Travelers often have varying preferences for departure and arrival times, with business and leisure travelers typically having distinct patterns. The system allows customization of these preferences to reflect how flights at different times of day might attract different levels of traffic and load factors.
The Time of Day tab, shown in Figure 1, features a matrix for inputting factors based on time slots, distinguishing between departure/arrival times and business versus leisure travelers. There’s also an adjacent chart that visually represents the values entered in the matrix. The default setting for all time slots and traveler types is 1.0, suggesting no initial differentiation in preferences.
You can initialize these values by clicking the Initiate Values button, which sets up a baseline (illustrated in Figure 2) that can then be adjusted according to specific needs. The Reset Values button, when clicked, reverts all values back to the default of 1.0.
Please note that the time-of-day preferences are applied to current flight schedules. Airlines often design their schedules considering existing traffic patterns at different times of the day. Therefore, adjusting these factors requires careful consideration to avoid double-counting the effects.