Apilonia (Earth II)

The Kingdom of Apilonia
Flag
Anthem: God Save the King!
Capital	Royal District, Seattle
Largest	Los Angeles
Demonym(s)	Apilonian
Government	Constitutional Monarchy
• King of Apilonia	William V
• Prime Minister of Apilonia	The Right Honourable Sebastian T. Barnes
Area
•	12,686,790 km2 (4,898,400 sq mi)
Population
• Estimate	22,731,4235 (2020)
GDP (PPP)	estimate
• Total	$14,163,000,000,000
• Per capita	£62,547

The Kingdom of Apilonia is a sovereign nation-state in Earth II, largey based in North America, with some territorial holdings elsewhere in the world dating back several hundred years. The modern Kingdom is a democratic state, with a written constitution and organised as a Constitutional Monarchy. The Kingdom is bordered to the North by the Republic of Skrælland, to the East by the Empire of Layarteb, to the South by the Republic of Mexico, and to the West by the Pacific Ocean.

Health and Human Services

Within the Kingdom, the healthcare system is complex and is administered by the Ministry of Health, which determines overall healthcare policy as well as the provision of certain programmes. The Ministry aims to provide a baseline level of healthcare to all citizens, as well as providing medical insurance to the young, elderly, the unemployed, and any other individual without their own insurance. As a result, except in emergent cases, patients on MOH insurance will typically face longer waiting times, due to being limited in the service providers available to them, whilst those with insurance will typically have a far greater access to service providers, including both non-profit and for-profit hospitals. This allows Apilonian Doctors, particularly surgeons and those working in hospitals, to be very well-paid compared to their foreign counterparts, whilst still providing medical services to the poor and deprived. The most common means by which citizens hold medical insurance is through their employers, as its provision is a key component of most employment contracts. The Kingdom is a global leader in medical innovation, with many major hospitals also being key medical research facilities, with the Mayo Clinic, for example, being a world-renowned teaching hospital.

The Royal Community Healthcare Scheme is responsible for providing primary care and emergency medicine to all citizens, typically through Ministry of Health owned-and-operated non-profit community medical centres, particularly for primary care. The Scheme also subsidises the operating costs for ducal and privately-owned medical facilities with an Emergency Room or Trauma Centre, as well as the Emergency Medical Technician services provided by state and municipal fire departments. Due to the generally lower salaries paid to those Doctors, Nurses and Medical Technicians required to operate the Scheme, doing so is seen as a calling within the medical profession, with professional training for these individuals being heavily subsided by the Ministry of Health in return for a period of service within the Scheme before a transfer to a more profitable position. Unlike secondary and tertiary care, provided by private hospitals, service provided by the Scheme is free at the point of use. Although expensive in its own right, academic medical studies have shown that the provision of primary care, and most importantly preventative medicine, has meant that in overall terms the Scheme has saved the Ministry, and the Apilonian healthcare system as a whole, proportionally more than it cost.

The Royal Healthcare Insurance Scheme is responsible for providing baseline health insurance to those that do not private healthcare provided by their employer, or by some other means, which accounts for approximately sixteen percent of the population. Under the terms of the Apilonian Healthcare Act of 1988, which founded the Scheme, it’s insurance is only accepted by certain hospitals, including all Crown and Ducal Hospitals, Municipal medical centres and certain private facilities, resulting in higher waiting times compared to holders of private healthcare.

Infrastructure

Transport

Personal and Public Transportation

Personal transportation in the Kingdom is dominated by the automobile, with over eighty per cent of Apilonian workers commuting to work via private vehicle over public transport, resulting in one of the largest automobile markets in the world and car ownership is near-universal, with the only major exceptions being the largest cities where there are extensive public transport options available, such as Los Angeles. The dominance of the automobile is enabled by an extensive highway system, linking together major population centres as well as more rural areas, as well as the National Road Network, which has existed far longer.

Although passenger trains were the dominant mode of transportation until the mid-twentieth century, the introduction of jet aircraft, and the completion of the Interstate Highway, resulted in a rapid decline in intercity rail passenger demand during the 1960s. This caused Parliament to authorise the creation of a state-owned National Railroad Corporation (NRC) to maintain limited intercity rail passenger service in most of the country, providing a vital link to more rural areas where the passenger train may be the only means by which poorer citizens can travel. Nevertheless, NRC services can be very limited outside of the Pacific Seaboard, and limited trans-continental routes.

Cargo Transportation

The vast majority of cargo transportation in the Kingdom is provided by the trucking industry and the freight railroad industry. Overall, trucks of various sizes are responsible for the majority of freight movement overland, due in no small part to the variety of sizes of commercial motor vehicles, with the remainder being transported by freight railroad, of which there is an extensive network of tracks, only a small proportion of which is used for passenger services. Typically, most supply chains will make use of both methods, depending on the distance involved. Less common, albeit increasingly so, is freight aircraft, particularly for next-day delivery, which naturally comes at a premium.

Civil Aviation

The Kingdom has a thriving civil airline industry, benefiting from the existence of aerospace giant Boeing, that connects the Kingdom to the rest of the world. Although the industry itself is entirely privately owned, most major airports in the Kingdom are publicly owned. In addition to smaller regional carriers, the Apilonian civil aviation industry is dominated by two competing airlines; Apilonian Airlines, based in Dallas, Duchy of Texas, and Royal Airways, based in Seattle, Duchy of Washington. Apilonian Airlines is the larger of the two, both in terms of fleet size and revenue, although Royal Airways is not far behind, all things considered. Both airlines principally operate aircraft produced by Boeing.

Apilonian Airlines largely focuses on transpacific and transcontinental flight, and is considered the ‘flag-carrier’ for the Kingdom, although it does operate some domestic flights to compete with Royal Airways. Apilonian Airlines was a major pioneer of the hub-and-spoke model, in which the majority of domestic flights are intended to bring passengers from further afield to the various hubs for long-haul, high-capacity flights overseas. In support of this, Apilonian Airlines operates a ‘bank’ system, in which numerous domestic flights arrive in a short span of time in any of a number of flight banks into the hub airport, allowing for far shorter connection times, a key draw when competing with direct, but typically more expensive, flights offered by Royal Airways. In terms of customer experience, Apilonian Airlines has a reputation for a solid, if unremarkable, offering for business and first-class passengers and a tolerable experience for economy. The Boeing 747 has been the backbone of Apilonian Airlines long-haul fleet for decades, and is in the process of being replaced by the latest generation, the 747-8, with the smaller Boeing 737 principally serving domestic routes. The airline has three major hubs; Dallas-Fort Worth, its primary transatlantic gateway, Los Angeles, its key transpacific gateway, and Phoenix, its primary gateway for flights into the Empire of Layarteb, particularly in South America.

By contrast, Royal Airways is a key innovator in the point-to-point business model, in which smaller, but more fuel efficient aircraft are used to operate lower-demand routes to smaller destinations. In many cases, Royal Airways is the only transpacific or transatlantic flights linking secondary airports in Europe and Asia to Apilonia, principally to Seattle or Minneapolis-St Paul, or linking secondary airports in Apilonia with major destinations such as Hong Kong, Nanfang or London. This has allowed Royal Airways to diversify its competition with Apilonian Airlines, particularly in the transpacific market, serving a number of destinations not served by Apilonian Airlines. The development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with its relatively small size but impressive range and efficiency, has proven particularly profitable for Royal Airways, and makes up the bulk of its fleet.