The whole arguement about being realistic is besides the point really, since in real life you do not purchase a gate, you get slots. A certain time assigned, for which you pay. May be included in handling costs, may not be. In any event, it is not true there is a fixed amount of payment. If I had an airline and flew twice a day to Heathrow, I'd be paying for that. Now, if I would increase to three, or four, my slot expenses would increase.

The system is a lot more complex than just purchasing gates. You need licenses to be issued, you have to request the slots in advance and wait and see what is allocated to you. Don't make the mistake of thinking it is an easy matter..

I beg to disagree. Although I am sure there is an infinite number of arrangements worldwide, in the US I believe that the arrangement is:

Lease gates from the airport. These leases are assets in that you can sell, sublease, transfer or assign the gates. Or return them to the airport (anyone know what USAir did in Pittsburgh?)
In addition, there are landing fees. These factor in the plane size and number of passengers. I know there was talk about premiums for landing/TO times but I don't know if any airport has instituted that.
So far as Landing/TO slots, I am not sure that there is a fee for that outside FFA but it wouldn't surpirse me.

Yeah, I know this one's been suggested before, but I have an idea. With the three-class configuration like first, business, and economy, I figured you could have 3 separate ticket boxes, and then it'll give you 3 separate profits for each class, so then you can figure out the best way to get the best out of the profits.

Times a few hundred routes, who needs a life

so a question regarding all of this...

If I remove a plane that uses an invisible gate, ie LGA, will I lose the ability to use that gate for the sake of bumping to a larger aircraft?

I tried that and I was unable to use the gates (slots) that should have been opened up.

It depends on a couple factors;

How ready is V3. If it is almost ready in weeks than we may see a longer play round.

Is there any features of V3 that can be tested in the current version? If so, we may get a short play round.

If V3 is not a factor then we can expect the play round to last to year 8 or so. That will allow TW to focus on V3 for as long as possible without the distraction of a new round.

OTOH, if the gods want they could restart tomorrow. But I wouldn't make plans on that. When the top 10 quit because of boredom, then its time.

I can't belive it the order book for Q400s was 7 pages long this morning! I'm shure not gonna wait that long for a Q400 and now the SAAB order book is getting longer too but thats ok I found a better plane that I like

Yes, I think that we will see a much wider variety of airframes than we did in the last round.

But I do fear for when the game moves to jets and there are only two manufacturers for aircraft 150+. It may slow the growth of the the top players but I anticipate that the top 50 players will monopolize the order books.

So the system doesn't remember the amount of gates you did not use in one month?
I did not use 1 gate, I get a warning, and the next month, when I have 6 gates, which are not in use (because I sold all my airplanes, to buy new ones) they are ALL :puzzled: automatically removed.....

Easier to program that way. If warning given, remove unused gates.

Hey Russ, If you still have RNO gates, I can use them. After selling a 1900 and a J-31 I have a small RNO operation going again with 3 gates.

I kept one, the others I had to release. PM me when you want it. I can also offer you some good deals on a 328 when you can afford it

Its just plain sick.....

I have no room to grow at RNO unless I build my own terminal......

PM Me ASAP

ID = 9856

I was taking alook at the tail end of the rankings and I noticed that there were numerous airlines at about rank 1100 that don't seem valid.

The have only one city and have random letters for names.

Could these be a way of getting more gates into the game?

That sux. I have 3 of your gates and can hold for 24 hrs

To protect the red states: The top five states have all but one of the Ivy schools. Also, think how many private schools and richer communities are in those states compared to Red states (I'm not saying the south is dumb, I'm saying there are more rich persons per person in New York then say Mississippi).

Still, how did Ohio get 23?

And if I mention that all those states are much more urban than average, what conclusion can you make?

And this is why i wonder why Bushey Airlines is so proud of his name?

Actually, Bushey Airlines has nothing to do with W. Named after Clarkson University hero, Joe Bushey.

But after the funny airline slogan's I thought I would run with it.

Design isn't even final yet, so it would be premature to add it.

It also competes with the B787, not the B777.

Not that this is a regular occurence, but I would think that AE should wait until there is at least a flight test aircraft before adding the plane to the game. eg, the A380 isn't in service yet but it is in the game.

