Booking a Flight

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ABVG
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Booking a Flight

Post by ABVG » Tue Jul 14, 2020 2:37 pm

Just wondered wether or not it would be posible to select the aircraft you want to fly before you book the flight.
This would solve the problem of unable to book " out of range for this aircraft."
Also could you include runway lengths , to stop pilots booking flights in a heavy jet to airports that do not have a suitable runway. Obviously altitude of runway would have to be factered in.
Alan

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Cat
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by Cat » Tue Jul 14, 2020 3:10 pm

At some point in time, VA owner/operators have to have some accountability. We cannot expect FSAirlines to make every rule for everyone. FSAirlines was originally a very simple "financial reporting system" that had some performance parameters many pilots hated. Landing lights, parking brakes were the two most complained about penalties that have since been removed.

I am more concerned with new pilots who want to try to run their own virtual airline looking at the amass of features and functions and just throwing their hands in the air out of frustration. This is one of the reasons I made the tutorial video series to try to show the new people how to get started.

Adding even more features and/or restrictions is not the solution in my eyes. There are plenty of ways VA owner/operators can limit their operation to fit their desired virtual business plan without adding more "federal regulations". If you don't want your pilots to fly jumbo jets into airports that cannot handle them, then don't make routes there or take away the route creation permissions of pilots who violate your airline's standard operating procedures. With aircraft that cannot fly a certain route due to range, it should have never been placed in that route to begin with.

As we try to use FSAirlines for each of our own needs, trying to compare one virtual airline to the next is like comparing apples to oranges. There is no "end game winner" here. It was never supposed to be a game type competition with one winner. We all have our own idea of what makes a good virtual airlline and to try to establish regulations that make it a competition would again in my opinion only, be a fatal flaw for the longterm life of FSAirlines.
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joefremont
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by joefremont » Tue Jul 14, 2020 4:49 pm

the functions for booking a flight are one of the core features of the site and I am always very cautious on changing them as the impact of any bugs there will affect a lot of people. So rather than turning the booking system on its head it would be better to screen out the aircraft you can choose that don't have the range, but that will probably bring up another batch of complaints about why can't I choose that aircraft.

You should notice when booking a flight that when you choose a route it shows you the distance to the airport. This distance was added for this very reason, so you can see if the distance exceeds the range of your intended ride. And before you say anything, the pilot should know that.

As for the runway lengths and altitude, we do have that information on the airport information page but we don't have that information for aircraft, its not easy information to find and to be honest its complicated to determine if the runway is long enough, altitude, temperature and payload all factor in. I remember when I was a wee lad my parents would fly to Maui for vacations on wide body tri-jets (DC-10's or L-1011s) . The runway was long enough for them to land, but not take off with a full load of fuel, so the plane would fly from California to PHOG/Maui, then to PHNL/Honolulu so they could take on a full load of fuel before returning to California. While I would like to do that, there is now way I could simulate that.

Ultimately questions of range and runway lengths should really not be an issue on the booking page as the person setting up the routes should not have assigned aircraft to it that could not actually fly it safely.
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ABVG
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by ABVG » Tue Jul 14, 2020 7:42 pm

I have been on here 10 years this year, I am just trying to think of a way to make it simple. Before you changed things I selected aircraft for routs . Probably why we ended up with so many. Now you book a flight and have choice of any aircraft.
Did not intend on making things harder but easier for newbies and old alike. Who checks runway lengths and weight.!

I used to put all our routes in to suit each aircraft, Then all of a sudden things changed and fsairlines made it so any aircraft could be selected for any route, proberbly to reduce the number of routs a va had.

I am not moaning or complaining , I am passionate about fsairlines and my VA, and love all the new ideas,

Problem I am trying to get round is that you can select packages for delivery to within 1000 miles of an airport, put them in your wharehouse for smaller planes to deliver to smaller airports. It is a never ending job to deselect airports that are to small for cargo planes to land at.

Keep up the good work , I will try to run my route planner programe again to select the correct aircraft for the chosen destination.

