Cargo

[Unknown98]

I don't plan on implementing cargo aircraft and a cargo demand formula until after we get the passenger formula completed and stable. But I wanted to start a discussion on cargo now so we can come back to it in the future when I'm ready to start working on the cargo aspect of the game. Basically post/discuss anything you'd like to see implemented (or things you'd like to avoid) when dealing with cargo. A few things I thought of:

Transporting cargo on passenger planes: Allow the transportation of cargo in the belly of your passenger planes, much like many airlines do in real life. Would allow utilization of cargo hold space that would otherwise be empty.

Cargo contracts? Sign various contracts with made up companies to transport their cargo. They would have specific routes that would need to be served and so on. Might be a bit complicated to implement but I think it would add a lot of immersion, rather than just having cargo magically appear on any route you fly. 

Cargo would be exempt from any political restrictions (if those are ever implemented), just as in real life.



Additionally I still need to compile cargo statistics for a lot of airports. Right now there are 593 airports that do not have any cargo stats associated with them. Thats 38.7% of the airports that are missing data. Not too bad, much better than if it were all of them.

[Yupiter]

Searching data regarding cargo will be completely impossible in case of many airports. Could we unlike in case of passengers statistics use system such as in CA. That means the statistics would increase based on flight frequency to respective airports. The statistics counter would be visible all the time on airport page. I think the game would be then more varied and smaller airports would'n be forgotten by the players. Thank you

[luizdom]

Unknown98
If possible pass list of these 593 airports
I am slowly searching and putting the data in the Inaccurate Airport Data.

But it will have airports without any statistics of cargo, could create a restriction in these airports not to send a flight with 0 of load.

[Unknown98]

Yeah some airports will be impossible to find cargo stats on. The formula could be adjusted in that case to account for that and still allow small cargo loads to those airports.

These are the airports that are missing cargo data:

JFK
CLT
NRT
HND
PEK
SXF
DXB
SYD
CDG
LIS
LGA
LAX
SFO
PVG
DME
CAI
ICN
IAH
ASE
DRO
EGE
FNL
GJT
GUC
HDN
MTJ
PUB
ALS
CEZ
TEX
FTG
BJC
APA
CPR
CYS
COD
GCC
JAC
LAR
RIW
RKS
SHR
WRL
BIL
BZN
BTM
GTF
FCA
MSO
SDY
WYS
FMN
ROW
SAF
CNM
CVN
HOB
SVC
SUN
IDA
LWS
PIH
TWF
PVU
SGU
ENV
CDC
CNY
VEL
IFP
FLG
GCN
AZA
PGA
GCW
YUM
PRC
SOW
IGM
BLD
EKO
VGT
ELY
CSN
EUG
LMT
LWO
IEV
DNK
DOK
ODS
SIP
TXL
STR
BRN
MYJ
CTS
ASM
KBL
HEA
BLX
BRS
MME
CFU
LCY
NQY
NWI
ISC
BHD
GCI
AZO
MSS
LEB
AUG
EWB
ORH
BMI
TVC
SJX
CAK
GRB
BFD
DUJ
LNS
LBE
ACY
TTN
GRB
DVL
DUB
ORK
NOC
SNN
WAT
ETH
VDA
HFA
SDV
TLV
TIA
OHD
SKP
SHD
MCW
BQK
VLD
AHN
SDD
BBK
ENC
KAD
SKO
PNR
PFO
ECN
JAV
SFJ
KUS
UAK
GOH
JFR
JQA
JHS
RKV
FAE
CMF
SEN
CPT
DUR
ELS
GRJ
JNB
PLZ
LLW
JRO
TBO
ESB
HTY
AYT
BJV
DLM
ERZ
SAW
KYA
MLX
NAV
SZF
GNY
TZX
EZS
ISE
KSY
LXA
NGQ
CPH
KRP
ODE
SGD
TED
GWT
KDL
EPU
TAY
HEM
JYV
KAJ
KEM
KOK
KUO
KAO
LPP
MHQ
OUL
POR
RVN
SVL
VAA
VRK
AJR
BLE
GEV
HAD
SQO
HMV
KRN
KRF
LLA
MMX
NRK
NYO
BMA
UME
AGH
OER
OSD
RYG
OLA
VDB
ANU
NAS
VRA
LRM
AZS
JBQ
SDQ
KIN
MBJ
BQN
PSE
SJU
SXM
POS
TAB
KTM
CBR
BHS
DBO
NTL
TMW
WGA
NLK
ASP
DRW
GOV
AYQ
BNE
BDB
CNS
OOL
MIR
MKY
MCY
PPP
ROK
TWB
TSV
KGC
MGB
HBA
LST
YTZ
AVV
MEL
MEB
MBW
NOS
CTM
GDL
MLM
PBC
TIJ
TGZ
XIY
BPX
LZY
GOQ
YUS
LUX
ANR
KJK
BRU
CRL
LGG
BON
EIN
GRQ
MST
RTM
FCO
CIA
MXP
LIN
TRN
AHO
CAG
CTA
CIY
PMO
TPS
BZO
FLR
GRS
PSA
VRN
PSR
BRI
SUF
REG
NAP
QSR
PMF
TRS
GRZ
INN
KLU
LNZ
SZG
VIE
LPL
MSU
BRE
HAJ
HAM
BRQ
FLV
PED
PRG
LJU
MBX
KGD
WAW
KRK
GDN
FRW
WRO
POZ
RZE
LCJ
SZZ
WMI
LUZ
BWK
DBV
PUY
RJK
SPU
ZAG
BNZ
OMO
SJJ
TZL
SOB
DEB
BUD
SLD
TAT
KSC
BTS
GME
MHP
MSQ
KIV
BEG
INI
PRN
TGD
TIV
OTP
ARW
BCM
BBU
CLJ
IAS
SBZ
SCV
TGM
TSR
BOJ
PDV
SOF
VAR
JSH
LRS
KZS
JIK
IOA
AOK
KZI
KIT
MLO
JMK
JNX
PAS
GPA
PVK
JTR
JSI
VOL
ZTH
SKG
SMI
RHO
MJT
LXS
KGS
EFL
KVA
KLX
HER
CHQ
ATH
TBS
LWN
EVN
GYD
DJE
NBE
TUN
BJA
ALG
CMN
TTU
TIP
SSH
HMB
TCP
EMF
BET
FAI
KTN
ADQ
YAK
AUK
BTI
CDB
KOZ
AWI
NDC
AGR
IXD
AKL
CHC
DUD
HLZ
HKK
IVC
NPE
NSN
NPL
PMR
ZQN
TRG
WRE
WLG
BZL
CGP
DAC
MDL
RGN
NYT
DMK
BKK
CNX
USM
NST
BKO
ROB
OUA
KAN
LOS
QOW
QRW
MQX
KMU
SSG
NBO
WIL
WJR
MBA
EDL
HGA
HRE
MUB
WDH
BZG
SZY
SIR
RDO
LUG
ACH
MLB
GOJ
DAB
CUN
CUU
VER
CUL
BJX
OAX
VSA
TAM
TRC
CME
MZT
ZCL
MAF
PIB
JAN
LIT
LIH
MHK
RDD
IEG
DND
LWK
PGV
USA
VLY
CEG
SWS
IOM
YZF
YFB
YYG
YFC
YXY
YSJ
YXU
YQM
GKT
OLB
YQX
OPS
MPN
HLE
ASI
REL
VDM
EQS
CPC
RSA
AFA
CTC
IRJ
TUC
SDE
FMA
NAN
EGS
TJA
SRE
TDD
PEM
RIB
PZO
LET
HIR
VLI
CAB
BLZ
PHC
LVI
BUQ
VFA
SON
APW
SUV
MLE
CRA
KIM
UTN
BFN
MQP

