(comments) AirwaySim v.1.3 news, previews & info

[ucfknightryan]

Ummm...my ultimate idea was to freeze the calendar for C/D checks while they were listed for sale, not what was implemented.  Also, the storage fee was an issue because so many airlines were buying aircraft with never having any intention of flying them (see the screenshot: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,49005.msg283772.html#msg283772).  It wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't at the detriment of other players.  IMO the storage fee isn't going to do anything to change the game dynamics so not sure what the big deal is.  $500/day = $15000/month = next to nothing.  The fee might as well be zero. People are still going to buy aircraft they never plan on flying and jam up production lines for those who actually want the airframes.

Perhaps if people didn't abuse the system these changes wouldn't be necessary?

This storage fee might be an acceptable solution if it weren't necessary to accumulate huge numbers of aircraft to avoid getting shafted by the massive commonality penalty between 3 and 4 types when replacing an aircraft.  This issue alone IMO makes any storage fees unacceptable until it has been resolved in some way.  I hate accumulating that huge pile of aircraft but right now the game makes it absolutely necessary.

I'm actually ok with the C/D check requirements/automation.

[Zombie Slayer]

Yet another terrible idea. Where should I start to tear this apart?

First, parking fee. I gave you a link to average parking fees at the Victorville, California storage facility. It was $1400/WEEK for a widebody aircraft. You are asking $500/DAY. The largest airports in the WORLD don't charge $500/day. This a RIDICULOUS fee and should be seriously rethought before being implemented and screwing customers over.

Auto C/D checks....in the real world. part of selling an aircraft from storage is bringing the plane to flight worthy condition. A C/D check for a stored plane would not even be THOUGHT of, let alone be MANDATED on a fixed schedule. A far better and more realistic idea would be to have a planes condition deteriorate slowly while in storage while the C/D calender is frozen (as LemonButt suggested.) Maybe a loss of 1% a month with a requirement to fix/scrap when the plane reaches 50% condition?

And while we are talking about this...why the hell doe major changes like this always get made during live, running game worlds? We plan our strategy based on the rules when we sign up and agree to the terms and conditions, then completely idiotic changes are made that destroy even the most well laid plan. This needs to end. It is unacceptable to CONSTANTLY make such drastic changes mid game.

Edit: I also notice [ok] next to a couple feature requests I posted in.....and I have to say that what is being implemented is nothing short of a bastardized version of what is requested, In the storage fee request, I supplied a link to Victorville's fees...look at it again and rethink the fees: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,49005.msg273438.html#msg273438. In the changes to scraping request, some good ideas were tossed around. You did next to nothing to fix that problem and ignored the majority of the request. Changing to 10 years is not helpful.

Also edited to fix a typo.

[Sami]

First, parking fee. I gave you a link to average parking fees at the Victorville, California storage facility. It was $1400/WEEK for a widebody aircraft. You are asking $500/DAY. The largest airports in the WORLD don't charge $500/day.

Yes they do. Short-term parking at an "active" airport vs. long-term desert parking are totally different things.

Try MIA for example: http://www.miami-airport.com/pdfdoc/Fees_and_Charges_Book.pdf    ..large plane some $1400/day max. (but this parking fee is not counted from the "largest airports" but something in between as it's a sort of semi-long term storage)

Like someone pointed out. If you have 1000 very large planes for sale at the same time, that'll cost you $180M/year to keep them there with this math. Seriously, that'll bankrupt you?  (and that example of 1000 very large planes is already way out of normal proportion...)

[Monica]

Can I ask the difference between parking fee and storage fee? Is the parking fee for airplanes that just sit around doing nothing, and storage fee for aircraft that are mothballed/parked in the desert?

[Sami]

Correct. Long-term stored planes have no other costs, while short-term parked (idle or for sale) have the regular insurance costs etc (and the short-term parking cost only ticks if you have more than 10 planes idle/for sale in total so it doesn't affect the small operators or any daily scheduling changes you may do; and the cost is also rather small anyway). And to get out of long-term storage all the checks need to be made, while short-term parking is fully automatic.


(edit; also just added the option to scrap a plane while being in long-term storage .. as of course wouldn't make any sense to first bring it out of storage with all C/D checks just to scrap it .. normal scrapping rules apply.)

