FAQ - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
ROUTE SPROUTS REPORT
2) HOW IS THE DATA CALCULATED?
3) HOW DO YOU READ THE REPORT?
4) HOW ARE NEW ROUTES SELECTED?
5) HOW ACCURATE IS THE REPORT?/A ROUTE IS WRONG?
7) ARE INTERNATIONAL ROUTES AND TRAFFIC INCLUDED?
9) WHY ARE THERE ROUTES NOT FROM THE AIRLINE'S HUBS?
10) WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT?
1) I CAN'T SEE THE DATA?
The ROUTE SPROUTS REPORT is available to INTL TIER and above.
2) HOW IS THE DATA CALCULATED?
A worldwide QSI model is run for the target period using schedule frequency data to determine and score all possible possible routings for existing flights up to double-connects. Demand is used for the same quarter as the forecast route but from the prior year. Potential routes are added into the list. The new flights are only allowed to connect to existing flights and new flights are not allowed to connect to other new flights to maintain a "one at a time" route addition method. Online, alliance, and interline connects are all allowed with declining allocations for each. Some airline/airport over/under performance is considered for large markets (e.g. JetBlue getting extra traffic credit for Boston routes) and this methodology may be expanded in the future. Potential routes that constitute the only non-stop service are given a local traffic boost of 20%.
Once completed, all routes of at least 5/week are sorted by the distance-adjusted RASM metric. Existing routes are rated GREAT, GOOD, FAIR, WEAK, or POOR as in other reports on an airline by airline basis with the top 20% of the airline's existing routes rated GREAT, and so forth down to POOR. Potential Routes are rated based upon where they slot in among the existing routes. If a potential route performs similarly to an existing route rated FAIR, the new route is rated FAIR as well. If the route is worse than any existing route in that airline's network it received the grade LOW. LOW routes may not appear in reports if there are too many rows of data, but MANY more routes are forecast than appear.
3) HOW DO YOU READ THE REPORT?
The columns are: PROPOSED AIRLINE using the airline's IATA code. PROPOSED ROUTE using the airports IATA code. AIRCRAFT SIZE CATEGORY which is a generic equipment type in that seat size, but not a specific aircraft type. DAILY RTs which means Daily Roundtrips is usually one, but may be more than one per day in short routes. % LOCAL is the forecast ratio of traffic that is not connecting beyond on either end of the route as a proportion of total traffic forecast onboard. ROUTE DISTANCE in statute miles. FORECAST SCORE is a route grade covered more HERE. The Map includes routes in category FAIR, GOOD, and GREAT. LAST SERVED is the most recent date that airline has served the route according to our data. ------ means there is no prior date found for that airline/route combination. SVC GAP means there is service around the month of the target date, but there was not sufficient service on that airline to disqualify the route during the month forecast. THe route must have had 4 operations in a month to be considered served for the history.
4) HOW ARE NEW ROUTES SELECTED?
New routes are selected based upon the same traffic and fare data found in the AIRPORT OVERVIEW and INTL AIRPORT OVERVIEW reports. The 15,000 largest airline, equipment, route combinations are selected that touch the United States. Limits are placed on legacy airlines flying completely local markets not included in their normal type of business plan. Equipment options and route frequency are determined based on distance and not airline. Options for 76 (i.e. E175/CRJ900 size), 150 (e.g. 737 or A320), 225 (e.g. A321 or 737-900), and 300 (e.g. A350-900, 787-9, etc.) seats are used with different route lengths. Multiple options are typically tried for each length. The aircraft proposed cannot be the smallest aircraft operated by a U.S. carrier at the airport. This prevents options like an E175 flying LAX-HNL. Equipment are only specified by seats. Frequency may vary from 7 to 21 per week each way depending on route length with one frequency option tried.
5) HOW ACCURATE IS THE REPORT?/A ROUTE IS WRONG?
It's not as accurate if they had been hand-forecasted, but the goal is to roughly estimate route potential for further review.
6) WHY ONLY CERTAIN AIRLINES, NO LCCS?
Only American, Delta, United, Southwest, and Alaska were included originally. We have recently added Allegiant, Breeze, Avelo, Spirit, and Frontier. The primary benefit of this report is to analyze routes that are more complicated simply looking for large amounts of local traffic and decent local fares. The focus here is really on flights in and out of a hub or a significant opportunity to connect which makes it more complicated than looking at a Top Unserved Markets list. For example, for an airline like Allegiant that carries almost exclusively local traffic, there is less added value to trying out new routes via this method. Additionally, low-cost carriers depend heavily on leakage from nearby airports. This method does not borrow traffic from nearby airports. So while we are now including LCCs, this method works best for network carriers.
7) ARE INTERNATIONAL ROUTES AND TRAFFIC INCLUDED?
Yes, the same traffic and fare data found in the AIRPORT OVERVIEW and INTL AIRPORT OVERVIEW reports are used for this report. Domestic flights that connect to international flights see benefit from those connects and U.S. to foreign destination routes are also forecast.
8) THAT ROUTE CAN'T BE FLOWN?
The nature of this type of automated route forecaster is to bubble up opportunities not thought about. It will create routes that can't be flown because of slots, aircraft range, airport limitations, fleet inconsistencies. It would be impossible to remove them anyway, but they are also an interesting at what could be.
9) WHY ARE THERE ROUTES NOT FROM THE AIRLINE'S HUBS?
Airlines do add routes that aren't from their hubs. Alaska has added routes like LAS-SJD and Delta flies HNL-HND and RDU-CVG as well as numerous other non-hub routes. To remove those completely would be unrealistic. They are only removed in cases where they fit into a formula the determines them to be more like LCC routes, like IND-RSW for example. It would be unproductive to have every airline present the same all-local forecast for IND-RSW just because it is underserved.
10) WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT?
The goal is to roughly estimate route potential for further review.
11) THE EQUIPMENT TYPES ARE WRONG?
The equipment types are generic to generate a certain seat size capacity. They are not intended to reflect an airline's actual fleet. See HERE.
12) WHAT ARE THE 2024 ROUTE SPROUTS 3.0 CHANGES?
The changes include a) rebalancing of intl revenue to domestic revenue allowing for the presence of FFP redemption tickets in domestuc fare data as $0 value, but not captured in international fare data acquisition process, b) removal of some airports like Osaka (ITM) and Bora Bora (BOB) that cannot have long-haul service to the USA, and c) addition of long-haul aircraft to the Alaska Airlines route process now that Alaska has indicated interest in long-haul aircraft through the proposed merger with Hawaiian.