737 vs A320 - Let's Do an AE Breakdown

Really should have posted the title as 737 vs A320 - AE vs Reality. I do compare both aircraft but I make a lot of comparisons between AE and the real world so just keep that in mind.

REPOST
In AE it seems like the A320 family has an extreme advantage over the 737NG family. Let's just start with some simple stats.

The A320 family in AE
A318 - 132 seats with a 2805mi max payload range - landing distance of 3570 feet with lowest thrust engine.
A319-100 - 156 seats with a 3191mi max payload range - landing distance of 4080 feet with the lowest thrust engine
A320-200 - 180 seats with 2625mi max payload range - landing distance of 5015 feet with the lowest thrust engine
A321-100/200 - 220 seats with range of either 2333mi or 2935mi (-100 vs -200). -100 lands at 5355 while -200 lands at 6035.

Prices
A318 - $41 million
A319-100 - $43 million
A320-200 - $49 million
A321-100 - $54.5 million
A321-200 - $55.5 million

Hopefully that's a simple enough breakdown. A320s in AE have high seat counts (for their size) and relatively high ranges.

Now let's look at the A320 in reality.

The A320 Family in our world - Seat count
A318 - 107 seats
A319-100 - 124 seats
A320-200 - 150 seats
A321-100 - 186 seats
A321-200 - 186 seats

Now these seat numbers are typical for US airlines - Euro Airlines typically have a few less seats per aircraft

Right there you can see that there is a huge different between the amount offered in AE vs real world configurations.

Moving on to pricing

A320 Family Pricing in our world
A318 - $67.7 million
A319-100 - $80.7 million
A320-200 - $88.3 million
A321-200 - $103.6 million

Again, a huge difference between the A320 in reality vs AE. At the same time, pricing can be extremely discounted, as we all know that large discounts are common for customers. So let's discount about 15% or so for those aircraft prices.
That gives a pretty small discount but still the prices are at least $10 million higher than AE base prices for these aircraft.


Let's move on to the 737s.

The 737NG Family in AE -
737-600 - 132 with a range of 2758 miles
737-700/700ER - 149 with a range of 2762/4776 miles
737-800 - 189 with a range of 2503 miles
737-900/900ER -189/215 - with a range of 2059/2720 miles

Looking at the NGs you can see that they have less pax then their airbus counterpart (minus the 738) and less range as well.

Going on to pricing

Pricing of 737NGs in AE
737-600 - $46 million
737-700/700ER - $52 million
737-800 - $61 million
737-900/900ER - $65 million/$70.5 million

Looking at those prices you can see the NGs are more expensive then their Airbus counterparts - in AE that is

Now in reality...

The 737NG Family in our world
737-600 - 108 seats
737-700/700ER - 128 seats
737-800 - 160 seats
737-900 - 177 seats
737-900ER - 193 seats

737NG Prices in our world
737-600 - $56.9 million
737-700 - $67-9 million
737-700ER - $75 million
737-800 - $80.8 million
737-900 - $85.8 million
737-900ER - $91 million

Looking at the NGs - just like the A320 family - there is a lower seat count then what is offered in AE. The prices are higher as well.

So, looking at these two breakdowns we can get conclusions that:

The A320s have seat and cost differences between AE and reality, just like the 737NG family does.

At the same time - the seat counts I pulled from my sources are just average seating numbers for airlines in the US, while the seat numbers for AE are from the max. number of seats certified for each aircraft.
So this is not technically incorrect, although I think we all know how a 189 economy seat 738 would not be very common in today's world Maybe if we were going to offer the max seat count for aircraft (which I'm going to assume manufacturers do [that's a failure on my part I haven't checked]) we should change the hourly cost/fuel flow etc. What I mean - obviously an aircraft with a 189 passenger payload will have to use more fuel to transport those passengers say 1500 miles than an aircraft transporting 150 passengers. The developers have already changed payload to follow this law so maybe we could use that same system on fuel flow or hourly cost.


With that said, let's move on to the prices.

The A320 family and the 737NG family both have differences in pricing in game vs reality. Notice I didn't say discrepancies - just differences. What I mean is that
in game the prices for these aircraft (I'm assuming) were taken from their launch prices - i.e. what the aircraft cost when they were FIRST produced and offered to customers.
What that means is that the A320 family skipped out on about 20 years of inflation, while the 737NG skipped out on about 10 years. That means that their prices are going to be very different from what they
are today (and that applies to all aircraft in game - not just the short haulers.) Maybe in game the prices of aircraft should be updated every 10 years or so? Throw out any suggestions if you think they are good!

