It finally worked out... , sorry for that one

Cheers,

rgss

Hello,

I have been trying to renew my subscription, but it seems its not possible with a non-US credit card...

Any other payment method planned for the future?, or acceptance for worldwide credit cards?

Cheers and thanks,

rgss

I also go with the "slower" fraction

Cheers,

rgss

Two links. Settings on the front page, and also when trying to install winglets, I get kicked out.

Cheers and thanks,

rgss

Well, a bit of network restructuring, reorganizing fleets, setting up new IFS systems, tuning airline options can also be challeging and fun when taking over a 200 ac airline.
They are not sooo many .. , having seen +9000 aircraft airlines...

Cheers,

rgss

That should be resolved by tomorrow

I´m already trying to look into it and set up somekind of plan for that fleet ...,and yes, real life.., but I´ve got a free day tomorrow/today

Cheers,

rgss

I see I´m already set for MB Brazil , I´ll probably find some nice routes for all those 127 idle aircraft ...



Prost MB, and hope to hear from you soon!

rgss

Hey MB!

Sadly we can´t merge Azul and MB Brazil in 3.1, but I could take a look at your brazilian airline and syntonize somehow the routes with Azul so we don´t compete too much, as Brazil is pretty packed in 3.1 70´s ..



rgss

After I found out that we are merging..., I wanted to say hello to all GS members and add my two cents to this poll.

One Horizon sounds good for me, so thats my vote, but I could also go with Globe.

Cheers,

rgss

Hello,

An A-318 would be perfect Brandohrapper

Thanks for taking my request.

Cheers,

rgss

Hello,

If you still accept requests Brandohrapper, I´d love to have one of yours for my Dumont Voo on a Fokker 100 if possible. There´s no hurry.

You can take this logo and colours.., or just surprise me.

Cheers and thanks in advance,

rgss

Thanks Yuxi!

Although its a real challenge and somehow more "exciting" to maintain airlines "in the green" with the current cost increases in maintenance , they rise to exhorbitant levels at some point I would say

Cheers,

rgss

Yes, more realism is good, but I think those costs rise a bit too quickly at the moment, as I don´t think that a 10 year old 747-200 "in the year 1991" is a very old aircraft. Its not brand new, yes, but it also ain´t so old.

I received some new AC this afternoon on another airline in AE 3.1 realistic, so I asumed the game is running, but you are right, its somehow frozen...

Well then, good luck with your Airlines!

Cheers,

rgss

As I found out that those cost really rise pretty quicky, I´m now testing this with an airline to see how expensive it can become..., a 10 year old 747 costs 7 million $ a month to Maintain in AE 3.1... , in 3.0 this figure was only a sixth part or less of that, this makes it extremely expensive to operate "old" aircraft in 3.1.
Its a fact that in 3.1 you can´t operate 10 year old 747-200´s with the presetted route prices and make a profit at the end of the month.
I had to search for empty routes and assign the minimum frequency, and rise the ticket prices to the maximum to get out of the red..., lets see how long that test airline can make it

The game is still running I think, but at a slow pace, 30 min/day now, instead of 5min/day we hab at the start.

Cheers and profitable flights,

rgss

Aircraft Maintenance?, did you check that, as it could be the reason. Those costs go "through the roof" very quickly..., maybe too quickly...

Cheers,

rgss

Hello everyone,

I have been thinking about the Ranking structure in AE games, and so I´d like to post some ideas I have about this.

In the real world, airlines are not being evaluated or have a market capitalization that has just a direct connection to the sheer size of the company. Investors look more into the profit margins of companies, which roughly would be total income divided by total expenses minus 1, and x100, to result in a % figure(I really miss that figure in the financial page in AE 3.1).
Balance sheets, dividends, EPS, and other vital figures are also taken into account when evaluating real market values of airlines, but this would be difficult to apply to the current 3.1 version, so, to try to explain my idea, here is a comparative example to illustrate what I mean (all figures are aprox.).

AMR corp (American Airlines)
-Fleet (including American Eagle)roughly 900 aircraft
-Total assets 25 Billion $
-Total liabilities 29 Billion $
-Stockholder equity -4 billion $
-Total revenue 22 Billion $
-Net Profit -500 Million $
-Net Profit margin -2,2%
-Total shares outstanding 333 Million
-Share value 6,6 $

-Market Capitalization 2,200 million $


Jetblue
-Fleet roughly 160 aircraft
-Total assets 6 Billion $
-Total liabilities 5 Billion $
-Stockholder equity 1 Billion $
-Total revenue 4 Billion $
-Net Profit +100 Million
-Net Profit margin +2,5%
-Total shares outstanding 294 Million
-Share value 5,8 $

-Market Capitalization 1,700 million $


As can be seen here, American is by sheer size roughly 5-6 times as big as Jetblue, but in terms of market cap., American is only 1.3 more "worth" than Jetblue.
Well, I suppose its probably not realistic to code a complicated script to take into account and calculate all of this in AE (it would be a "magic" formula I suppose , and many figures just are not calculated at this point), but a simple calculation of the profit margin as I exposed at the beginning, would be nice from my point of view to reflect an airlines "health" and "market valuation". It would be just a % figure.

