Doesn’t help if you have over 360 contracts and it’s growing at LHR. 
3 Likes
I’ve done a bit of playing with it is as well. It definitely works, but from my own experience and what you all have been saying, I think it could be perfected with just a couple more things.
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The biggest thing is definitely just being able to assign a contract to a selectable group of stands instead of just one. For example, I’ve used scheduling system a bit in SCL, and at the Domestic terminal, it just seems odd to have the same aircraft and route come back to the same gate every single time. Yes, some routes will land at the same gate if that airline only flies to a small handful of locations from that airport, but for most airlines that have a HUB at an airport, or airports that have a lot of gates for one airline, like the domestic terminal for H2, JA, and LA at SCL, it’s just pretty unrealistic seeing the same aircraft from the same route landing at the same gate EVERY single time. On top of that, you will have aircraft waiting to park at a specific gate at, for example, the domestic terminal, whilst another gate is open at the Domestic Terminal, but if you move the plane that wants a gate just to the open gate, then it screws everything up. I’m not a game designer or coder, so I don’t know if this would be easy or hard to implement, but this is by far what we need the most to improve the scheduling system.
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This is a simple one, but just removing the (!) symbol for planes that want their gate even when it’s taken, it just crowds the arrival list and is a bit annoying.
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Another one that I’ve seen brought up is just making the system work where it always goes in order, meaning, even if you stopped playing for a few hours, the next plane in the queue for a stand when you were last playing should be the plane that gets the stand next, and not allow any other planes that have that stand to land out of order, This is important because it allows for all planes to be handled equally. Because currently, if you have a fair amount planes using one stand, some planes will get handled a ton, while some closer to the end of the schedule will barely ever get handled.
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lastly, one thing I haven’t seen mentioned much is how to deal with shared stands. The problem is, for example at MSY, they shared stands will almost always favor the small planes. I’ve found that I’m almost never able to land D/E planes at their gates because they are always blocked by C planes. This is somewhat fixed with the size preference thing, but it’s still an issue. What I suggest is that in the scheduling menu, make the time blocks for any plane that will block another stand a little bit wider so it blocks part of or the entirety of the stands next to it, that way it will always have a spot to land and the smaller planes will have to wait for it every time.
These are just some ideas, and in no way am I trying to be ungrateful or upset about the new system, it is still awesome, and the devs have been so good to us, so again, thank you guys!
7 Likes
I don’t know if it is totally unrealistic. For example, when I fly SEA-SFO on Alaska, I almost always end up at the same gates, barring major disruptions like weather and whatnot. I think, although could be wrong, that Alaska will try to schedule the same gates each day, and the reason it’s often different is just cascading schedule disruptions throughout the day. Idk could be wrong but it seems to me like that would be reasonable especially at smaller airports.
3 Likes
That is true, some airlines and routes for some airports do like to use the same gates. That typically seems to be more true for D/E/F aircraft, but some Cs do too.
In my experience while doing my research for my realistic route guides that I’ve made, most airlines that have hubs at airports that we have in game choose their gates at random (besides the terminal). Airlines like Spirit, Southwest, SKY, JetSMART, LATAM, GOL, Winair, Ryanair, and many more, all seem to just pick gates at random. I think, like previously stated, adding a system that allows you to pick as much or as few gates as you want contract to be able to go to would be a perfect fix for this, because for airlines that like to only use only one or two specific gates, it would work perfectly, and for airlines like SWA at SAN for example, they would be able to choose any stand they wish from stands 4-16, etc.
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I like these. I think have the OPTION to schedule by either gate or terminal would be great. As in USA they got to more specific set of gates but then elsewhere they just go anywhere in a certain terminal
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Also, to jump onto the bottom of your point, the terminals have all been put in the scheduler so we should be able to put an aircraft to a terminal, say a BA 777 should be able to be assigned to Terminal 5 and will find the first empty gate for its size at that terminal.
And regarding your above point 4, I agree 100% and I personally would have no problem with a plane landing and waiting for its gate to be empty, maybe even in the future it could move to a taxiway next to the main one to be out of the way but this is maybe a bit much lol. Good post.
3 Likes
You know this does happen at some airports right?
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Sorry, let me change my phrasing in the post above, I think my point is getting misinterpreted. Many aircraft from many routes do go to the same gate at almost every airport in the world. What I was trying to say is that a lot of aircraft that have a hub or a lot of gates at certain airports (I.e. BA at LHR or SWA at SAN) end up using typically using different gates from a certain set of gates or terminal almost every time.
For example, take SWA at SAN: Gate 15 is a southwest gate, which Southwest has several at SAN (Gates 4-16). Say a SWA B738 comes in from DAL and parks at gate 15. However, it is unlikely that the same B738 from DAL will park at gate 15 EVERY single time it is there, it will realistically park at, say, gate 7 the next time, and then maybe gate 13, and so on.
While some airlines that have many gates at an airport will try to use the same gate every time, it just doesn’t happen for most, that’s what I was trying to get at.
I apologize for any confusion!
Here’s a better example:
This is AA1055 from SAN-DFW, it’s a daily flight.
As you can see, over the course of three different days, it parks at a different gate every time:
7 Likes
If it’s just a gate how will it work on schedule system?, only thing I can think of is like LHR where it could be under Terminals then randomly selects the gate at that terminal you choose. I’m not that fussed about aircraft parking at the same gate as long it’s the correct terminal.
2 Likes
Does anybody know what the development status of the scheduler is?
I’m asking, because I feel like it’s a part of the game a lot of people want to love, but it’s falling just short of that.
I mean it was released to much expectation, turned out to have limited usability and some shortcomings to really make it work (per suggestions and discussions in this forum), and then things just kind of went quiet.
Not hating on anything, I know it’s take it or leave it and that’s fine, yet curious if any further development/tweaking is on the roadmap.
1 Like
For me personally, it has been usable since the last update and I use it daily in HKG. It works great. But only since the “prefer schedule” button was added. I think that since it is currently working, it will continue to do so for now and other issues will be addressed. However, things will certainly be adjusted or new features added when the time is right.
6 Likes