Seems that Boing Airways has been playing silly buggers...

I'll be soon deleting all accounts and banning this user...

I thought it was AirVegas

SFO-SAC. The distance is short so it won't make much of a difference. You are already limited by what LF you will get because of the distance involved.

Short or long he/she is still exploiting the LF bug and trying to force it. The ethics of the situation don't change.

And there is no reason the same tactics can't be used on every single route in AE, so don't dismiss it as too small to care about.

Only a matter of time before some one figured this out.

SFO-SAC

$1 route and $200,$300,$400,$500 routes. All aimed at playing the LF bug.

I don't mind $1 routes as a tactical move; but this is not about being aggresive, it is only about manipulating a bug.

After playing this round, I thought the 753 was the better airframe. Other than the range advantage, which is only valuable fron NE USA to EUR (can't speak to to asia) the additional seats of the 753 over the 739 and 752 are the determing factor. The addtional cost is not that great and for domestic routes, the additional range of other aircraft just increases the operating costs.

Is there any way to remove a created hub? I did create it by mistake!

Return all gates and start over at that city.

At this time there is no way to return a terminal that you may have built and if you put a hub on a terminal, then that is permanent.

And for your info, if you build a terminal, the gates that you had at that airport are released for rental. You do not retain or absorb them.

What would you recommend me to do? Continue expand or return all gates and inauguarate the routes again?

It depends.

Do you have enough DOP to absorb the hub cost on a monthly basis? Can you buy gates or have you hubbed a popular location? If you don't start over, your strategy is set: build a large spoke and hub network as fast as possible.

It has increased the used aircraft market.

Increasing the used market should be good for everyone. The smaller airlines can now buy used aircraft cheaper and there are more aircraft available for all.

I agree, although it may take some time for the prices to come down below list. Initially it will help the larger airlines get more airframes per day.

Please keep the number of delivery's per manf at 2. That will help the smaller airlines who can only afford one airframe per month anyway.

I know that this post may be looked upon as unworthy of the time of the AE admin, but I just find it frustrating how constructing a terminal is almost penalized in the game in that, once it is built, all the gates an airline has accumulated at the airport as given up, and able to be purchased by other airlines. This basically means that an airline is paying o have more competition, though I know in the long run it does pay off. Thats just my thoughts as I was contemplating building a terminal, so thanks for spending your time (possibly wasting it) reading this.
-Song

Part of the problem is that in RL, a terminal is built because the airline needs more gates than it can get or the old one needs refurbishment. The latter case doesn't concern the game but the former should apply. Although, I think in most cases the old gates are released to other airlines just like in the game.

So a more realistic scenario would be to build a new terminal of 25 gates, you would have to give up 10 or 15 or some number back to the general pool of availble gates.

Well, in real life, if an airline builds a new terminal, the gates do get released to the market, but no airline could take the 20 gates that United released at Concourse A @ IAD after the building of Concourse G(until Independence, but thats another story ). These gates were released to the public market. Therefore this aspect of AE is accurate. I have heard of an airline moving from one terminal to another(like airtran at TPA i believe), and the terminal was either closed down or destroyed. I dunno if thats possible to implement, it would sort of solve this problem(i.e. you build a 50 gate terminal at DFW for 500 mill, you can demolish the old gates for 250 mill).

Here in Philly, USAir built two terminals and didn't release any gates. They just increased the traffic for one (the international) and replaced the commuter pad with a terminal (F). (I guess we can't count the ones freed up in Pittsburgh when they closed that as a terminal)

Like I said, there is an example of everything in RL.

Think about this: if you have 25 gates in one terminal, and you decide to build a brand new 30 gate terminal, what happens to the other 25 gates? You vacate them, which allows other airlines to move in. It's perfectly logical and realistic, although at some airports there wouldnt be room for all the different terminals built in this game.

I would say that you could find examples from around the world that have resulted in anything from a net decrease of gates to a completely new set of gates.

So for game purposes, the question is, how do you want to play it.
I do think the point concerning losing traffic is valid. I don't think airlines in RL want to lose volume by building new terminals.

Does anyone have an example of an airline building a new terminal and giving up old gates? And was there a new runway involved?