Lease a new plane or pay C check?

[aurelion]

Hi everyone!

I would like to hear some tips and recommendations about my current situation. I'm leasing several aircraft, which have high C check costs about to expire (about 1M each). If I cancel the lease, it cost me 700K. Would you suggest then canceling the lease and leasing another plane in order to save 300K?

Thanks!!

[kjetbrat]

No! Keep the aircraft.  You can't cxl an aircraft every time there is a c-check.

[ucfknightryan]

IMO it depends on a number of things...

1. When the lease is up, are you going to replace the aircraft with a different type of aircraft? 
2. Can you procure this different aircraft before the C check?
3. Does the new aircraft cost less to maintain/fly?
4. Does your lease end before the next C check on the aircraft?
5. Do you at least break even on the difference between the additional lease cost and the reduced operation cost over a 1 year time period?
6. Do you at least break even on the difference between canceling the lease and the C check?

If you can answer yes to all of these questions then personally I'd get a new aircraft and break the lease.

If not, you're probably better off paying for the C check.  If you've still got the money to lease more aircraft after that then use the new planes to expand.

//For full disclosure, I've new to this game.  Someone who has been at it longer might have a reason that I'm wrong. 

[Riger]

Hi there,

Eventually when you have 10's or 100's of aircraft, C-checks become almost a non-event.  They happen too frequently to even try to manage around.  I accept that that flight is down for 20 days and the pax/revenue is lost.

This is not true for the D-checks however.  You will find that most players will (aircraft type choice aside) consider when D-check is due as a Primary factor when leasing an aircraft. Myself, I usually will not start a new lease on an aircraft when there is less than 2.5 years to the D-check.  Other may take it closer than that ....  personal preferences.

Additionally, most people will early terminate a lease just prior to D-check. This is often due to the duration of a D-check rather than the cost (although the cost can be huge for some aircraft).

Finally, many of the things I worried about as a newbie, are not even on the horizon for me anymore now that I have more experience/exposure to the game.  I am sure you will also experience the same if you hang around long enough.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards
Richard

[EYguy]

Riger, whydon't you buy enough a/c to have one spare to swap the schedules?

[Jake43]

Riger, whydon't you buy enough a/c to have one spare to swap the schedules?

Well when you have 100+ Aircraft, you have 2-3 or more planes a week going into C-Check. It would be too much of a hassle to switch the plane out all the time with your spare plane. Better to just put that plane on its own dedicated routes and rake in the rewards. 

[Sigma]

Riger, whydon't you buy enough a/c to have one spare to swap the schedules?

My list of aircraft going into an upcoming C-Check in the next 30 days is, quite literally, a lot longer than the list of most airlines in AWS' entire fleets.  I'm not about to swap schedules on anywhere from 10 to 50 aircraft all at once.   That would drive me completely insane to keep up with.

[Riger]

As the others have said already, it would be an absolute PITA to try and manage that.

I think my record is about 35 aircraft in C-check at the same time!! and yes, that has a financial impact, no doubt, but it is not possible to manage that kind of fine tuning (a/c for a/c replacement during C-Check) when you have a regular job and family.  On a really good night I sleep for 6 hours, that's 12 game days and more than 50% of the C-check duration.  Not worth the hassle.

I'd be prepared to pay a service contract fee in-game and have the game provide and administer substitute aircraft for the checks, but that will not happen, as there are more important issues being addressed.

Best Regards

Richard

PS: One more thing;

I appreciate that when your airline is still small and growing, C-checks can really hurt. My advice in this regard; not to lease an aircraft with less than 10 months to the C-check and less than 3 years on the D-check.  I have passed up aircraft when I really needed because of impending C-checks.  Later on when you have more (than 10 or 15 a/c) you can take an aircraft if you really need it and it is almost due a C-check, provided you are getting a steady income.

[EYguy]

Well... My experiences in this game led me to have fleet with something like 150 a/cs and, as Riger said, it was quite complicated to keep the swaping program running on schedule.
Anyway, what I have discovered in these months is that the spare a/cs are necessary anyway, because when you have a D-check you could lose the airport slot if you do not pay attention to the game... Because after 2 months the airport authority will release to the public your slots!
What I can say is that, when you have enough spare a/c, it is possible to put the maintenance cycle an a/c before the c-check expiry date and then keep the newly maintaned a/c ready for a schedule swap!
Oh, of course, you need to own those a/c because if you have them in a leasing contract arrangement, they will cost you a fortune!

edo