Cost of slots

Frederik · March 28, 2012, 03:48:56 PM

Has there been a recent change in the billing of slot costs?

I have been upgrading some of my routes with a new aircraft and even though I am using the exact same departure times the system appears to charge me again for the slots! My understanding was that you could reschedule a flight +- 30 minutes and that this could be done at no cost.....

are there exceptions to this rule and in what circumstances will I be charged again for the same slot?

Frederik

schro · March 28, 2012, 03:50:49 PM

How are you upgrading the routes with new aircraft? Are you simply picking a new one from the drop down and submitting? Or are you canceling the route and recreating it? If you cancel and don't keep the slots then you'll be charged for them again when you recreate the route.

If you're replacing with a significantly faster/slower plane, you might have some slot costs at the destination airport, but as long as you're just changing the route, the base airport slots will be free.

Frederik · March 28, 2012, 09:50:21 PM

Thank you for your answer.

I am replacing my current aircraft (a Fokker F27) with a newer and faster model (Saab 2000) but making sure that it uses the same slots (departure times) at the destination airport. I am doing this by making a change to the route and choosing an aircraft from the drop down menu.

Whilst the slots are at zero cost at my base (Zurich) - shown in green, the slots at the destination airport (Munich in this case) are expensive - shown in red - and the costs appear as soon as I open the change screen - before I have made any changes to the route.

This is new to me and I would like to understand why!

Frederik

Sami · March 28, 2012, 09:53:07 PM

Because Saab is faster, and means it arrives earlier to destination - and if you do not change the turnaround, then the departure from destination will be different than originally - hence the new slot cost. (not a cost of full new slot but part of it since you are editing, hover over the (I) icon to view the cost breakdown)

Frederik · March 28, 2012, 09:55:53 PM

Sami

I promise the departure time at the turnaround is identical (I adjust the departure time from Zurich to achieve this) but I am still charged for the slot and the charge shows BEFORE I have made the change as soon as I open the change screen (still with the F27 at the old times)

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swiftus27 · March 28, 2012, 10:07:08 PM

If you depart BOTH airports at the same time (going and coming) then you shouldn't have to pay the slot costs again....

Sami · March 28, 2012, 11:57:11 PM

Checked, and found a bug here. In some cases the second slot was lost due to a bug in editor, and system did not notice this (route flown normally). So just edit the route + pay the small slot fee and it's good to go.

Frederik · March 29, 2012, 06:02:12 AM

Sami, thank you for checking and I do indeed believe there may be some kind of bug.

Could you please correct this as the charge of USD 236300 for a Munich slot is not a "small" fee and is equivalent to being charged the same one-time fee twice!

I would appreciate having a clearer understanding of what can and cannot be done (and at what cost) when changing the departure time of existing flights

Frederik

Sami · March 29, 2012, 06:20:31 AM

(well, your company has 3 000 000 000 dollars in cash, so a mere ~300k is a small sum.)

But anyway, once you edit the route (just edit+save), and then proceed to edit it again, you will see that it's back to normal and you can change the route time a bit without any slot costs.

Frederik · March 29, 2012, 06:23:40 AM

One of the reasons I have created a lot of value for my airline is that I have managed costs very carefully since the beginning of the game (as airlines have to do in the real world!) plus I am still lost as to why things work in some cases and not in others.....

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Sami · March 29, 2012, 06:25:29 AM

Because the (now fixed) bug I talked yesterday only affected some random routes (couple of hunderd or so, of the total >200000+), not all.

Frederik · March 29, 2012, 02:03:53 PM

Just out of interest the bug still seems to exist on Zurich-Munich

Will check if I can find others

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Sami · March 29, 2012, 02:38:26 PM

No it doesn't... Like I mentioned do this to "fix" the affected routes: 1) pick a route, 2) edit+save, 3) go to edit again and observe that slot costs are zero to begin with.

If in step 2 a slot cost was involved, then that route was affected, otherwise not and step 3 can be skipped. In step 3 situation is back to normal. The edit+save in step 2 "fixes" that route by getting a new slot in case it was lost.

I demonstrated it with this route:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Edit/214957/
And you may try it with this:
https://www.airwaysim.com/game/Routes/Edit/215039/

Frederik · March 30, 2012, 03:17:08 AM

Sami

when I try your second example (the 2030 flight ZRH-MUC) and open the editor it mentions a charge of 241400 (in red) before I make any changes.....

Isn't that the bug you were talking about?

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Frederik · April 04, 2012, 04:59:37 PM

As I am continuing my fleet transitioning programme I continue to have issues with the cost of slots!

The most recent example is on Zurich Paris - the morning flight at 0640

when I open this flight to change the aircraft type the cost of the slots for the Paris departure is indicated in red and concerns a substantial amount (peak hour fees the detail tells me) - This cost is shown BEFORE I attempt any changes so without modifying the aircraft type or the times.

Yet it states again that slot charges is a one time fee - what is the special circumstance of this flight that shows this charge again? is this a bug?

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