Need to fix the income system ASAP.

[CAPFlyer]

Also, let me emphasize one of the points I was making above again because I think I buried it too well within all the rest.

Everyone else responding to this thread is operating a VA that is what is called within the US a "Major" carrier. That's a pretty big airline, usually with a fleet of several hundred aircraft, many of them being in the 200+ passenger class. Many of your airlines are also international carriers, meaning that you make long-haul flights like New York - London with (again) 200+ passenger aircraft.

I'm just a small cargo (or soon to be cargo) airline that is flying passengers in the meantime that is designed to operate in a fairly specific niche - regional service. GMA (the parent company) is still a regional airline, only serving destinations within the Eastern US, much like the old Northeast Airlines, or Piedmont Airlines. We have a few (7) 757s as our big planes for hauling trunk routes between our hubs, but most of our aircraft are MD-88s and smaller, each fitting its own niche. I'm starting with 5 C208s to cover the 15 flights that are in the route schedule (which is exactly how many planes are needed to cover those flights because of their setup). I will expand once I get more pilots to cover the addition routes, but for the forseeable future, the biggest plane that we'll be flying is the C208 and then a trio of YS-11A-200 cargo aircraft (again) once we get enough pilots and the additional routes served will be only the number that can be handled by those 3 airplanes.

Here's where the current money system makes the most impact -

I fly one of my flights. I have 5 passengers that pay $85 each. Because I have enough fuel, I don't have any fuel cost. My profit (which is maximized) is $315 (pre-modifier). My ticket price is low becuase I'm not going very far, but it's still a 1.5 hour flight.

Ionathan flies a flight with a 767-300. They have 200 passengers paying $150 each because in that same 1.5 hours, they can go twice as far or more. They take on 6700 gallons of fuel at $2.14/gallon. Catering costs (guessin' here) about $500. That means that off that, you're at -

$30000 from tickets
- $14388 for fuel
- $500 for catering
= $15112 profit.

Now, you pay your crew 10% of the profits, so the profit is now -

$15112 profit
-$1511.20 crew pay
=$13600.80

So, on one 1.5 hour flight, I made 43 times LESS money prior to the multiplier simply because I'm flying smaller planes on a smaller route.

It also means that my profit margins are MUCH less than what yours are because your ticket revenues are higher per passenger (by a long shot) and the number of passengers you can carry are larger, so your profit margin is going to be much higher because (again) cost of operating the airplane isn't figured into the mix. Now, my C208 costs $400/hr to operate, that 767 costs $10,000+ an hour to operate, see how that evens things out a lot? Now I'm making a slight loss because my ticket prices are too low, but it also means that the 767's profit margin isn't higher simply because it carried more people as it is now because the increase in costs is not proportionate to the increase in capability of the airplane.

[CAPFlyer]

I agree with the idea of setting it up so you 'have' to start smaller with second hand a/c - i like that idea a lot. More realistic. But is really stumping me is this, maybe I can explain the problem a bit more than JUST the multiplier.

If I had 30 flights that made a $30,000 profit post multiplier ($900,000 total) and then 1 flight that lost me $1.6 million, I've just wiped out all of the profits I just made and then some because of that.

You loose the same about of money (percentage wise) at no mulitplier as you do with it at 10, 50, 100, 1000, or 10000000. In the end as long as EVERY flight both profits and loses are multiplied equally, you will still end up with the same lose.

NOW!, I do get this. A 737-600 is 45mil. You go and just need one flight to get over that 45mil mark in your balance to buy you a new plane. OOPS, you loose 6 million instead of making 5 million. So in all you just lost 11mil on a flight because of program error or otherwise. So, instead of flying TWO flights to get enough money to buy a new plane, you have to fly 4.

I think THAT is what Chris T is trying to point out

Chris, see my last post, I think it kinda shows things a bit better, becasue everyone is still looking too big for where the problem is.

Also, you're right on the percentage wise being the same, but the difference here is that we all start with the same amount of money. A small airline that isn't making $10,000/flight profit pre-multiplier can't take the huge hits in money that a bigger one can when they do take a hit because of that multiplier being so high.

