Bag Fees

[Unknown98]

Bag fees are in the works. You can see a space for them has been added on the route research page but for now it's empty space.

Bag fees will work similar to ticket prices. You can set overall bag fees for each class on the set ticket prices page, and I will also add a space for bag fees on the flight number page so you can control fees on each particular route if you so wish. 

There will be two types of bag fees: Carry-on bags and Checked bags. For now I'm not going to mess with weight limits or any of that, I feel like that may be a bit too much for a game like this. 

Bag fees will affect demand to an extent, so you can lose demand if your bag fees are higher compared to the rest of your competition. You can also gain demand if you have lower or no bag fees compared to other airlines. This effect isn't too large though, bag fees do not hold as much weight in the demand formula as ticket prices do. However, bag fees will also have an effect on reputation gain. The higher your bag fees, the less reputation you gain per flight. So there will be a trade-off there, extra income at the cost of some demand and reputation.

[Dokhu]

Hi Admin.

There should be a negative effect of some sort about not charging bag fees?

It should. I mean people could overload the plane and decrease the number of passengers or put the flight at risk.

[ALT2870]

I digress Dokhu. All planes have room for tons, and I mean literally tons of baggage. The negative affect is you don't get as much money.

[Marb1]

I want it implemented. I'm a LCC.

[Sora]

If you're a LLC and need to charge bag fees of some sort to be profitable, so be it. But if you're a standard carrier like me, why should you be punished for charging higher ticket prices, where a bag fee is most probably already included?

Going by the lowest service class, most standard carriers allow for at least one piece of checked baggage for domestic flights as well as up to two pieces for international flights, each with a weight of around 20 to 23 kg, and additional fees don't come into play until you exceed either of those limits.

[Stebah]

Sora you don't have to use a bag fee. I know I'm not going to implement it. But I agree with what you said, at most airines the first bag of 23kg (almost standard now) is free of charge together with one piece of carry-on.

[Sora]

I'm well aware that it's an option, Stebs, but my comment was mostly directed at the user who was asking if there should be a negative effect, if one's not charging bag fees, and even positively answered his own question.

[Unknown98]

If anything there will be a positive effect for not charging bag fees. You can't overload the aircraft and even if you could the weight of the aircraft is accounted for in the demand formula.

[USA]

This is a really good add, allows for more differentiation between airlines.

[Unknown98]

Okay, bag fees have been implemented into the route research page only. What this means is you can go to the set ticket prices page, set your bag fees, and see how that would affect demand on any particular route, with one caveat: The average bag fee is going to be $0 on all routes, because, well, it's not implemented yet. So if you add a bag fee, you will instantly be charging above average, and the demand will drop a bit as well as your reputation gain. Once bag fees are actually implemented, other airlines will affect the average, which means you could charge a fee, and potentially not lose nearly as much demand and/or reputation as it shows now. Also, keep in mind that once this is implemented fully, the game needs to rack up 7 days worth of flight history to get an accurate average.

Carry-on fees have a slightly more prominent effect than checked bag fees. i.e. charging a carry-on fee is more damaging to your airline than charging a checked bag fee.
Currently you cannot set bag fees on a per-route basis. That's coming soon.
If you are the only airline on a route, charging bag fees will cause demand loss & reputation loss. Not charging bag fees will not cause a demand gain. You just won't lose anything.

Also I'm noticing a strange bug on the set ticket prices page, if you set a bag fee and then immediately set a new fee without refreshing the page, it won't take the new number. You have to refresh the page for some reason between inputs. I'll work on fixing that as well.

And for those of you who haven't checked out the route research page in the past day there's a little surprise waiting for you