You never sell a ticket by hand. Once a flight sits inside the booking window, the world's passengers find it, weigh it against every alternative, and book, or walk away. Understanding that loop is the heart of the commercial game.
The daily heartbeat#
Every airport recalculates its demand once per game day. At that moment the market pools from that origin are refreshed (sized by city weight, distance, route type, season, day of week and a little noise) and a booking pass runs over every departure inside the booking window (by default the next 3 days; your world may differ). Flights get one pass per remaining day, so bookings build gradually toward departure. An empty cabin three days out is normal; judge the curve, not the snapshot.
Seats sold are persistent inventory. A seat booked today is gone for every later pass, and a direct passenger competes for the same seats as a connecting one crossing that leg.
What passengers choose between#
For each origin–destination market the engine assembles the bookable itineraries:
- Direct flights inside the window.
- Connections over an intermediate stop: normally same-airline, but interline agreements, alliances and codeshares open partner connections too.
- Rare two-stop routings, only where a market has almost no other options.
A connection only exists if the transfer fits: at least the minimum connect time at the transfer airport (by default 45 minutes; big hubs can take longer in some worlds) and at most the maximum (by default 6 hours). A cabin class is only offered if it exists on every leg. The journey price is the default fare for the origin-destination distance scaled by your own pricing on the legs (older worlds: the sum of the segments), unless a through-fare replaces it (see Pricing & fares). Not everyone will take a connection: passengers who have to travel (business, visiting family) accept the extra time and the change of plane far more readily than discretionary leisure travellers, who mostly stay home rather than connect on short routes. Only a limited set of the best options per market makes the shelf, ranked by total travel time.
Who is buying, and what they weigh#
Demand is a cast of customer types, by default nine, from budget travellers to executives (your world may differ), split between business and leisure. Each type has its own price sensitivity, value of time, aversion to transfers, preferred departure or arrival hours, cabin preferences and even a hard budget above which options simply vanish for them. Bookings also arrive in small groups, so thin routes fill in lumps.
Every option is weighed on fare, total travel time, transfers, timing against preferred hours, cabin comfort, on-board service against class expectations, your airline's image, and marketing. Two outside options always compete: ground transport and simply not travelling. The exact formulas are deliberately not published, but Market Analysis shows a per-option breakdown of these forces (see Market analysis under fog).
Full flights and spill#
When a flight sells out, unmet demand spills to the next-best alternatives: possibly a competitor, possibly the ground. Demand no option could seat is lost for that day, never banked. Consistently early sell-outs are your signal to raise fares or add capacity.
When the money lands#
Multi-leg fares are split across legs roughly by distance. Booked revenue is only recognized when the flight actually arrives. Cancel a booked flight and you recognize nothing and pay passenger compensation instead, at a premium over what they paid. Watch it all in Inventory & load monitoring.