The thing that everyone has to keep in perspective is that the amount of money in the bank is fixed. We have to worry about that bottom line, no matter how big. The difference is that the way the system runs now, the bigger the plane you fly, the bigger your profit margin by default. In the real world, operating cost offsets a lot of that profit margin increase. FlyNET doesn't currently put operating cost into the mix, so you're only being charged for 50% of what it really costs to operate the airplane, thus there is an uneven tradeoff for flying smaller planes versus larger ones because of that multiplier. If the multiplier is reduced to a more reasonable setting, that tradeoff is somewhat minimized although the only way to truly fix it is to incorporate operating costs into the calculations.

[cjk2448]

Remember this is still beta and not even to .5 yet I'm sure this will ALL be worked out once its a 1.0 Also, there is only one guy working on this so be patient.

It is good to through out problem areas, suggestsions, etc..., but lets not take it over the top

I still agree with Chris, getting the ops costs etc... set up will help out a lot.

[cmdrnmartin]

Everyone else responding to this thread is operating a VA that is what is called within the US a "Major" carrier. That's a pretty big airline, usually with a fleet of several hundred aircraft, many of them being in the 200+ passenger class. Many of your airlines are also international carriers, meaning that you make long-haul flights like New York - London with (again) 200+ passenger aircraft.

I'm just a small cargo (or soon to be cargo) airline that is flying passengers in the meantime that is designed to operate in a fairly specific niche - regional service. GMA (the parent company) is still a regional airline, only serving destinations within the Eastern US, much like the old Northeast Airlines, or Piedmont Airlines. We have a few (7) 757s as our big planes for hauling trunk routes between our hubs, but most of our aircraft are MD-88s and smaller, each fitting its own niche. I'm starting with 5 C208s to cover the 15 flights that are in the route schedule (which is exactly how many planes are needed to cover those flights because of their setup). I will expand once I get more pilots to cover the addition routes, but for the forseeable future, the biggest plane that we'll be flying is the C208 and then a trio of YS-11A-200 cargo aircraft (again) once we get enough pilots and the additional routes served will be only the number that can be handled by those 3 airplanes.

Here's where the current money system makes the most impact -

I fly one of my flights. I have 5 passengers that pay $85 each. Because I have enough fuel, I don't have any fuel cost. My profit (which is maximized) is $315 (pre-modifier). My ticket price is low becuase I'm not going very far, but it's still a 1.5 hour flight.

Ionathan flies a flight with a 767-300. They have 200 passengers paying $150 each because in that same 1.5 hours, they can go twice as far or more. They take on 6700 gallons of fuel at $2.14/gallon. Catering costs (guessin' here) about $500. That means that off that, you're at -

$30000 from tickets
- $14388 for fuel
- $500 for catering
= $15112 profit.

Now, you pay your crew 10% of the profits, so the profit is now -

$15112 profit
-$1511.20 crew pay
=$13600.80

So, on one 1.5 hour flight, I made 43 times LESS money prior to the multiplier simply because I'm flying smaller planes on a smaller route.

It also means that my profit margins are MUCH less than what yours are because your ticket revenues are higher per passenger (by a long shot) and the number of passengers you can carry are larger, so your profit margin is going to be much higher because (again) cost of operating the airplane isn't figured into the mix. Now, my C208 costs $400/hr to operate, that 767 costs $10,000+ an hour to operate, see how that evens things out a lot? Now I'm making a slight loss because my ticket prices are too low, but it also means that the 767's profit margin isn't higher simply because it carried more people as it is now because the increase in costs is not proportionate to the increase in capability of the airplane.

I'll adress each issue individually.

You made 43 times less money. Correct, because you didnt carry A lot of people, nor did you fly them as far. I think a better comparison would be two identical routes flown by different aircraft. The smaller aircraft would not make the same amount of money, of course. Now look at fuel, it costs a lot more to fuel a jet then to fuel that C-208. I know personnally, that on a climb to cruise from take off, I'm looking at 10 000 lbs of fuel burned. That's no small amount, plus it doesnt even take into account that I need to have more for a long cruise. All told, most transatlantic flights Im looking at 70 000 lbs of fuel, plus an additional 15000 for emergency, go around etc. Because we pay a lot more for gas, thats the increased operating cost right there. But thats transatlantic, lets shrink it down a bit. Say CYWG to CYBR. This is a regional flight, it's not too far, in fact its downright small compared to the usual flights I do. I fly it with a Fokker 50, a regional aircraft. The fokker 50 has two turboprops, and flies at around 200 knots. I can make a profit everytime I fly this route. It will be larger than if i used a C208, to be sure, and if I used a A333 (which is ridiculous, the profit would be still larger, but only because I had a full plane. If that A333 was only 1/4 full, I would pull a huge loss. If the Fokker 50 was a quarter full, id pull a smaller loss. The C208 would have the smallest loss at 2 PAX, but it would still be a loss. It's all dependant upon your pax load, and thats what I want to change. I want to put a demand algorithm in, so that you cant have 744s flying 100nm routes full of people. I think that will alleviate problems compared to a hourly operating cost. Agian, the multiplier is no issue, and every aircraft (well, maybe not some of the old fuel inefficient clunkers) can turn a profit. The amopunt of profit scales with your pax load, and is offset by your fuel burn.