AdySmith
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by AdySmith » Thu Jul 16, 2020 9:19 am

Rather than quote the entire reply above can I just say

"WELL SAID CAT!"

Pilots must take some responsibility.
If you don't want a pilot to try to fly a B747 from EGCB to EGPR (look them up!) then don't have a route between them that allows the selection of such an aircraft and don't allow the general line pilots in your airline to create routes.
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ABVG
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by ABVG » Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:13 pm

I will repeat myself for those that misunderstand,
Example :- If I have a pilot that wants to fly one of my DC3's I will advise him of where they are located.
He or she would then buy a ticket to that location.
Then they would click book a flight, where they would see a whole host of flights, half of which they would not be able to fly.


But if they selected the aircraft first, then book flight they should only see the ones that a DC3 could fly to.

I appreciate Joes comment on why it could be awkward to change the system and accept it.

If the rest of you think that it was an unneccessary request thats fine to, but there is no need to make me feel bad for requsting a new idea, when this channel is for people to put forward new ideas.

Stay safe and good luck
BVG951-Alan

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joefremont
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by joefremont » Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:35 pm

Alan I truly apologize of I made you feel bad for requesting an idea. I really want the forum to be the place people come to discuss new ideas, and it saddens me that so few people do.

There is a drop down select on the top of the booking page where you can select aircraft type but it currently does not work for route set for 'All Aircraft', and your idea would be simpler to do if I had not made a recent change to the range checking where it takes into account technical stops. Calculating the required range for a single route once it selected is pretty quick, doing it for a hundred destinations (there are currently over 1400 va/airport combinations that have over 100 departing routes, some have more than 1000).

But I can see some value in the case you are suggesting, and I think that, provided there are no technical stops on the route, and I will try to get the aircraft drop down filter on the booking page take into account range provided there are no technical stops on the route.
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ABVG
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by ABVG » Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:30 pm

Thanks Joe, You did not make me feel bad at all, it was the comments from a couple of other people who run their VA totally different to ours.
I appreciate all the time and effort you put in to fsairlines.
Alan

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joefremont
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by joefremont » Fri Jul 17, 2020 5:32 am

I made some updates that you can find on beta.fsairlines.net, try them out and see if they meet your requirements.
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joefremont
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by joefremont » Fri Jul 17, 2020 4:31 pm

I had to push out these range check changes to the main site last night as there was another bug I had to fix that was in the same batch of changes. But so far no screaming.
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ABVG
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by ABVG » Fri Jul 17, 2020 8:56 pm

will do thanks, am going on holiday for a week so will test when I get back
Alan

ABVG
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by ABVG » Fri Jul 17, 2020 9:16 pm

Just tried to book flight, but select aircraft only says "all"
Alan

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joefremont
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by joefremont » Sat Jul 18, 2020 5:48 am

ABVG wrote:
Fri Jul 17, 2020 9:16 pm
Just tried to book flight, but select aircraft only says "all"
Alan
Discovered the issue, that drop down 'WAS' looking at the aircraft on the routes, so if all were 'All Aircraft' that's all you saw. Should be better now.
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ABVG
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by ABVG » Sun Jul 26, 2020 1:32 pm

Thats fantastic Joe, thanks very much
Alan

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Cat
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Re: Booking a Flight

Post by Cat » Sun Jul 26, 2020 5:56 pm

If the rest of you think that it was an unneccessary request thats fine to, but there is no need to make me feel bad for requsting a new idea, when this channel is for people to put forward new ideas.
It was never my intention to berate you or make you feel bad. For that I do apologize. I seemed to have misunderstood your initial request which you later clarified.

My greatest concern as of late is FSAirlines is becoming too complex and overwhelming for the newest members who sign on. Those of us who have been here for years have been able to learn all the new additions gradually as they have been rolled out. So perhaps I need to just shush and stop posting my own ideas and thoughts. I have no problem with people criticizing my ideas and finding faults in them, for I think that is what this forum is for .. to hash out ideas & details before our only Admin, Joe, wastes his valuable time trying to implement something that may not really be needed when one steps back and looks at the "big picture" of all the features avaialable.
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