Timetable?

[EHM-1199 Philip]

I feel a bit of a cheek asking this question but here goes anyway.

My local airport is Plymouth, UK (EGHD). I live literally about a mile from the place and have taken half a dozen flying lessons from the airport.
Consequently I have decent additional scenery for the area and enjoy flying in and out of the airport.
The only EHM flights to/from EGHD are flights 1000 and 1001 which go to EGLL and back.
In real life, Air Wales and more recently Air South West operate flights from EGHD to destinations that include London Gatwick, Jersey, Gurensey, Newquay, Bristol, Manchester, Dublin and Amsterdam Schipol.
In the coming months this is going to expand and include a range of other short range continental destinations including Paris.
I know we already have a huge database of flights but wonder if EHM might consider competing for some of the customers flying these flights to and from Plymouth. Obviously, as a local pilot I would choose to regularly fly these routes.

[EHM-0240 Joe]

It would be nice if everyone's local airport could have flights to all over the world on the timetable. My local airport is EGBB. In reality you can fly to New York, Dubai, India and of course to everywhere in Europe. yet Euroharmony only has 4 destinations, 3 of which aren't actually serviced in reality.

The thing you have to bear in mind is if an airline like euroharmony really existed, covering the whole of Europe, would there be lots of destinations from every airport, probably not. An airline like euroharmony would do mainly international flights from only the largest of airports. Regional flights from one small airport to another would be left to the regional airlines. That is why when the new timetable was created it was set up so that all the smaller airports, like Plymouth, are linked to their nearest hub, like Heathrow and then flights to everywhere else can be flown from the hub. So you can really fly to wherever you want from Plymouth, but you have to go via EGLL first.

I'm sure thats not the kind of answer you are looking for, but that's my opinion anyway.

[EHM-1152 Thomas]

I know how you feel plymyphil.  My local airport (EGAC) has only I think one flight in the EHM database.
I was going to ask for more flights to be added there but when I thought about it, if more flights were added because I asked then more would have to be added for you and all the other people that would want them at their local airports.
Before long there would be just to many flights.

[EHM-0962 Zhen Yi]

Yeah i agree........too many flights is definitely not a good thing........

I know how you feel too........my local airport is WSSS, an international airport which can link virtually any major airport in the world but in EuroHarmony it only goes to Australia or EGLL......and maybe 1 or 2 more airports in the other divisions

[EHM-1343 Jonathan]

My local Airport Newcastle egnt has a few destinations but for some reason there is a class 5 flight to Manchester, why is this

[EHM-0744 Alex]

Isnt there that option in the timetable to "suggest a flight" anyomore???

[EHM-0471 Peter]

Yes, it was, but now I can't find it anymore. Maybe this is only temporary since the timetables are still incomplete,but this possibility was superb.
My original home airport is LJLJ and I miss some  daily scheduled  real flights, and beside this fact, the traffic over LJLJ is realy growing up.

But I have noticed also one another important fact. Some of flights are marked for class of aircraft totaly unrealistic. For instance: the duration of certain flight is only 30-40 minutes, which is the clasification for class 1 aircraft, but in the timetable it is class 2, or even higher and this is far from reality. Maybe we should have the possibility to mark out such mistakes and report them to be corrected. What about this?

Peter

[EHM-1199 Philip]

Originally posted by Peter
But I have noticed also one another important fact. Some of flights are marked for class of aircraft totaly unrealistic. For instance: the duration of certain flight is only 30-40 minutes, which is the clasification for class 1 aircraft, but in the timetable it is class 2, or even higher and this is far from reality. Maybe we should have the possibility to mark out such mistakes and report them to be corrected. What about this?

Peter

Firstly, before we have discussions about our timetable we should I guess recognise that we do have a wide ranging timetable.
That said, for me the joy of EHM is being able to participate all over Europe and eventually as an ATP the world, from such a range of airports that I feel the virtual airline doesn't constrain my freedom of choice in flight simming.
Many airlines do confine pilots to a rigid number of routes in an effort to present a virtual airline that simulates the reality of a similar airline.
At EHM, it could be argued, we don't do that. The EHM schedule is so far ranging as to be unrealistic for a real life airline to sustain. This howver is one of the joys of EHM. Ultimately it means that we can fly many diferent routes and I shouldn't feel too bad calling for more routes from my own local airport. (In real life, there is no service from EGHD-EGLL as the landing slots are too precious at EGLL. Instead, the London connection goes in to Gatwick.) There is a fine line to walk between simulating reality and enhancing the experience of pilots flying in the simulated world.

Coming back to your point quoted above Peter, I think it is right that we look at the timetabled flights and discuss in this forum some of the peculiarities such as those you have noted.

Having risen from Class 1 to Class 3 in the new EHM, I am noticing a slightly frustrating flight time of one hour seems to be dominant for many of our flights. Whilst it is only rare that I flew the intercontinental flights as an ATP I do quite enjoy the 2-3 hour flights ... they sit nicely for an evening flight simming at the end of a days work. They are also a realistic flight time for many real life flights serviced by ATR and Dash 8 aircraft.

[EHM-1077 Emanuele]

Some of flights are marked for class of aircraft totaly unrealistic. For instance: the duration of certain flight is only 30-40 minutes, which is the clasification for class 1 aircraft, but in the timetable it is class 2, or even higher and this is far from reality.

The duration of the flight has little to do with
the class of the flight. Two relatively big cities
might be only 30-40 minutes away
but have a high demand of seats,
requiring a bigger plane.

I.e. in 2002 I was commuting weekly
from Munich to Dusseldorf on B737.
The flight would often be around only
45 minutes but the planes were always
quite full, no matter the many daily
flights.

So, it's not about the length of the
trip, is about the number of people
you have to move around, and EHM
timetable have been designed in this
direction, with bigger cities served by
bigger planes.

Ciao ciao!

Manu

[EHM-0471 Peter]

Manu!

O.K. It's logical explanation and now I understand it perfectly allright.

Peter

[EHM-1199 Philip]

Makes perfect sense Manu though I guess there has to be a factor of fuel efficiency for shorter flights in there too or else London and Paris would be regularly linked by 747s or something similar instead of the Dash 8 and ATR aircraft that do this run many times a day.

Anecdote: Pilot friend of mine many years ago was charged with moving a 747 from Gatwick to Heathrow ... try that on simluator ... then factor in noise abatement and minimum altitudes.

[EHM-0962 Zhen Yi]

choosing between interesting routes and realistic routes, i would choose the interesting ones. if you want realistic routes, you may as well join virtual real world airlines like British Airways Virtual. simulating the real world counterpart removes the need to think about what is possible and what is not......so here at EuroHarmony i dont think the management will do this........