Airport Populations

[Konny]

Hi guys,

I just added a simple passenger system for the airports. Some time ago we already had a discussion how to implement this system and I now made the first step.

First of all each airport has a "size" where the standard pax/day depends on:
0: Private/Military - 50/day
1: Municipal - 100/day
2: Regional - 5000/day
3: Intercontinental - 50,000/day
4: International - 100,000/day
5: Super Airport - 250,000/day

The actual amount of passengers waiting for a flight can be seen on the airport info page. Now, if someone books a flight with e.g. 100pax, these 100 are taken from the airports population. If the flight is successfully finished some of the passengers will be added to the destination airport (because they only use it as a stop-over). How many of them are added depends on the size of the new airport.
Additionally, once a day the population will be "refilled", otherwise all people would be gone some day.

And that's basically it, hope you like it. If there are some airports where the size-value is too low/high, please don't hesitate to make an edit-request via the website.

A dynamically created list of all your passengers' details for each flight will follow soon...

[PCD001]

Hi Konny,

Great idea ! This will make CEO's revise their Flight plans ! (Including me !!)

However I'm a bit uncertain how we submit a request for edit via the web page ?

Where exactly ?[attachment=0]airport-edit01.gif[/attachment]

Cheers now
Bob

[CAPFlyer]

You don't. The system determines the size of the airport by total runway length. This was determined to be the best compromise between complex computations and manually setting up each airport. We have not found many gross exceptions to the rules set forth.

[Konny]

Oh, Chris is right, you can't edit the airports size, only admins can do that.

[hezza]

Interesting idea.

[quote]Additionally, once a day the population will be "refilled", otherwise all people would be gone some day.[/quote]

I assume the new system means that if there are no (or few) passengers available then a flight from that airport can't be filled?
If so two (semi-serious) questions occur to me:

1) Could there be a random factor in the timing of the mentioned daily "refilling", otherwise users in some timezones would seem to have a distinct advantage over others.
2) What happens if a full PAX load is available when a flight is booked, but not at the time of actual departure? In other words, can an operator ensure a full load by booking early and forcing that section of the passenger pool to sit on the aircraft until it is actually ready to depart? ;)

In practice though it actually seems unlikely that the passengers resources provided will not prove to be sufficient.
But it that case it does not really seem to add anything to the system either?

G

EDIT: Not sure why my signature is not showing here, looks like BBC is disabled?

[PCD001]

Hi Chris,

Can I PM you with some "Gross Exceptions to the rule" ?
There are about 3 - 4 Airfields in the Pacific which could do with sorting out.

But to be honest Chris, Runway Length is not a very reliable yardstick to define population Density around an Airport.
There are countries with high population density's which have short runways. Conversly there are airports out in the middle of nowhere with HUGE runways with about 20 people total in the surrounding 100 square kilometres.

Got to Laugh at some of them. London City Airport :-
Name London City
IATA LCY
ICAO EGLC
Size Municipal <<<<<<--------
City London
Country United Kingdom
Latitude 51° 30' 18" N
Longitude 0° 3' 15" E
Altitude 19
Runway lengths 4948 ft
Fuelprice 1.12 v$ / l
Population 94 <<<<------

Population 94 :LOL: Maybe 9.4 Million.

I would have no problem going through the major Airports here on FS Airlines to give a better population for the Airports in question.

Cheers now
Bob

[CAPFlyer]

Actually, LCY isn't a "Gross Exception". It doesn't serve (nor is it capable of serving) the same number of passengers that Heathrow or even Gatwick can. To define LCY as a "Mega" or even an "International" would not be appropriate. However, bumping it up to a Regional would, so again, it's not a "gross" exception to the rule. "Gross" would be a MEGA airport defined as a MUNICIPAL, something that we don't have.

And yes, there are a few (and I stress the few) that have very long runways with not a lot of population, however those airports in many cases have a lot of tourism which accounts for the need for a bigger than usual runway to accommodate the larger aircraft.

If you want to send us your suggestions/request, then be my guest - support@fsairlines.net

That way everyone can see it and whomever is around at the time it comes in can process it.

[Konny]

I assume the new system means that if there are no (or few) passengers available then a flight from that airport can't be filled?

That's right, but it can be filled, you only will get no or less passengers.

1) Could there be a random factor in the timing of the mentioned daily "refilling", otherwise users in some timezones would seem to have a distinct advantage over others.

I already thought about an hourly "refill", just have to find the right formula.

2) What happens if a full PAX load is available when a flight is booked, but not at the time of actual departure? In other words, can an operator ensure a full load by booking early and forcing that section of the passenger pool to sit on the aircraft until it is actually ready to depart?