So let me try to summarize what I've written so far just so we can have it clearly organized:

A320s - in game they are cheaper than what they are today.
737s - in game they are cheaper than what they are today.

Simple right?
Hopefully.

So IMO adding an updating price system to the game would improve it, and changing the costs for aircraft based on their seating would as well - what do you guys think?

I'll try to go back to comparing the aircraft now though, since I really should've posted about half of this in the suggestion forum haha.

So how about Fuel flow?
I'll be using the base models - 737-800 and A320-200 for this comparison - just to simplify it (I know it could be more comprehensive but let's just get the point across)


Now for some stats from real world aircraft performance.

A320
Fuel Capacity: 7,835 US Gallons
Range: 3,050 Nautical Miles
2 Class Pax Capacity: 150

Gallons/Mile: 2.569
Gallons/PassengerMile: .0171

B737-800
Fuel Capacity; 6,875 US Gallons
Range: 3,060 Nautical Miles
2 Class Pax Capacity: 162

Gallons/Mile: 2.246
Gallons/PassengerMile: .01387

Gallons per Pax mile could be seen as skewed here since the 738 holds more pax - so the fuel cost is distributed on a larger base
However, look at the gallons/mile cost. The 737-800 has a higher efficiency than the A320 - not really shown in AE. Part of this comes from the 737 fuselage being lighter than the A320 (thanks to being designed in the 1970s with a smaller fuselage width compared to the A320) while the rest probably comes down to good old aerodynamical statistics that I won't get in to. (and winglets )

This info doesn't really have a directly comparable AE component, but you see my point - 737-800s actually have a lower fuel flow than the A320-200.

A major selling point for Boeing throughout the years has been economics on the 737 - it is lighter, costs less to operate, less to maintain, and has lower fuel costs than the A320.

[Not trying to make an A vs B thread btw haha just making a comparison]

Now to put it simply, in reality that's the difference between the 737 and A320 - costs[NG] vs comfort [A320]

I'll leave it at that for now. Let me know if I've messed up on anything - I'm certainly not an expert so I could have easily missed something although I did do fairly detailed research to find these statistics.



http://aviation.se.e...%20Families.pdf

I did send a list of average 2012 pricings for all Airbus models (from the Airbus corporate website) to Brit. However he chose to turn it down and kept the vastly inaccurate pricing instead

What can I say?

As for your real-world seat count, AE goes on maximum certified figures - not typical seating arrangements.

The problem with your pricing is that the A320 was launched in the 1980s... if you take a gander at historic prices you'll see the A320 was offered for a lot less than $88.3 million (in 1990 it was around $38 million) so if you took the values you offer... and charged them in the game... suddenly there is a MAJOR disadvantage between the A320 and the B737 Classic, which was not the case at all

http://www.aviationt...rices_3579.html

Even if you look at this article, the value barely increased between 1990 and 2004 so your figures would put most of the game worlds (1970s, 1990s) at a major disadvantage when it comes to the A320 family until the 2010s... which is pointless for a 1970 or the 1960-2012 game worlds... Also I think you fail to appreciate just how much a discount airlines get.... you give 15%... but we're talking 30-45% and in some cases 50%+ depending on the airline and the size of the order and the situation in the market at the time...

The matter of your seating observation has already been addressed so I'll leave it at that.

You know how you can only add winglets on certain aircraft after a certain date? How about using the same thing, but with pricing? After a certain date, the pricing on the A320 series is increased to present day levels?

You know how you can only add winglets on certain aircraft after a certain date? How about using the same thing, but with pricing? After a certain date, the pricing on the A320 series is increased to present day levels?

But what about all the levels in-between? and do it yearly? that would be one hell of a slog for ALL the aircraft in the database... the figures as they are are fine they just aren't 100% realistic as we come into the 2010s but is that really an issue? We don't pay for AE and it's a bloody good game for free, the pricing doesn't affect game play, people still buy 737s (which by the way are under priced by present standards too) so I don't really see the issue. Real airlines get discounts, if you want to retain that amount of realism after the 2010s you can just add how big a discount your wonderful CEO managed to screw whatever manufacturer for, MOL comes to mind and I think he paid considerably less than 49mil per unit for his 737-800s ($29m fyi when list price was $61-68m)

I certainly wasn't suggesting we do it yearly, but once we hit say 2008? The prices increase.

