year ingame or any other factors.

Any advice is welcome.

[skumfrik]

I have only noticed higher incomes when adjusting my prices up. They are all sky high, but it seems to be more profitable for me than before I raised them.

[peterkirby]

To set up a test, I am tweaking the meals in the smallest airline I have...

I started by putting $25/per for all services on one route, and $50/per for all services on another route.

Each route carries 12 full seats roundtrip, total 24 passengers per day [hour].

In the first hour, I got $4502 revenue from the 48 passengers.  That's $93.79 a head!

(Yeah, I'm not using the euro symbol...sue me )

I'll report with further data. For the second day [hour], I've set up both flights to run at $25/per on all service.

[peterkirby]

Oh and the year here is 1921. 

[peterkirby]

An initial hypothesis is that travelers purchase 2.5 of the items regardless of pricing...

2.5 x 24 pax x $50 = $3000
2.5 x 24 pax x $25 = $1500

total $4500, off by $2...

... more testing may tell ...

[CHR]

You can work out the best price yourself. Simply adjust the price and then go into the Finance Page (Reports > Finance), and look at misc. revenue. Adjust until you get the highest revenue. The ideal cost for each item should be the same (it was last time I checked), i.e. alcohol = breakfast = lunch = dinner = soft drink etc.

[peterkirby]

http://www.airlinemogul.com/manual/index.php/Admin_Panel

'Any changes to the meal and drink prices only affect routes created or edited after the change. In order for other routes to reflect the new price, you must edit the route. '

...looks like the manual is out of date...

[peterkirby]

Ya, looks like I actually just ran two tests at $25 ... and across the whole airline ...

My 3rd test at $60 prices yielded zip ...

[peterkirby]

Okay, so here are some of the results for my tiny airline... passenger load being held constant...

$25/per any item (meal/snack/drink/alcohol) -> $4502/hour [day]

$30/per item -> $4239/hour

$24/per item -> $4514/hour

$27/per item -> $4440/hour

$23/per item -> $4508/hour

$25/per item [again] -> $4502/hour [still]

This suggests to me that, when setting prices the same across the board, something between $23 and $25 is optimal.

I'm now checking with some mixed prices... starting by increasing the price of dinner only.

[peterkirby]

Raising dinner to $30 while keeping the rest at $24 caused profit to go from $4514/hr down to $4474. So, yes, apparently all the items are basically equivalent. And the optimal price is about $24 each...

[Bram Steeman]

Hi!

Is it also possible to stop this on board service? I make huge loose with this service and would like to stop this. I already make all the prices €0 but the Misc. Expense (Daily) for the end of the month is still €1,620,743 at the beginning of the month...

Thanks!

[CHR]

Misc. expenses includes costs other than food/drinks. Food/drink sales are simply a way to make a bit of extra free money.

[dktc]

€0 for the board services means free service atm. There is no way to stop offering the services atm. I will speak with the developers and see what they could do. As of right now, you are better off charging.

[peterkirby]

With no meal service on an 11 hour flight, you better hope somebody's brought enough peanuts for everybody. 

[Ariadna]

Misc. expenses includes costs other than food/drinks.

Do you know what costs exactly they include? Or where to find it?