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Recently I investigated the issue of how VA calculates the Flight Ticket Price, in order to predict the profitability of a flight, in advance.
This issue exists in a thread named Ticket Prices from January 10th, 2014, with kalo, martypk and OZ-flyer, as I recall.
In short:
• Minimum flight price is 50$
• For flights with 1-200nm, it will be 1$/nm
• For flights with 201-800nm, it will be 0.5$/nm
• For flights with 801-3000nm, it will be 0.2$/nm
BTW, there shouldn't be any distance range left uncovered – the range beyond 3000nm. I understand that at the time of configuring the formula, there were not flights with more than 3000nm, but it should have been covered – see the two flights that were added recently, with more than 6000nm each.
What I found in my investigations is that the flight's log represents exactly this formula… but IMO it's wrong.
This way, a 199nm flight will "cost" a passenger 199$, while a 201 flight will cost him only 100.5$, which is odd, to say the least. Even a flight of 396nm, will cost him 198$, which is even more strange. The same happens when the distance changes from 800nm to 801nm.
The reason behind this, is that the formula was not implemented correctly, no offence to anybody. The formula as it is today, behaves graphically, like the graph with the blue frame, in the attached file, while it should behave graphically, like the graph with the green frame, in the attached file.
The later graph describes a formula that I built, which says in plain English, as follows:
1. Minimum flight price is 50$
2. For flights with 1-200nm, it will be 1$/nm
3. For THE NEXT 600nm (i.e. beyond 200 until 800), it will be 0.5$/nm + line 2
4. For EVERY nm beyond 800nm, it will be 0.2$/nm + line 2 + line 3
I hope the attached graphs.jpg file went thru and that the formula will be fixed in the future.
If karl as the VA admin would like to contact me for the correct formula (Excel), he will be more than welcome.
Yigal
This issue exists in a thread named Ticket Prices from January 10th, 2014, with kalo, martypk and OZ-flyer, as I recall.
In short:
• Minimum flight price is 50$
• For flights with 1-200nm, it will be 1$/nm
• For flights with 201-800nm, it will be 0.5$/nm
• For flights with 801-3000nm, it will be 0.2$/nm
BTW, there shouldn't be any distance range left uncovered – the range beyond 3000nm. I understand that at the time of configuring the formula, there were not flights with more than 3000nm, but it should have been covered – see the two flights that were added recently, with more than 6000nm each.
What I found in my investigations is that the flight's log represents exactly this formula… but IMO it's wrong.
This way, a 199nm flight will "cost" a passenger 199$, while a 201 flight will cost him only 100.5$, which is odd, to say the least. Even a flight of 396nm, will cost him 198$, which is even more strange. The same happens when the distance changes from 800nm to 801nm.
The reason behind this, is that the formula was not implemented correctly, no offence to anybody. The formula as it is today, behaves graphically, like the graph with the blue frame, in the attached file, while it should behave graphically, like the graph with the green frame, in the attached file.
The later graph describes a formula that I built, which says in plain English, as follows:
1. Minimum flight price is 50$
2. For flights with 1-200nm, it will be 1$/nm
3. For THE NEXT 600nm (i.e. beyond 200 until 800), it will be 0.5$/nm + line 2
4. For EVERY nm beyond 800nm, it will be 0.2$/nm + line 2 + line 3
I hope the attached graphs.jpg file went thru and that the formula will be fixed in the future.
If karl as the VA admin would like to contact me for the correct formula (Excel), he will be more than welcome.
Yigal
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