I certainly wasn't suggesting we do it yearly, but once we hit say 2008? The prices increase.

Bit double standards? What about all the years before 2008 when prices are significantly LESS than the AE rate? Isn't it hypocritical to say the prices should match the real world... but only at a certain point lmao. Why not do it every 10 years, change the value of the money each airline has because if you're increasing the prices (they increase with inflation) you have to decrease the value of the $ in the game because if you actually look at 88m now and look at it with inflation.. $88.3m in 2012 has the same buying power as $49.34m in 1990 or $45.15 in 1988...

If you're going to be pedantic, then even every 10 years is a bit of a jump. You might as well lower that to every two years. For instance, the inflation rate from 1980-1990 was 58.6%!

If you're going to be pedantic, then even every 10 years is a bit of a jump. You might as well lower that to every two years. For instance, the inflation rate from 1980-1990 was 58.6%!

If you're going to try and accuse me of that then please read what I have said already

and do it yearly? that would be one hell of a slog for ALL the aircraft in the database...

If you want to make the pricing realistic you should make the value of the $ realistic too, I've already proven the A320's actual value has barely gone up in the 24 years its been in production, it's mostly inflation.

If you want to make the pricing realistic you should make the value of the $ realistic too, I've already proven the A320's actual value has barely gone up in the 24 years its been in production, it's mostly inflation.

I know the A320 has risen in price over the past 20 odd years because of inflation (along with everything else with a monetary value in this world), but the point is this - once the 737NG is launched in AE, the 737 is around twice as much as the A320.

So going back to your original point "the figures as they are are fine they just aren't 100% realistic as we come into the 2010s but is that really an issue?" I'd say, 'yes'. Yes, it is an issue. Why pay twice as much for an aircraft which is pretty similar to another, cheaper, frame?

Frankly, the 737 and A320's pricing does not matter, as you're almost definitely going to have more cash than you can handle anyway.
Except I suppose at the beginning, but I don't believe you can get an extra A320 with your starting cash.

My top A321-100 makes a profit of $320m

My top B737-800 makes a profit of $267m

My average income for the A321 is consistantly higher than the 737-800

A321's cost $55m

737-800's cost $61m

well yeah the 738 is smaller than the A321

When choosing aircraft I always consider cost per seat to buy the plane and the amount of fuel per seat it consumes. The most fuel efficient 737-800 is .008% better per seat than the the most fuel efficient A321 (less than 1%) But the 737-800 is about 11% more expensive per seat than the A321. Plus there is the economy of scale with the A321 (220 seats for A321 vs 189 seats for 737-800)

Glad to see the debate is going well. I'll finish my post right now and we'll see what the final result is.

REPOST
In AE it seems like the A320 family has an extreme advantage over the 737NG family. Let's just start with some simple stats.

The A320 family in AE
A318 - 132 seats with a 2805mi max payload range - landing distance of 3570 feet with lowest thrust engine.
A319-100 - 156 seats with a 3191mi max payload range - landing distance of 4080 feet with the lowest thrust engine
A320-200 - 180 seats with 2625mi max payload range - landing distance of 5015 feet with the lowest thrust engine
A321-100/200 - 220 seats with range of either 2333mi or 2935mi (-100 vs -200). -100 lands at 5355 while -200 lands at 6035.

Prices
A318 - $41 million
A319-100 - $43 million
A320-200 - $49 million
A321-100 - $54.5 million
A321-200 - $55.5 million

Hopefully that's a simple enough breakdown. A320s in AE have high seat counts (for their size) and relatively high ranges.

Now let's look at the A320 in reality.

The A320 Family in our world - Seat count
A318 - 107 seats
A319-100 - 124 seats
A320-200 - 150 seats
A321-100 - 186 seats
A321-200 - 186 seats

Now these seat numbers are typical for US airlines - Euro Airlines typically have a few less seats per aircraft

Right there you can see that there is a huge different between the amount offered in AE vs real world configurations.

Moving on to pricing

A320 Family Pricing in our world
A318 - $67.7 million
A319-100 - $80.7 million
A320-200 - $88.3 million
A321-200 - $103.6 million

Again, a huge difference between the A320 in reality vs AE. At the same time, pricing can be extremely discounted, as we all know that large discounts are common for customers. So let's discount about 15% or so for those aircraft prices.
That gives a pretty small discount but still the prices are at least $10 million higher than AE base prices for these aircraft.


Let's move on to the 737s.