[CAPFlyer]

Justin, I don't know how to put this in any other terms, but you're not grasping one of the basic ideas in economics. Potential Income.

My example shows that the potential income for a flight with Ionathan Airlines is 43 times HIGHER than the potential income from a flight with Green Mountain Cargo.

Now, remember that we all have a fixed amount of money available. If your potential income is lower, your account does not grow nearly as fast as the airline with the higher potential income. Because GMC flights under the current system, pre multiplier are much more tight on the pocket book, than Ionathan flights, any loss hurts me 43 times more than a loss that you do because that's the difference in potential income.

What you continue to fail to understand Justin is that the increase in cost of fuel for a flight is NOT proportional to the increase in income from tickets under the current system.

When you are comparing 2 planes against each other, the binding factor must be TIME and not distance. This is because all of your costs are based on HOURS of flight and not miles of flight. Your fuel consumption is based on pounds per hour, your speed is nautical miles per hour, your crews are paid by the hour, and so on. My plane, per hour, in real life has nearly the same potential income as a 767 does. This is because the cost of operation increases at the same rate as the capability of the airplane. Thus, the potential for profit doesn't change much. An airline flying 5 C-208s will end up the year with about a 2-3% profit. An airline flying 5 767s will end up the year with about a 2-3% profit. That's because the increase in ticket price, operating cost, and fuel cost, all increase in a fairly linear fashion as the size and capability of the aircraft increases. In FlyNET, that second factor, operating cost, is not properly represented, so we get back to the beginning, your cost for flying the airplane as a PERCENTAGE of income is not the same as mine, thus the system is unfair for those who do not have large airplanes. That unfairness is exacerbated by the fact that the multiplier is unreasonably high. Again, back to the beginning, the way to resolve this issue is to first reduce the multiplier. Then you integrate operating costs. Once that's done, it makes things much more realistic and stops the potential bankrupting of smaller airlines because they choose to say small (which is quite realistic).

Also, again for your example, you didn't read my example. My example was for a C208 on a 1.5 hour flight and a 767 on a 1.5 hour flight. The amount of fuel that I calculated for (6,700 gallons / 10,000 pounds) was the amount you would need for a 1.5 hour flight. Instead you're trying to debunk the example by saying that you're now suddenly flying a much longer flight than what the comparison was based on.

Now, you demad issue - yes, that will help some. But again, that still won't completely solve the issue. You are continuing to fail to understand the basic premise of where the flaw resides and the fact that use of a multiplier as high as it is cannot be justified.

[cmdrnmartin]

Ok.

You make 1 dollar on a flight. Ionathan makes 43 dollars on a flight. 43 times higher correct? If we multiply by 1000, you make 1000 dollars, Ionathan, 43 000. This is still 43 times higher than you. The multiplier makes no difference from what I see.

Now, lets assume you both crash. You lose 1000 dollars, but Ionathan, on the other hand, loses 43 000 dollars. Notice how his loss is much higher than yours. Again, its equality.

Your mention of time is correct, fuel is used on a time basis. i need more fuel returning from Europe than I do going there, because it takes me longer because of jetsreams, etc. We'll make it simple, suppose a Fokker 50 takes off and flies for 100nm. A b773 does the same. The Fokker will use less fuel, in fact, its really using almost none, probably at a stretch, 3000lbs, if that. The B773 on theother hand, is using 3000 pounds every two minutes on its takeoff and climbout. Now admittedly the B773 is going to get to the destination faster (although not by much since at 100 miles, the chance of the B773 being above 10000ft for very long is close to nothing, and thus is speed limited to about 220 knots average. The B773 makes up for the loss of money in fuel expenses because it is carrying a massive amout of passengers (7 times the Fokkers load). So in essence, its profit should be 7 times that of the Fokker flight. With fuel expenses, Im pretty sure it actually ends up like that.

