36 replies to this topic

[n.x.w.m]

Please note this would be even harder than to operate a realistic airline/

[Hake.]

The one problem is, people will argue against 28 y/o planes crashing more often.

[Pineair]

In truth more people struggle with their airlines than find it easy. What is unrealistic is that the highest ranked airline at the end of a game is often one that has never replaced any aircraft. In real life an aircraft has a life expectancy based on the number of take off and landings and the quality of maintenance, not hours flown. Perhaps aircraft should be automatically retired/ scrapped at the end of their serviceable life with the owner /leaser given 12 months notice this is going to happen.

[Armodeen]

He does have a point though about it being too easy to turn a profit in AE. I think it's because 100% LF's are too easy to obtain?

[zipp]

TW@, Maybe you could try making a realistic airline? Like not using russian aircraft in USA etc. Realistic Configs

[Trogdor]

Also I have found out.. reputation seems to not impact your airline too much. I recently had a massive airline with a 16% reputation with 100% pax.. and also an airline with 97% Reputation with 100% roughly the same size... making the same profits, etc ... I think lower reputation airlines should receive less pax and ultimately the better airlines should have more passengers.

 

Thanks!
Trans World Airlines

 

IMO Reputation needs to be re-worked to fix the spamline issue, as well as make running an airline more interesting and less click spamming.

 

Why not have each new airline start with a neutral reputation, then depending on player choices, the rep goes up or down. Things such as crowded planes, crappy pay-for-IFS, and old aircraft should decrease your airline rep, more legroom, good IFS, new planes should increase it. Then, depending on your airline rep, pax should be willing to pay a certain % of the original full ticket price. This would stop airlines running 20 year old fleets with high cost IFS getting the same loads as full service airlines with new aircraft, while still giving people a choice to run LCCs if they want. It also gives startup airlines a chance.

[Trogdor]

I like the new plane idea. Such as the airlines getting the new A380s people would fly just to ride on one so rep increased

 

I remember when SIA got the 380 and were charging a premium on ticket prices for it - and people were paying!

[the DOC]

There is already a thread where I posted 5 points. Regarding accidents an incidents I can't see that happening without turning AE into a flash game

[the DOC]

1) realistic order queues 
2) limiting IFS prices (eliminating scam ifs but still making profit possible)
3) realistic utilisation (I know aircraft technically can keep their aircraft going that long but how many people are going to want regional flights at 3am   ? I can tell you now: pretty much nobody   )
4) loadfactors: very rare do you actually get 100% loadfactors so even with the default price (which brings me onto my next point), airlines should only manage 80-90%
5) the default price is fairly high... I don't need to say any more 
Feel free to sum up   those are a couple of main things because anything I can think of is nitpicking 

[TJ/TeeJay]

Well,

 

I remember somebody joining the chat and complaining about aircraft prices. (brandnew)

He showed us via a link to the official Boeing and Airbus site the official prices of their aircrafts.

 

In AE , A brandnew B738 (for example) will you cost around 45 million dollars. In real life, it is about 80 million dollars. (source = official Boeing and Airbus sites)

Those kind of things can be changed in AE, to get a step closer to realism.

[dzsoki]

1) realistic order queues 
2) limiting IFS prices (eliminating scam ifs but still making profit possible)
3) realistic utilisation (I know aircraft technically can keep their aircraft going that long but how many people are going to want regional flights at 3am   ? I can tell you now: pretty much nobody   )
4) loadfactors: very rare do you actually get 100% loadfactors so even with the default price (which brings me onto my next point), airlines should only manage 80-90%
5) the default price is fairly high... I don't need to say any more 
Feel free to sum up   those are a couple of main things because anything I can think of is nitpicking 

 

Good ideas, just would like to extend these with the following two points:

 

1, The current depreciation rates are good for approx. 10-15 years, but they need to be corrected after an aircraft becomes older.

Here is an example about a top4 airline with 35 years old average fleet age in 2015, working successfully regarding economics.

In the real world, different engine maintenance, airframe integrity, C, D checks are very expensive. Lots of aircraft scrapped, because its simply not ecnomically viable to maintain them anymore.

 

Easy solution from programmers point of view to better simulate these increasing costs:

-the current depreciation rates should be doubled after an aircraft reach 15 years of age

-the current depreciation rates should be tripled after an aircraft reach 25 years of age

-here is an examle: http://img854.images...4/8138/v51k.jpg

 

suspected effects in the game:

-this change would make it harder to maintain extremely large fleets economically

-also you have to replace your aircrafts regularly, if you want to stay competitive

(if you have 2-300 aircrafts from one type, you will simply won't be able to replace them with 2-4 weeks production rates)

-small airlines with younger fleets could race better against big airlines with their lower maintenance costs

-old and higher depreciation rate aircrafts would have to be replaced even faster with modern ones

-if we consider that most of the aircrafts in AE runs between 120-140 hours a week, it means higher utilisation than in the real world

 

2, legroom should be taken into account more strictly on long range (over approx. 2500 miles flights)

-a fully crowded 28" tiny seat pitch aircraft should be nearly empty on intercontinental routes

-for long range flights, passengers cares more about legroom compared to short range flights

[Stevphfeniey]

Regarding list prices, I feel those are a special case scenario for airlines, much along the lines of fifth freedom rights for individual airlines. So, along that line of thinking and if AE is against special cases being implemented, raising prices to standard list price doesn't seem that weird to me.

[dzsoki]

I dislike taking a specific target on "old", given many airlines have had successful business models while using old planes. [ValuJet, Allegiant, Very likely Ryanair during their BAC-1-11/737-200 period. ].

The quoted approach is still very soft. For 15 years depreciation would remain the same, then from 15 years increasing maintenance costs would kick in, and after 25 years of age, the not worth it period would start.

So this would penalize extremely large, irrealistic fleets and also extremely old, not maintained fleets.

 

In 2003 Ryanair was operated 21 737-200 aircrafts with age between 21-24 years, then they sold their aircrafts in 2004 to have one of the the youngest fleet with their new 737-800's.

So this is fully matches with the recommended profile.

 

Also here is an article about their latest order of 175 Boeing 737-800:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100827382

Ryanair's announcement will see 75 of the 737-800s replacing old stock with the other 100 representing totally new aircraft. The 175-strong order will be delivered over four years between 2014 and 2018.