The 737NG Family in AE -
737-600 - 132 with a range of 2758 miles
737-700/700ER - 149 with a range of 2762/4776 miles
737-800 - 189 with a range of 2503 miles
737-900/900ER -189/215 - with a range of 2059/2720 miles

Looking at the NGs you can see that they have less pax then their airbus counterpart (minus the 738) and less range as well.

Going on to pricing

Pricing of 737NGs in AE
737-600 - $46 million
737-700/700ER - $52 million
737-800 - $61 million
737-900/900ER - $65 million/$70.5 million

Looking at those prices you can see the NGs are more expensive then their Airbus counterparts - in AE that is

Now in reality...

The 737NG Family in our world
737-600 - 108 seats
737-700/700ER - 128 seats
737-800 - 160 seats
737-900 - 177 seats
737-900ER - 193 seats

737NG Prices in our world
737-600 - $56.9 million
737-700 - $67-9 million
737-700ER - $75 million
737-800 - $80.8 million
737-900 - $85.8 million
737-900ER - $91 million

Looking at the NGs - just like the A320 family - there is a lower seat count then what is offered in AE. The prices are higher as well.

So, looking at these two breakdowns we can get conclusions that:

The A320s have seat and cost differences between AE and reality, just like the 737NG family does.

At the same time - the seat counts I pulled from my sources are just average seating numbers for airlines in the US, while the seat numbers for AE are from the max. number of seats certified for each aircraft.
So this is not technically incorrect, although I think we all know how a 189 economy seat 738 would not be very common in today's world Maybe if we were going to offer the max seat count for aircraft (which I'm going to assume manufacturers do [that's a failure on my part I haven't checked]) we should change the hourly cost/fuel flow etc. What I mean - obviously an aircraft with a 189 passenger payload will have to use more fuel to transport those passengers say 1500 miles than an aircraft transporting 150 passengers. The developers have already changed payload to follow this law so maybe we could use that same system on fuel flow or hourly cost.


With that said, let's move on to the prices.

The A320 family and the 737NG family both have differences in pricing in game vs reality. Notice I didn't say discrepancies - just differences. What I mean is that
in game the prices for these aircraft (I'm assuming) were taken from their launch prices - i.e. what the aircraft cost when they were FIRST produced and offered to customers.
What that means is that the A320 family skipped out on about 20 years of inflation, while the 737NG skipped out on about 10 years. That means that their prices are going to be very different from what they
are today (and that applies to all aircraft in game - not just the short haulers.) Maybe in game the prices of aircraft should be updated every 10 years or so? Throw out any suggestions if you think they are good!

So let me try to summarize what I've written so far just so we can have it clearly organized:

A320s - in game they are cheaper than what they are today.
737s - in game they are cheaper than what they are today.

Simple right?
Hopefully.

So IMO adding an updating price system to the game would improve it, and changing the costs for aircraft based on their seating would as well - what do you guys think?

I'll try to go back to comparing the aircraft now though, since I really should've posted about half of this in the suggestion forum haha.

So how about Fuel flow?
I'll be using the base models - 737-800 and A320-200 for this comparison - just to simplify it (I know it could be more comprehensive but let's just get the point across)


Now for some stats from real world aircraft performance.

A320
Fuel Capacity: 7,835 US Gallons
Range: 3,050 Nautical Miles
2 Class Pax Capacity: 150

Gallons/Mile: 2.569
Gallons/PassengerMile: .0171

B737-800
Fuel Capacity; 6,875 US Gallons
Range: 3,060 Nautical Miles
2 Class Pax Capacity: 162

Gallons/Mile: 2.246
Gallons/PassengerMile: .01387

Gallons per Pax mile could be seen as skewed here since the 738 holds more pax - so the fuel cost is distributed on a larger base
However, look at the gallons/mile cost. The 737-800 has a higher efficiency than the A320 - not really shown in AE. Part of this comes from the 737 fuselage being lighter than the A320 (thanks to being designed in the 1970s with a smaller fuselage width compared to the A320) while the rest probably comes down to good old aerodynamical statistics that I won't get in to. (and winglets )

This info doesn't really have a directly comparable AE component, but you see my point - 737-800s actually have a lower fuel flow than the A320-200.

A major selling point for Boeing throughout the years has been economics on the 737 - it is lighter, costs less to operate, less to maintain, and has lower fuel costs than the A320.