Now about the 10 000 lbs. Does the C208 burn 10 000lbs in 1.5 hours? I know 10000lbs is reasonable for a 767's climb to altitude, so about 30-40 minutes of flight. I can't really comment until I know the fuel rate of a C208.

How about maintenance? Every time you land an airplane, it takes a bit of damage. Even when I grease a landing in an A333, I'm still looking at paying half a million dollars in maintenance, whereas on a C208, I expect maintenance never really goes above 30 000 dollars.

Potential Income, the amount your airline can make per flight is how Im going to be interpreting that as. If you fly a bigger jet, on the same route as a smaller jet, you will make more money. Not exponentially more, linearly more. Your fuel prices go up, because bigger engines need bigger fuel loads. I suspect that your catering costs increase as well, since you have more people to deal with. A small airline, say yours, makes say, 50% profit on a flight. Another airline, with larger aircraft, should also make 50% profit on the flight.

I'll show you the following two flights:

Boeing 738 w/ 160 pax 133nm
Airbus 333 w/335 pax 133nm

In each case I had refueled in Calgary and had enough in the tanks to return to Edmonton.

The fact that the A333 has a lower fuel burn is thus: FLYNet does not recognize its center tank. Add 8000 lbs of fuel to its burn.

Let's compare profits (And note this is without fuel taken into consideration, because if it were the A333 would have needed to buy more than the B738)

The 738 carried 160 pax, the A333 roughly double.
The Ticket income was double for the A333 (ticket prices were the same)
The catering costs were double for the A333
The Pilot Salary was double for the A333.
The Net was double for the A333.

So, a bigger plane, flying the same route, will make more money without considering fuel. I'm going to say that I put 10 000 lbs into the A333, and 4000lbs into the B738. The cost for this, from Edmonton is: 2313$ for the 738, and 7712$ for the A333. So subtractin that from the original will give me a final (mult)net of 7.6 mill for the 738 and 12.3 mill for the A333. Notice how the A333 is slightly under half of the 738s profit. Now, when you fly long routes, you find out that you dont make the same amount of money, in fact, on a 7 hour flight (3000nm) in a A333, I make about 50 million. 12 million for a 30 minute flight, 50 million for 7 hours. Notice that Im making half as much, based on the hours I've flown? This is why the demand algorithm would be better, as it prevents this "Huge aircraft short route" abuse.

My point is, both aircraft made the same percentage profit. A C208, fully loaded, will make an amount similar to them. Some aircraft will make more money percentage wise, because they are better. A 707-320 is a money pit on fuel costs, where as the A333 is probably one of the best ways to make a lot of cash. A stretched b757-300 makes more than a 752 because of around the same fuel burn, with more paying passengers. (The downside is you cant fly as far) But there is no "Bias" towards the larger companies. Ontario Air Service operated c208s and turned a profit. They bought new aircraft regularily because the multiplier let them do so. There aircraft purchase to flight time ratio was eqaul to Ionathans. Ionathans aircraft cost 200 mil, OAS's about 1~2 mil.

In the end, the multiplier does not favour any one group. Certain aircraft are better, but profits percentage remains the same over aircraft types. Your reputation is a deciding factor in profits. Your profit potential, in %, is the same as any other airline. Us "Major Carriers" will make more than you, but our fuel costs, maintenance, catering (which I suspect costs more than your entire ticket income on your C208 flight did), and aircraft prices (in excess of 150 million) all scale linearly.

I do encourage open debate on the issue, and you are free to refute my points. However, I think a demand system, for major cities etc, would be a much better idea then an hourly cost, because as it stands, the economy is fair to everyone.

[CAPFlyer]

Okay... let me make this a simple as I can.

What you're still failing to grasp is that the current system works fine for LARGE airplanes where the potential ticket income is much larger because you can go much farther and thus command much higher ticket prices which more than offset the increase in fuel needed.

Let me run this by you Justin.