When you book a flight, the pax at the airport will be reduced by the amount of people in your plane, so by booking a flight you can ensure you have the pax in your plane when you depart.

In practice though it actually seems unlikely that the passengers resources provided will not prove to be sufficient.
But it that case it does not really seem to add anything to the system either?

Well, for most of the airports you're right, only the smaller ones will be affected as the system makes it no more efficient to run big airplanes at small airports.

[CAPFlyer]

Basically the idea is to force people to "right size" their operations and to help relieve some of the overcrowding at the major airports. There are a TON of flights into some major airports with few or none at others. By putting some restriction on how many can be flown out, it will encourage VAs to spread out a little and not all run JFK-LHR for example. Some can run EWR-LHR or BOS-LHR (with a connection to one of the three NYC airports) instead.

[flightsimer]

i dont believe that people should ever have to move just because there is no room or no more passengers. its a game and they should be able to fly to or hub in any city they want. if there starts to be alot of airports with little or no passengers, then alot of people will be getting mad, and it will be causing stress and will be doing no good.

2nd, lcy is way to low. it serves 2.9 mil per year and will be increasing from here on out. they are trying to make it into a bigger airport. technically it is a international airport. i calculated that LCY should have 8055 passengers per day based on a 30 day month.

[CAPFlyer]

Fine, well, and good on LCY, hence why I upgraded it to a REGIONAL (5,000/day) as I said I would. This is a change of ONE LEVEL, so again, it's not a "GROSS INACCURACY". This is fairly close to the real airport (as you said, about 8,000/day) and more reasonable than an INTERNATIONAL at 100,000/day.

As for passengers running out and it being a game - if it's "just a game", then why even have the rest of FSAirlines? If all you want to do is track your flights, get FSACARS. It's free and it tracks and automatically reports your flights to the VA.

The stated purpose of FSAirlines is to provide a "relaxed reality" airline environment. That means that we operate much like a airline industry and have many of the same considerations, but not to the point that it gets to be a chore to run your VA. By forcing guys to stop flying their 777's out of an airport that can really only handle a 737 anyway, you're not doing anything to hurt the system, you're helping it by making it more enjoyable for everyone since you won't have one VA trying to be somewhat realistic and use an airplane that can safely operate out of the airport and another running every flight off the end of the runway or cheating on their payload (in FS) to make it out when they shouldn't be able to.

[alasizon]

If you book a flight and there are not enough passengers but more become available as more flights come in, will they be added to your passenger amount till you are full or limited by reputation?

[Konny]

no, if you book a flight and more pax come in before you do the flight, these passengers won't be added.

[vaccaro]

Idea is good but. But limiting it with runway lengths is not correct.
My airline operates at MKJP and right now the airport has 4688 pax (OK maybe it is correct. I am not Jamaican), but when I check let's say LTBL (which is a military airbase only 10 nm from where I live) I can see it has a population of 46875 pax (we don't have that much soldiers travelling here in Izmir). Same thing applies to LTFD for example -which I think is served by only THY in real life. Maybe 3 flights weekly- and it has same amount of pax as MKJP :). The very same thing can be said for Efes Airfield (LTFB). It has a long runway because Mrs. Clinton once wanted to visit the Ephesus and to make her 737 land there they have added some more runway :). In real, the airfield is almost empty. Only a Caravan and a few single engine props there. Even in summer it doesn't have much traffic but fire fighting aircraft only.
So, I think this population thingy is not really correct. I would have left it as it was before because if we want to get close to realiy we should consider many factors.

[Quantum]

Hi Guys,

Storm in a teacup? I think there is a lot of debate going on here that may be irrelevant at the end of the day. I think it extremely unlikely that you will find no passengers available to fly. How many times have you seen more than one or two bookings out of the same small airport at the same time? So what if one airport has a population of 5000 and another 250,000 ? If you are happily getting your loads out of the 5000 airport why complain? If you are routinely flying from an airport and you are running out of passengers, then you can start to ask questions about increasing size and we can look into how realistic it would be to increase the numbers. It may turn out that your operations are unrealistic. It has already been mentioned elsewhere on this forum about people operating A388's trans-continental out of small airports and it this is one of the reasons why this feature has been implemented. It is a quick hit to class airports by runway size and then we can tweak later. Don't forget there is a huge number of airports on the FSA database and to have to research each airport for RW passenger numbers would be no small task. Rather than start arguing about the size of the airports population before you are running out of passngers, why not just carry on your normal routine operations and see how you get on?

Happy flying.

Regards

John