I think a good way to improve the functionality of the flight planner without too much extra code on your end would be to allow the player to design a template of when flights arrive and leave from each stand.
Description:
So basically there would be a button that says “design template”, which when clicked on opens a view similar to a day on the flight planner. You could then add empty slots to the planner on each stand, which could look like empty boxes of the appropriate size. then you could hit “save”, and then when you have auto-planner enabled it would just fill these slots with offered flights.
It could also have the ability to be set to prioritize a certain airline when filling the slots, or to prioritize whatever airline has the lowest opinion of the airport, or prioritize the highest-paying flights, or prioritize the flights with the most passengers, etc
This system could also allow you to schedule “maintenance slots” into your template, which would be short periods (maybe 10-15 minutes) where the stand would be repaired and cleaned.
(credit to Sennah for idea)
Unlocking the System:
With the coming Alpha 34 release, a new unlock system is coming to the game. This suggestion could integrate easily into this new R&D system. you could first start by unlocking the “random auto-planner” (the current one), which would be a very early-game R&D (or maybe it could even start unlocked).
Then, a bit further down the line, and with the previous one as a prerequisite, you could unlock the “auto-planner template”.
finally, and with both of those as prerequisites, you could unlock “maintenance slots”.
Why It Should Be Implemented:
Right now, the auto-planner doesn’t work very well. It will schedule flights to land or take off at the same time quite often, and the player has no control over when it schedules flights and what type of flights it schedules.
This system would allow you guys (the developers) to not have to write any complicated code for the auto-planner, while simultaneously giving the player a greater amount of control and fixing many of the problems that currently plague the auto-planner.
Example:
I am currently working on a photoshop mockup of this idea, which will be added here when it’s done.
thank you for reading and I hope you’ll consider adding my suggestion in the future!