Cruise speed of a C208 is 160 knots (True Airspeed)
Cruise speed of a 767 is 460 knots (True Airspeed)

I fly for 1.5 hours at 160 knots and thus I've flown 240 nautical miles. If my passengers paid $85 for their ticket, that means that they are paying about $0.34 per mile. At most I have 8 passengers, so my maximum income is $680.

Your 767 flies for 1.5 hours at 460 knots and thus has flown 690 miles. Your passengers are paying $150 for their ticket. That means that they are paying about $0.22 per mile. But wait.... you have a maximum capacity of 269. That means your maximum income for the same 1.5 hour flight is $40,350.

My C208 consumes approx. 72 gallons of fuel for its 1.5 hour flight for a cost of $154. So my maximum profit for this flight is now $526.

Your 767 consumes approx. 2986 gallons of fuel (20000 pounds) for a cost of $6388. So your maximum profit is now $33,962.

Okay, now let's run the percentages.

My C208's fuel cost is 22% of my maximum potential profit.
Your 767's fuel cost is 16% of your maximum potential profit.

That's not a linear increase. That's a significant decrease in the amount of profit I can make than the bigger aircraft. So thus, my potential profit is much less than it is for an airline with bigger airplanes.

Heck, I even gave my 208 a higher seat-mile revenue than your big 767 and I still come out with less potential profit for the same DURATION of flight. Even your comparison of a 737-800 with a A330-300 doesn't work because your 737 took 5 more minutes to fly the 133 miles than the A330 did.

Also, the speeds I list are the averaged cruise speeds that are used to plan the flight durations.

[cmdrnmartin]

Ok, you are comparing a Cessna Regional, with a multi-million dollar Heavy Aircraft. My aircraft is worth, roughly 123 million, yours, 2 million. Thats about, 61 times more, for my aircraft. The difference in profit is around the same, at 64. Keep in mind too, that the 763 is a stretch of the 762, so its profit is higher based on that (which is why airlines like stretches, for their larger routes.) As well, the further I fly in that aircraft, the less money Im going to make, the longer flights on FLYnet make les money than a shorter flight in the same aircraft (less money based on time invested in the flight that is). Since most of my flights are around 6 hours in length with the 763, the pictures a bit different. The further you go, the more you can charge, but as I proved with the comparison between a Transatlantic flight, and a 133nm flight with the same aircraft, if you fly for longer, your profit, while increasing, increases in a decreasing exponential rate. So your argument that because I can go further, and thus get an unfair advantage, is invalid.

You can not expect a 8 person commuter plane to make the same profit potential as a Precision manufactured jet. They are completely different animals. If you really want to make the same percentage wise, how about increasing your fare price a bit? Now for your example, you have a Boeing 767, charging 150$ for 650 miles. Bullcrap. I fly Calgary to Ottawa, in a 738, and the standard price is 121$. The trip is 743 nm. So 150 isnt even a realistic price for the route your suggesting.

In anycase, if you want to make more, get a better aircraft, the C208 is ok, but a similar engined aircraft with a greater seating capacity, will make you more money. Like I said, some aircraft have a higher revenue potential than others.

Now, my comparison is still valid. The 737 took longer because I landed on runway 34, not 16 like I did with the A333. Theres your 5 minutes. I took both aircraft up to 24000ft, cruised at 310kts for only around 3 minutes, then initiated a descent. They are roughly linear increases in profit, which translates to a potential profit of the same amount for the same time.

[CAPFlyer]

Okay Justin....

I'm pounding my head into the table on this because you're still NOT grasping the whole deal here.

I KNOW that the C208 won't create the same profit as the 767. That's the whole damned point!

The point is that we all have a fixed amount of funds to start with and the planes we start with (and some choose to stay with) don't have the same profit potential as a 767, but this multiplier greatly exacerbates that issue as the amount of startup capital and the amount of money possible to be lost with the smaller aircraft is not of a correct proportion becuase it is too easy to bankrupt the company because the system only works for large aircraft where the cost per flight (~20% on the 767 versus ~30% on the C208) is low enough that even at maximum loss, the company can easily offset those losses with 1 or 2 profitable flights instead of 10+ that it takes with the smaller planes.

What you continue to fail to understand is that the profit margin for the smaller aircraft is appreciably less than that of the big planes and having such a high multiplier only exacerbates that issue. This means that the only way to get out of the situation under the current system is to do one thing - get bigger planes by any means necessary. That's not realistic. Growing the airline's size of aircraft should be a function of wanting to grow larger, not one of needing to grow larger to protect yourself from unrealistically high losses.