[Not trying to make an A vs B thread btw haha just making a comparison]

Now to put it simply, in reality that's the difference between the 737 and A320 - costs[NG] vs comfort [A320]

I'll leave it at that for now. Let me know if I've messed up on anything - I'm certainly not an expert so I could have easily missed something although I did do fairly detailed research to find these statistics.



http://aviation.se.e...%20Families.pdf

"I think we all know how a 189 economy seat 738 would not be very common in today's world "
umm... no... One of the largest operators of the 738 (250+) has a 189 seating config.

Well, that's Ryanair for you . If you want to play realistically, then you don't have to fill your aircraft to capacity - however it is rightly there, as an option, for the plentiful LCCs in AE.

The biggest problem (and I know this is being worked on for AE4) is when you have airlines filling the 738 with 189 seats, and charging through the roof for the tickets. LCC quality + HCC ticket prices = no passengers (real life) / $$$ (AE)

and even then, you've got thomsons at 189, jet2 at 189, Airberlin have 186 yet less legroom than ryanair , Austrian at 184, SAS at 186, Jetairfly at 189, German Sky at 189, XL Germany at 189, Luxair at 189, Arkefly at 180, Transavia at 189, Ryanair at 189, Norwegian Air Shuttle at 189, Enter Air at 189, Air Poland at 186, TAROM at 186, Air Europa at 180, TUIfly Nordic at 189, TUIfly on 189 and KLM at 171. I think that is all the airlines currently operating the 738 in Europe. That's 84% of operators using a config with more than 185 seats. Now, what seating config is not very common?

I did send a list of average 2012 pricings for all Airbus models (from the Airbus corporate website) to Brit. However he chose to turn it down and kept the vastly inaccurate pricing instead

I resent the implication (intentional or otherwise), so I just want to drop in here.

I don't recall you sending me a list, and my inbox doesn't have a record of it, but it is entirely possible that I may have closed or lost it for whatever reason. If you posted on the forums, I may have seen it (I know there were a few topics on the subject, and I replied to them), but I rarely look at usernames when reading the forum and may not have made the connection. If so, I apologise.

I do know that I would have replied along these lines:

[Taken from here: http://www.airline-e...t-list-prices/]

There are many problems that we have with pricing aircraft.

In the real world the prices aren't fixed at all. The fee for manufacturing aircraft is often negotiated on a case by case basis. While the game has a bulk-order discount, it doesn't make it any easier to set a starting point.
The information also fluctuates over time and between sources, making it even harder to put a thumb on it.

Another problem is the value of currency. AE uses a single world currency that doesn't really change with inflation over time. For example, a 1950s jet may be priced as $1,000,000 at the time. In today's money, that would be significantly more. The inflationary changes would also be noticed over a decade or even less. As AE currency doesn't suffer inflation (and is at a modern value), we couldn't set the "real world at the time" price accurately, as airlines would be able to afford much more than is realistic.
The other factor is that AE currency has no borders: Aircraft produced behind the iron curtain would have probably been a lot cheaper than outside it, and likewise airlines behind it would have less cash. We don't replicate all the factors involved in AE, so it is not sensible to replicate the actual prices.

For these reasons of inflation and currency transfer, we have to adjust prices in AE, often at the discretion of the staff, and usually with some amount of inflation.

All that said, I would like to see a better reflection of reality in aircraft pricing and I will include it in data review, but I just wanted you to be aware of the problems we face. I may attempt to implement a fixed "inflation formula" that will give some conformity.

I put the last paragraph in bold to make it clear that I have not chosen to turn anything down. On the contrary, I plan to research and update data accordingly.

You'll have to accept that these things can not be instant and will take a long time.

You know how you can only add winglets on certain aircraft after a certain date? How about using the same thing, but with pricing? After a certain date, the pricing on the A320 series is increased to present day levels?

This is a good idea, but winglets are a single tangible object. Its a simple drop down option and a year that we pop into the aircraft manager.
As detailed above, its impossible to put your thumb on a "good" price interval (and it would probably need to be multiple intervals, to be fair) that we could set in the AE database, so we couldn't model the real world perfectly. Its also very difficult to find pricing charts (especially that show the change over time) for most manufacturers, the research and admin would be a monstrous task. I'd be more in favour of changing how AE deals with currency.

I'm not going to question you on this one, you make some very valid points - and after speaking to violet, I now understand the issues regarding inflation.

Just in the interest of tying some loose ends I sent you the article in public chat. Although it was during a busy period and it may have disappeared up the page before you had a chance to view it.

https://docs.google....zdA6JBLdA&pli=1