Passenger Reporting time at airport

I am not sure if it is decided by airports or airlines, but I am sure the airport (in this case you as the CEO) will have a say in the matter.

For a future option, being able to set what time the passengers have to report at various checkpoints on the way to a flight.

Eg: from a popular airline in India,
Recommended reporting time: 2 hrs before flight
Check in closes: 45 min before flight
Gate closes: 25 min before flight

Being able to set these times might be a major factor in the operation of the airport.

Keep the time very high, everyone will be through check in and security very early (flight will not get late) but passengers may get irritated due to long wait between check in and boarding.
Keep the time very low, minimal waiting time, but passengers who cut it close may not be able to make it to the flight in time, causing flight to get delayed or passengers missing flight.

I guess it is more critical the gap between the times (taking the gaps as the critical value, and working backwards from there to set the times). For example if reporting is 60 min before and check in closes 45 min before, they have only 15 minutes between arriving at the airport and reaching the counter (including waiting time in queue). This may result in passengers missing flight because they did not check in within time.
Similarly, time allowed between check in and gate closing (which will include time taken to get through security and reach the gate). Also, between gate closing and flight reaching the runway (including pushback and taxi time) to determine if flight takes off on time.

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Hey there,
I haven’t seen this requested before. Personally, i’m a bit on the fence about it. It sounds like a marvel for micro monsters. But it sounds a bit too micro for the average player :slight_smile:

What if it was researched? Something you could micro manage if you hired the required executive.

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Hire someone to micro it? You usually hire someone to NOT micro it :smiley:

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The way that I see it is that when you schedule a flight, the program uses some variables and/or random number generators to decide when passengers arrive (random number because not everyone shows up together, some are early, others late).
The current variable values would then become the default values for the reporting times. If you’re not into micromanagement, you can leave the values at their default settings. People who want to change them can.

Why I see this as important, let me take 2 examples.
Eg 1: Small airport
Do not have sufficient funding/reputation to have shops/food kiosks. Passenger come at specified time and get irritated standing around and waiting. (Neither can I give them something to satisfy fun, hunger needs, nor can I make them not come so early)
Eg 2: Large airport
Passengers take long time to walk from one area to another when there are no monorails, moving walkways. This can cause a lot of missed or delayed flights. (Neither can I move the passengers across faster, nor can I make them come earlier to give them more time to walk the distance)

Without a lot of the ‘to be added features’, this could be an important feature to keep the airports running smoothly in the early alpha versions.

Maybe not all the reporting times, but definitely the time at which they arrive at the airport (average time of passenger arrival. Based on that time, some passengers may come earlier, others later as mentioned above - Bell curve, for those that know what that means)

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Just want to say, in situations like this you wouldn’t want a random number generator. People don’t arrive at the same rate independent of time, instead you’d have a normal distribution about the arrival time meaning more people arrive at around the two hour mark than long before and long after. Also, the later you make your arrival times the tighter the distribution, meaning everybody is going through security at once. Due to the nature of the normal distribution it also means that every so often somebody will be late for a flight.

This could tie in with the groups system as groups will obviously turn up at the same time. So the normal distribution will be for the number of groups arriving, so if there are less distinct, but larger groups like a holiday charter flight they’re more likely to all arrive at 2 hours again causing jams, but a more distinct smaller group like a business flight will have much fewer queues and therefore the reporting time may well be smaller depending on other conditions (Avg queue length and the like).

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You are right. I was thinking normal distribution, but wrote random number. Tried to correct that by adding Bell curve at the end of one of my replies.

What I would like is to be able to set the mean value via a slider (2 hours prior or 3 hours prior, etc), but I should not be allowed to control how tight the distribution is. I have to account for the 1st people possibly getting irritated and the last people possibly missing the flight while I try to choose the optimum mean value.

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I can see where you’re going with this @vikhattangady and it’s an interesting idea for sure. However, as you mentioned early on, these time directives are usually the perogative of the airline, not the airport. Particularly the choice of when check-in/bag drop closes is airline policy, not airport.

E.g. in Australia, Tiger Airways closes check-in AND bagdrop 45 minutes before departure, whilst for Virgin Australia check-in closes earlier but bag drop remains open until 30 minutes before departure. These are for domestic flights though, international tends to be more standard around the world.

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I agree, but this being a game, no harm in giving more powers than the CEO would have in real life (eg. Scheduling flights).
If it is a feature that by giving to the player, it opens more flexibility and/or ways to counter potential problems, I say go for it.

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But I think given that airlines are simulated fully with their own demands etc. Why wouldn’t policies like this also come under their own structures rather than the CEOs?

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I think this is set by airlines. I would like to see some kind of metrics through that could be used as performance indicators.

A few that I can think of would be:

Check-In Time: The time from when a passenger enters a queue.
Security Time: The time from when a passenger enters security to when they clear security.
Turn Around Time: The time it takes to turn a plane around. This would be displayed as a +/- of the turn around time the for airplane.
Baggage Pick-up time: The time for when a passenger deplanes to when they receive their luggage.

These metrics would be used to determine if an airline would be interested in flying into your airport

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I really like this. It means the airlines still set those reporting times, but the actual times give you data to improve your airport operations etc.

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Certain airlines could require different metrics. A discount airline is looking for quick turn around time, while maybe a prestige airline is looking for shorter lines for better passenger satisfaction.

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So, another addition to the contract system/airline reputation? I think this is a good addition, seeing as this system is not as fleshed out as others though.

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But wouldn’t Poisson distribution work better for such simulation? I’m a bit rustic in my operational management though.

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I dont have much knowledge of statistics and distribution, etc.
I guess how the devs handle it now should not be any issue. Just that I would like some control on setting the time based on which the distribution is made.

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Hopefully we will be so busy with out stuff to manage that we won’t want that level of micro!!

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But, in PA, you specifically research micro-management which allows more advanced players to control more of the game.

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But isn’t in PA, the research conducted to unlock features, not increase micromanagement?

One of the features is editing the schedules…micro