I'm going to put forth a challenge to you Justin because the problem here is that you continue to look at this from the "big boy" position instead of the "little guy" position, which is where I'm coming from.

Start a new VA. Buy ONLY small aircraft (under 20 seats). Your flight schedule can only equal the number of airplanes you have and you cannot schedule any plane to fly for more than 8 hours a day. Start flying those flights the way that the real airlines that fly these airplanes do. Top off at your hub if possible or take as much as possible without exceeding MTOW (which is hard to do with many commuter aircraft) and then only take fuel when you absolutely need to. Fly those flights for just a couple of weeks and see how little your bank account grows compared to the bigger airframes and how much that first flight of the day hurts that bank account.

You'll find out really quick that with the current setup, your cost off that first flight really hurts and it's very possible that you may never break even on some of the flights just using the standard ticket prices and you have to increase prices so that at the end of the day you've just broken even while trying not to charge $200/pax. Then you'll understand where owning those bigger planes makes it so much easier to make a profit and break even. You make a loss on one trip, you've made up 99% of it on the next flight. With the smaller planes, it takes 6-8 flights, but in the meantime, your bank account continues to dwindle because you've only got 2 million in the bank and that multiplier makes it possible to bankrupt yourself on only 2 flights and not necessarily because you're mishandling funds or flights.

[cjk2448]

Im lost as hell now . . .

[CAPFlyer]

Here Justin, let's try this. Konny himself has admitted that the multiplier is too high and it's too easy to make money when you get above a certain size. When you have a fixed multiplier, that is going to happen, and on the other end of the spectrum, that same multiplier makes it too hard for a small airline to start making money. That's the problem with using a fixed multiplier.

So here's a new proposal, one I think everyone ought to be able to wrap their heads around.

The multiplier on a flight should be based on a simple formula - Days in the week.

We assume that each flight is flown once a day, seven days a week. Thus, if you're a RESPONSIBLE owner and growing the company at a rate you can support, lets assume that each pilot flies the route for that airplane (in my case, 3 flights making a round-robin originating and ending in Burlington), the multiplier for each flight should be *7*. This means that for every 1 flight they fly, you get paid for 7 flights. This would be a realistic multiplier that allows for you to have 1 pilot per plane flying 1 flight per week for each flight on your schedule. Now, this doesn't say that you can't have 30 flights on your schedule and only have 20 flown because you won't be penalized for the ones you don't fly, but at least you'll have a more realistic revenue for the flights.

Right now, for every 1 flight you fly, you're getting paid to fly that flight 1000 times. That's 2 3/4 years per flight! That's a bit over-the-top. Heck, I'd even support making it a 70x Multiplier (that means you're getting paid for flying that flight every day for 10 weeks each time you fly a flight). That will still result in time moving "faster" than realtime, but not be so fast that you have airlines (potentially) going from a 2 leased 737 operation to having a fleet of 10 or 15 747-400s 3 months later. That works for a strategy game, but not for a hobby like this where the point isn't to grow as fast as possible, but to be a semi-realistic faximilie of real life.

[cmdrnmartin]

Okay Justin....

I'm pounding my head into the table on this because you're still NOT grasping the whole deal here.

I KNOW that the C208 won't create the same profit as the 767. That's the whole damned point!

The point is that we all have a fixed amount of funds to start with and the planes we start with (and some choose to stay with) don't have the same profit potential as a 767, but this multiplier greatly exacerbates that issue as the amount of startup capital and the amount of money possible to be lost with the smaller aircraft is not of a correct proportion becuase it is too easy to bankrupt the company because the system only works for large aircraft where the cost per flight (~20% on the 767 versus ~30% on the C208) is low enough that even at maximum loss, the company can easily offset those losses with 1 or 2 profitable flights instead of 10+ that it takes with the smaller planes.

What you continue to fail to understand is that the profit margin for the smaller aircraft is appreciably less than that of the big planes and having such a high multiplier only exacerbates that issue. This means that the only way to get out of the situation under the current system is to do one thing - get bigger planes by any means necessary. That's not realistic. Growing the airline's size of aircraft should be a function of wanting to grow larger, not one of needing to grow larger to protect yourself from unrealistically high losses.

