Hi devs and everyone.
I have seen some posts regarding the huge turnaround times of aircraft, but the request was to lower the turn around time. I think that the turn around time should be flexible and the CEO should decide the turnaround time for each aircraft type. (I hope I have not missed any post with this idea)
Turnaround time is dependent of aircraft size, infrastructure provided (boarding desks, number of security checks, etc.), Time for passenger to travel from check in to boarding gate, remote/contact stand, airside facilities (fuel truck or fuel hydrant, etc.). So the CEO has to decide the time for each aircraft.
For example, if in my airport I have one remote stand and one contact stand (with aero bridge) then the time for boarding the contact aircraft will be less, so I should be able to reduce the turnaround time of aircraft in my contact stand compared to remote stand, this way I will optimise my schedule of airport.
This way I can take benefits of improving the infrastructure. Like upgrading to medium security stands from small security stand will increase rate of processing of passengers and so the overall turnaround time can be modified.
Ofcourse, we should give some minimum turnaround time for each aircraft type (small -45 min, medium - 2hr, large - 3hrs) which can be achieved with high end infrastructure.
While I agree with your suggestion, the game time needs slowed down. Yes it should be possible to turnaround aircraft in 45 or 60 minutes, but under the time scale the game currently operates under, a medium aircraft barely can be turned around in 4 hours with a normal sized airport.
What I have noticed, in my own airports at least, is that what slows everything down is staff and passenger travel times. Sometimes, this causes boarding to start almost 30 minutes (in game) late, which naturally causes problems.
This is a great idea! But turnaround times are mostly decided by the airlines themselves, as they have a big part in saying when planes have to takeoff and land. For this reason, I feel like your idea is amazing but could be improved greatly. For example, we set a recommended turnaround times as well as a minimum turnaround times but airlines ultimately decide how long the turnaround time will take.
Adding to this, the time of the game would have to be slowed down greatly to be able to implement shorter turnaround times.
As well as that, I feel like turnaround times should be even slower then what you mentioned, as 737s and A320s are commonly turned around in an hour or so, depending on the airline and the stand type.
I agree to your point to some extent, the airlines also demand the required turnaround time. But as far as I know, it will be collaborative decision between the airline and airport. Airlines will have there own schedules to maintain, and airport will have there own constraints.
Since we are not taking the airlines’ schedules in to consideration of our game, I have neglected the point.
But as a compromise, we can do like this : when we accept an offer, airline should provide a minimum turnaround time, and if we are able to satisfy him then they should even provide bonus amount or there happiness should increase.
That could do as well! But it would be good if we had a minimum and maximum turnaround time that the airline sets, and the maximum would only be a recommended time.