[Carde]

Point with cargo is that tonnage is hardly saying much. I mean Schiphol handles a LOT of flowers from places like Ghana and flies them onwards to every from London to Tokyo to New York. Not much weight in those


Gameplay wise I think it should be a higher risk option, cargo is not the golden goose these days and many legacy carriers struggle with their cargo divisions. The demand is just very very iffy because it is so expensive to fly cargo and really the only ones we do it well are dedicated cargo airlines or postage companies like Fed ex, DHL and the like.

Also a fun note from a cargo pilot who used to fly for a Saudi company (now flies for Cargo Lux):

We flew to places like Yemen and other unstable regions and always when we did this we fueled up at home base with enough fuel to fly both legs of the trip just so that we spend as little time as possible on the ground. I mean fuel is so damn cheap there that is was simply not worth the risk to fuel up at those other airports.

An other note:

There is an alarm that goes off in the cockpit if we have not taken any action for 30(? not sure anymore) minutes, so that means not having touched a single control. And yes before you ask that alarm goes off every 30 minutes when we fly.

[Yupiter]

What about my suggestion?

[Unknown98]

Searching data regarding cargo will be completely impossible in case of many airports. Could we unlike in case of passengers statistics use system such as in CA. That means the statistics would increase based on flight frequency to respective airports. The statistics counter would be visible all the time on airport page. I think the game would be then more varied and smaller airports would'n be forgotten by the players. Thank you

I'm not sure... I really want to get away from the CA way of doing things. If a certain route or airport has more activity (and thus competition) demand should decrease, not increase.

Point with cargo is that tonnage is hardly saying much. I mean Schiphol handles a LOT of flowers from places like Ghana and flies them onwards to every from London to Tokyo to New York. Not much weight in those


Gameplay wise I think it should be a higher risk option, cargo is not the golden goose these days and many legacy carriers struggle with their cargo divisions. The demand is just very very iffy because it is so expensive to fly cargo and really the only ones we do it well are dedicated cargo airlines or postage companies like Fed ex, DHL and the like.

Also a fun note from a cargo pilot who used to fly for a Saudi company (now flies for Cargo Lux):

We flew to places like Yemen and other unstable regions and always when we did this we fueled up at home base with enough fuel to fly both legs of the trip just so that we spend as little time as possible on the ground. I mean fuel is so damn cheap there that is was simply not worth the risk to fuel up at those other airports.

An other note:

There is an alarm that goes off in the cockpit if we have not taken any action for 30(? not sure anymore) minutes, so that means not having touched a single control. And yes before you ask that alarm goes off every 30 minutes when we fly.

This is all true... something we'll have to work around. From what I've seen anyway, the only cargo statistics available for most airports (if any are available at all) is tonnage. I presume the volume of cargo would be a better stat to use... but that stat doesn't exist lol. And the value of cargo differs widely and holds no relation to the weight or volume of the cargo. The oil companies will pay hundreds of thousands to air freight a piece of equipment if they need it badly enough, because the consequence of not having that equipment could be in the millions.

[Dokhu]

As in CA the system should generate a random single cargo contract but this time it should appear only the product name and the "from...to" places .

For example:

Flowers from Lima to Miami $135.000
A rail way engine from Paris to Beijing $234.000
Food from Tampa to Buenos Aires $143.000

And maybe the plane size ...and maybe we could have a large list of enterprises to make it more fun.

[Lokesh]

Although, this is complicated, how about a general cargo contract which can be shared and worked by multiple airlines together?

[Unknown98]

I thought about that too. I think it could be a cool feature. Thinking about it, it doesn't seem too difficult to implement. Although I've said that about a lot of things, that turned out harder than I initially thought.