I'm going to put forth a challenge to you Justin because the problem here is that you continue to look at this from the "big boy" position instead of the "little guy" position, which is where I'm coming from.

Start a new VA. Buy ONLY small aircraft (under 20 seats). Your flight schedule can only equal the number of airplanes you have and you cannot schedule any plane to fly for more than 8 hours a day. Start flying those flights the way that the real airlines that fly these airplanes do. Top off at your hub if possible or take as much as possible without exceeding MTOW (which is hard to do with many commuter aircraft) and then only take fuel when you absolutely need to. Fly those flights for just a couple of weeks and see how little your bank account grows compared to the bigger airframes and how much that first flight of the day hurts that bank account.

You'll find out really quick that with the current setup, your cost off that first flight really hurts and it's very possible that you may never break even on some of the flights just using the standard ticket prices and you have to increase prices so that at the end of the day you've just broken even while trying not to charge $200/pax. Then you'll understand where owning those bigger planes makes it so much easier to make a profit and break even. You make a loss on one trip, you've made up 99% of it on the next flight. With the smaller planes, it takes 6-8 flights, but in the meantime, your bank account continues to dwindle because you've only got 2 million in the bank and that multiplier makes it possible to bankrupt yourself on only 2 flights and not necessarily because you're mishandling funds or flights.

How do I explain this to you, the multiplier makes no difference. You would still lose money without it, or gain money, but at a slower rate. Youd still need ten flights to make up for 1 loss! So stop bringing it up, its pointless. Yes things happen quicker, but thats the point. A majority of people want big jets, and even with the x1000 multiplier, theyre looking at a lot of flights before they get them.

Go talk to Imboden about OAS, he'll explain that you can make a profit with the C208.

I flew a Fokker 70 for a long time, to earn enough for a Fokker 100, to earn enough for 1 763. I flew a crapload of flights to be able to afford the big 763, so I know about clawing my way out from basically nothing.

Now about your challenge: I'd research a nice plane to buy, and would spend 2 million on it. That leaves me with a whopping 23 million. Thats a sizeable protection against bankruptcy. And most planes can fly for more than 8 hours a day, the limitation is pilot, not aircraft. But thats besides the point since theres no concept of time in FLYnet. Of course your Bank account wont grow fast, your moving 8 people around! But it shouldnt be too hard.

http://flynet.en-studios.de/index.php?l ... =db&id=556
http://flynet.en-studios.de/index.php?l ... =db&id=378

Look at that, a C208, made half a million in profit, and bought fuel!

Now I took the Liberty of looking at your airline:
http://flynet.en-studios.de/index.php?l ... 2=db&id=49

Your reputation is 26. No one wants to fly with your airline. Thats why YOU can't make a profit. If you have seat loads of under 25% you are in serious trouble. Regardless of whether its 25% of 16 or 160, you are going to post a loss. As well, your pilto income is 25% of a flight. No wonder you arnt making anything, your opwn pockets are being stuffed! The industry average of 10% is fine, and several people wanting to make bigger profits reduce it to 7%. Talk to MBL about crashes and reputation. It cut into his profit like crazy, but he survived. He didnt even whine and complain becuase he was honorable enough to suck it up and admit the crash. Your very first post neglected to mention that 2 flights previous, you turned your Cessna into a small aluminum pancake on the cold hard earth. That is the entire reason why you only have 3 people flying in your aircraft. Keep flying, build your rep up, and you will turn profits again!

Now, your suggestion of a multiplier. Bull, it won't work. At that rate, no one will ever get to purchase a new plane. Ever. It would take monumental amounts of flights to buy new aircraft, and everyone would be stuck in regional 'hell' for eternity. I could see 500 as a multiplier, but not 7.

The original FLYNet multiplier was 10. It wasbumped to 100, and then to its current 1000. I like the 1000, but would settle for 500. Konny has final say.

Regardless, improve your reputation, and you will make money. Stop blaming your lack of profits on the multiplier when in reality, its your airlines reputation and bloated pilot salary that is causing the problem.

Yes I am upset, and I don't like being this blunt, but when you attack my intelligence, because of your own failings, I lose my neutrality.

Cheers

oh and

but not be so fast that you have airlines (potentially) going from a 2 leased 737 operation to having a fleet of 10 or 15 747-400s 3 months later. That works for a strategy game, but not for a hobby like this where the point isn't to grow as fast as possible, but to be a semi-realistic faximilie of real life.

