TarquinShrapnel-Carruthers

There is a saying in business: “revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is reality”. 

Businesses fail for many reasons but what usually triggers the end is running out of cash. High sales with good margins are great, but if you cannot pay the bills then you have a major problem.

AE is no different. If you want a highly ranked airline, managing your cash flow, especially in the early years, is vital. 

Obviously running out/short of cash will prevent you ordering new aircraft, but that is not all. Missing a lease payment incurs a 20% penalty on the next payment and reduces your credit rating. The worse your credit rating the higher the interest rate on new bonds, and the fewer aircraft you can lease. To reduce gate lease costs, you need to build terminals. In short, cash matters.

There are two components to managing cash well: forecasting cash available in the coming month, particularly in the early years, and cash-improving actions throughout the game.

I do the former using a simple spreadsheet (yes, sad) for the first year or so, thereafter it’s an even rougher calculation in my head.

There are two key days to watch: the 15^th of each month, when payroll is due, and the 24^th, when maintenance is paid. The converse is that the day after each are the ones when you can be most certain about how much you can safely spend.

Cash-positive actions include:

·       Maximise the use of aircraft (doh)

·       Maximise the use of gates (doh)

·       Choose routes with lower gate costs

·       Minimise the number of aircraft types you operate

·       Buy/lease multiple aircraft of the same type & configuration at the same time

·       Build terminals

If you get it wrong, it is not necessarily a disaster. In my current game, less than two years’ in, I have missed several lease payments but still enjoy a triple-A rating. But, if you do it repeatedly, then recovering to a game-leading position is tough. You might as well pull the pin: cease operations, start again, or join the next game.

Hi all

Wed 6th Dec, 07:07 GMT in RL.

3rd Oct 1959 in AE/R1 and has been for at least an hour of real time.

Never seen a world pause mid-game before. Has anybody else?

Too much happening IRL to manage Das Plane in R0.

It is well-established, and currently ranked #5.

I have been using Acorn (on Mac) because I find it generally easier than Photoshop Express plus it has Bezier tools that PSE lacks

Does anybody else use it? Are you interested in sharing tips & tricks?

Recently I noticed that the cost of building/extending terminals did not always match with what the screens showed, so had a closer look. The results are not what you might expect.

The cost of building a couple of example terminals is as follows:

I don't know why the factors 83 and 8 apply to Building and Gate Construction fees, but - bar some rounding - they do for every combination of airports and gates that I tried.

The cost of extending is similar but:

• Building Construction fee is only 16.6 (i.e. 1/5th of the fee when building a terminal initially)
• Gate Construction fee is only paid on the additional gates

Note that the Gate Construction fee applies to all gates, regardless of how many are being added; which is probably not what you expect.

Also, despite owning the terminal, there is still a monthly lease cost, albeit much lower. As with construction costs the calculation is a bit puzzling being the basic lease for one gate less an amount equal to twice the total number of gates x 2, up to a maximum of 65% (which is for 33 gates or more).

SUPPORTING SCREEN SHOTS

Building 15 gate terminal at DUS

Building 20 gate terminal at TXL

Extending terminal at TXL from 20 to 35 gates

Extending terminal at TXL from 20 to 40 gates