If this figure could be implemented in the Ranking structure, and even set as the "default" Ranking when opening the Ranking page, this could also could have a secondary effect so that players would focus much more on the "current" profitability, than on size and accumulated profits over the time, preventing to some extent the creation of those "mega-airlines" (of which I have to admit I also manage some...), but I think most of us don´t really "like", and in any case are not realistic by any means.
It also would make players think twice before flooding already saturated routes, as that margin would obviously shrink when doing so. Players would be tending to look up "empty" routes and serve those, instead of just "putting" more capacity on, lets say LHR-JFK, or LAX-NRT for example.

That figure could also could be a mix between the profit margin and the valuation, resulting in a "market valuation". A simple approach to my idea could be as follows.

Lets say airline X has a valuation of 15 billion (as it is being calculated now) and a profit margin of just 10%, this could result in a "market valuation" of 15*0,1 = 1,5 Billion market cap.

Airline Y with 4 billion in valuation (as calculated currently), and 40% profit margin, could result in 4*0,4 = 1,6 Billion market cap.

And airline Z, with 50 billion in Valuation, and profit margin of 1%, would result in 50*0,01= 0,5 billion

Anyway, in addition to the really nice and new reputation bar we have now in AE 3.1., I think some kind of method could be found to "reward" even more those many "high quality" airlines in AE, and "penalize" somehow those "vast" airlines, just like in real life.

Well, just a very rough idea from my side that could make AE even more realistic and which could be thought about.

Cheers,

rgss

The experience I have been making brings me to this conclusions...

-Keeping +30 (even more) hours per aircraft and week aside will increase the on-time performance and route reputation.

-When setting up the seat config´s, also leave +15% (or more) "free", that will increase your leg-room and reputation on that "front".

-Good IFE&IFS for all classes, but not as good as a 5 star economy as it will "absorbe" most of your profits, or even take you to "red numbers", which on the other side can reduce your reputation on the financial health, or even take you to the brink of bankrupcy.

-Higher frequencies, and as bolli said, thats easier to realize on short-haul routes untill the parameters are changed for the longhaul routes as I think Yuxi said it would happen sometime in the future (longer range will not need to have as many frequencies to have a high reputation as the short-range routes)

-As the route reputation makes up 40% of the total reputation, these points are the most important to keep reputation high.

The following also helps:

-Keep your staff happy through raising their salaries, increasing reserves, etc..

-At least 200 destinations to have the max reputation on the route-network reputation (that implyes having a relatively big airline).

-Renew your fleet to keep it young.

-Joining an Alliance thats "big" enough.

-Having patience with the new routes, as the route reputation rises with the time you operate them. Don´t set them up if you think you won´t want to operate them on the long run.

-Well, that´s all..., oh..., no.., I forgot something, if all this doesn´t help, just shovel in money into advertising (it seems to be good to have something between 15-25%, more than that figure doesn´t really seem to help so much)

Advertising can somehow compensate if you don´t have a "perfect" on-time performance, leg-room, IFE, etc...

I don´t think I´m revealing any "secrets", as all of this can be read on the reputation tab in every airline.

Hope this helps a bit

Cheers and good flight(s) to all of you,

rgss

In AE 3.1 they will have a "penalty" anyway (on route reputation) if they use too large AC on those short haul routes, as their frequencies will be much lower than those using single aisle AC´s, won´t they?
I think it would be less realistic if there´s a cap in range for widebodies (even less in open worlds..., where nearly "everything" is allowed).
As far as i know, Lufthansa has also been using 747´s on FRA-MUC, FRA-TXL, and other domestic routes for a while, and Iberia A-340-600 on the MAD-BCN when demand justified it.
What I don´t like is if airlines set up routes offering 2 or 3 times, sometimes even 4, the demand figure (no matter what AC type), but that also seems to be much more difficult in AE 3.1. as profitability seems to be falling more rapidly than in 3.0 when offering too many seats.

Cheers,

rgss

Can someone do Bombardier for me? I didnt manage to finish before the beta started like I hoped. (Well I didnt even start!)

I´ll do that for you.

Cheers,

rgss

That's almost perfect

Hope it will simplify the research bit , Eurocopter and Augusta-Westland are on the works.

Cheers,

rgss

Your Welcome!!, I´m glad to help a bit.

Thought it could save a lot of research work , hoping it isn´t too late, and most of them have already been researched...

Cheers,

rgss

I found a doc that could help a bit... , and the source seems to be reliable.

Its mixed up in Kg. and lb., but it includes many of the AC needed...

ftp://www.skyplan.com/manuals/Generic%20Aircraft%20Database.pdf

By the way. I´ll also take the single Sikorsky...

Cheers,

rgss

Lets go rotary!!
I´ll take the single Eurocopter on offer , and the three Augusta-Westlands next.

Cheers,

rgss

Goody, I´m already on it.

Cheers,

rgss

For a start , I´d try to look up the data for the the two CASA models.

Cheers,

rgss