This topic is prompted by a little exchange on the “…Beta 7 Released…” topic, regarding Baggage handling and Small stands.
Background:
I have been long irked by the fact that when ever you enable baggage handling for your airport, all stands must be connected to a baggage handling system. This changed my original thinking of starting commercial operations with a small terminal with 6 stands on it and then using the profits it generates to start off a second terminal with medium stands.
This meant that when baggage handling is introduced, I had to shell out in the order of £200k to set up a full baggage system only to see baggage trucks wandering about the stands delivering one or two bags to a Cessna, 5 or 6 bags to a DHC-6 or 1900D. Not very cost-effective…
My strategy changed - instead of building a new terminal immediately, add 2-4 medium stands to the small stand terminal to make the baggage system more effective. The existing airlines have medium aircraft available, they’ll take up the medium stand slots. One baggage bay could handle 6 small stands and up to four medium stands with 2 Ramp Agents per side, if it did get busy, add another Ramp Agent. One problem is that some games, the airlines were pretty slow at generating medium flights, and half the slots were empty. In other games, they jumped on the chance to supply medium flights and I nearly bankrupted myself getting the stands built to cope with them, and the small stands became a flight desert. Signing more airlines to fill the small stands just heaped more issues on the medium stands.
So a ray of light came in the form of this exchange:
Olof:
[ACEO-40971 3] - Baggage handling set to not a requirement on small stands even if globally enabled
Me:
So we don’t have to have all those baggage trucks running around with only one bag on it for a Cessna flight? 
I’m going to have to do some testing and see if I can run a small terminal with both small and medium stands on it, no baggage handling for the small stands and a mixture of small and medium check-in desks in the Check-in Hall. The game should be able to distinguish between small desks for flights on the small stands and baggage-bay connected medium stands for the medium stands…
No Fun:
And the small check in desk still has a purpose after baggage system for medium and large is active.
Then, how is the impact on the baggage service rating?
Me:
Good point - I’ll monitor that too - might take me a couple of days, but I’ll let you know.
So, welcome to London City airport (LCY).
This was going to be ‘just another build’, but with the above exchange, it became an experimental airport.
Going back to a stage where I could redo the climb to medium stands and avoid a few dodgy design and build decisions, the checklist for future development was as follows:
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Keep the 6 existing small stands, (plus the emergency stand). They will not be connected to the baggage system when it is developed. They will be supported by 6 small Check-In desks in the Check-In hall.
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One baggage bay in the baggage handling system. This means a maximum of 5 medium stands for scheduled flights, plus an emergency stand, making 9 points out of 10 in the baggage connection score. These will be supported by 6 medium Check-In desks, and, eventually, 6 auto-bag drops when Automation is researched.
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At least one remote stand will be included, to test whether this has an affect on the baggage handling.
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Baggage handling satisfaction to be monitored to see if not including small stands has a negative effect.
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A side quest for late game: There is one small stand point available in the Baggage Bay. What would be the effect of adding one small stand to the baggage bay on the performance of (a) the baggage system; and (b) the airport. The thinking is, that of the small aircraft, the Saab 340B is a candidate for baggage handling because of its capacity - could a stand dedicated to that aircraft type with baggage handling work?
So London City - overall view at the start of the Experiment:
The main airport area:
The terminal, Check-In Hall. 6 small Check-In desks - it is intended to keep these thoughout the Experiment, one thing on the monitoring list is whether the game logic will, when the baggage system is implemented, assign only small flights to these, and the medium flights to the medium, baggage bay-connected, Check-In desks. We already have three of those, and they are being used by the game for the small flights:
The flight monitor is full for at least the next 5 days, 5 airlines, each with their own dedicated stand, and the 6th stand is for overflow from the other 5 stands on a one-per-day slot, and a first-come-first-served slot at the end of the day.
Tempus fugit, and there are two medium stands now in use, and Tulip Airlines have been signed to provide flights as the existing airlines proved reluctant to provide flights (other than the ones heaped into the scheduler when the first medium stand went down, but the runway wasn’t yet built to handle them). Medium flights are being assigned to the small Check-In desks, and occasionally a small flight check-in is delayed because of this:
I’m now waiting for a medium loan to be paid off before constructing the baggage-handling system (underground). More news soon.