Jet Blue
Westjet
Southwest
Ryanair

Phenomenal growth in each one. And as mentioned before, FLYnet has no concept of time as of yet.

[cjk2448]

Justin does bring up a good point. You won't get anywhere with a reputation of 25. And yes OAS is adveraging half a mil on each flight - and even LOOSING money one some you don't see him in here cripping about the multiplyer do you?

Simply put, at a repuation of 25 EVERYONE would be lossing money.

Oh, and another point. I have only made 100mil in flights in th last month and I am flying an adverage of once a day. How am I supposed to buy 15 747s at that rate?

[cmdrnmartin]

CJK brings up another point about your x7 multiplier.

I can fly once a day, sometimes more, because I am in University and having the PC on isnt that hard to do in tghe background. Working people, will probably only fly on the Weekend. How does having a low multiplier benefit them? Especially if they want a nice big airline?

Not everyone flies every day. Keep that in mind.

[CAPFlyer]

Actually, Justin, again, I'm just using my airline as an example. My reputation is at 26 partially because of a flight that garnered 0 passenger revenue that I posted to Konny but he didn't re-adjust.

Then, add to that that my airplane crashed into an invisible building, and suddenly I've got 2 bad flights and my reputation went to 26 (how is it that your rep can get that bad that fast anyway? That's setting a really high bar considering that there are too many idiots who fly on this simulator... )

But the point is that the current system creates too much of a swing to one side or the other and that that swing is not a linear increase. Again, as the size of airplane grows, the amount of fuel consumed per hour for the same distance and time of flight does not necessarily grow at the same rate. I come from a background of working for airlines and understanding exactly the financial impact of training flights, late flights, etc. I also know that (again) to use a multiplier while only calculating the catering cost, an unrealistic way of compensating the pilots (Percentage of profit? No company does that as their regular way of paying the crew.), and fuel costs (which aren't part of the fixed operating costs anyway) leaves out 55% of the price of operating an airplane.

The solution to that issue has to come multi-fold.

1) Change the multiplier. Yes, it takes longer to buy an airplane, but you'd be damned surprised how fast you can get one.
2) Institute LOANS. That's how most airlines buy their airplanes. They take out a loan from a bank and then purchase the airplane with that loan. Hell, for our purposes, set the loan interest rate at 10% and call it good. Then every flight you make on the plane, you have to pay back a portion of the loan (35 year loan at 10% interest) that takes into account the multiplier that is applied. Even better, roll the loan payment into part of the fixed operating cost for the airplane, that's how they do it in the real world.
3) Change the revenue system basis. Loads based on a demand system that creates passenger loads based on reputation and demand for flights from each airport. (This one will be harder because you have to create a scale for demand and then assign a point on the scale to each airport)
4) Institute operating costs. This fills that major gap in the whole system. Each airplane costs money to fly. Fuel is a large portion, but not the majority portion of it. Fuel is considered to be a variable operating cost since its price changes depending on where you are. The cost for an overhaul of an engine, periodic inspection, and loan payment stay pretty much the same from one month to the next though and they can be fixed.

BTW, the operating cost of the airplane can be found by looking at the seat-mile costs for a particular airplane. Multiply the seat-mile cost by the number of seats, then multiply that by the number of miles travelled in one hour based on the planning speed. That gives you a pretty good guesstimate of the hourly operating cost of that airplane.

One more thing Justin,

My new C208 costs 1.6 million. If I'm making a profit of $500/flight, with a multiplier of 100, I can buy a new plane in 32 flights. With a multiplier of 10, I can buy it in 320 flights. But wait... if I really needed a new plane and I didn't have the money, I wouldn't buy it with money out of my pocket. I'd get a loan for it or I'd lease one. With the implimentation of leasing, the whole purpose for the multiplier is negated in a large part. Most airlines don't buy their airplanes until they've been around for a very long time. Even then, many only get the planes they own because they've leased them long enough to assume the note payments or they've simply paid for the airplane in lease payments. I'll get out my 1999 airliner census again for the exact number, but I believe that both American and United owned less than half of their fleets. The rest were on some form of lease. The only major airline that actually owned a substantial majority of its airplanes was... (deep breath)... FedEx. Not even Southwest owned more than about 60% of its fleet. FedEx owned something like 85% of its fleet.