[Infinity]

What's the rationale behind not counting mothballed aircraft toward CV?

[Monica]

Correct. Long-term stored planes have no other costs, while short-term parked (idle or for sale) have the regular insurance costs etc (and the short-term parking cost only ticks if you have more than 10 planes idle/for sale in total so it doesn't affect the small operators or any daily scheduling changes you may do; and the cost is also rather small anyway). And to get out of long-term storage all the checks need to be made, while short-term parking is fully automatic.


(edit; also just added the option to scrap a plane while being in long-term storage .. as of course wouldn't make any sense to first bring it out of storage with all C/D checks just to scrap it .. normal scrapping rules apply.)

Thank you, sounds fair enough. This allows me to mothball 1 example of every type of my historic fleet.. like my own airline museum. And then I can scrap the rest instead of them taking up space in the used market.

[Zombie Slayer]

(Will post in feature request too)

With these changes come challenges. More and more time is being spent doing mundane tasks that don't really affect the airlines operation. With that in mind, I am going to ask for a couple features to aid in fleet management that have been requested in the past: Mass selling/storing/scrapping of aircraft and the ability to designate an aircraft for sale following appropriate checks being carried out.

Mass sale/store/scrap would work much like the mass rebase option. Click he check box next to each aircraft and select an option. For mass sale, give normal options of sale only, lease only, sale/lease, duration of lease, and private list. For price, only % above/below value can be selected instead of exact price.

For ability to designate aircraft in maintenance or in need of maintenance for sale, simply allow the user to send an aircraft to maintenance and still give option to list for sale.

Thanks,

Don

[Zombie Slayer]

What's the rationale behind not counting mothballed aircraft toward CV?

Yes...they are still an asset....why not count them?

[LemonButt]

What's the rationale behind not counting mothballed aircraft toward CV?

In the accounting world, they would call this salvage cost or sunk costs.  If you paid $10 million for a plane and is useless, it is listed as a depreciated/dead asset on the balance sheet.  You wouldn't mothball/park in the desert to rot an asset that had value, would you?  Not counting it towards CV makes sense, but IMO there should be other efforts (brokers) to keep the aircraft in the available population for other players.  Any price greater than zero is better than paying fees to park.  With current broker settings though, it doesn't matter if the price is infinity or zero--you can't sell it.

[Zombie Slayer]

In the accounting world, they would call this salvage cost or sunk costs.  If you paid $10 million for a plane and is useless, it is listed as a depreciated/dead asset on the balance sheet.  You wouldn't mothball/park in the desert to rot an asset that had value, would you?  Not counting it towards CV makes sense, but IMO there should be other efforts (brokers) to keep the aircraft in the available population for other players.  Any price greater than zero is better than paying fees to park.  With current broker settings though, it doesn't matter if the price is infinity or zero--you can't sell it.

Which is why I recommended an option to sell to a "parts broker" as opposed to a scrap dealer: https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,50672.msg286544.html#msg286544

It has been mentioned before, but C/D check requirements on plans on the market/in storage really need to be looked at. AWS is on a clock for checks, not hours/cycles as in real life. If a plane is listed on the market or in storage, C/D clock should pause. The frame should deteriorate at a fixed rate and require maintenance upon sale to bring it to airworthy condition.

[Pukeko]

Of course I think this is a great move and I think all the changes will have a positive effect in the long term.

I'm a bit uneasy about these changes being implemented mid game but governments change the rules all the time (especially when it comes to taxe avoidance) and companies have to adapt or leave the market... so I guess you could even regard this sudden change as 'real world'.

[Infinity]

In the accounting world, they would call this salvage cost or sunk costs. 

No. Sunk cost is a very simple concept and has absolutely nothing to do with this.

And if you want real life accounting put to use here, then we need a realistic depriciation system first (which I don't think is necessary, to get things straight).

[Cardinal]

the short-term parking cost only ticks if you have more than 10 planes idle/for sale in total

Do planes in maintenance count towards this 10-plane threshold? If I have 15 planes in D-check with no schedule (I do schedule around my D-checks where possible) do those planes incur parking fees even though technically they are in the hangar and not the parking lot?

[schro]

The concepts being added for plane management seem a bit extreme and basically kill an ant with an acme anvil dropped from a 10,000ft tall cliff. The main issue getting addressed was the littered used market which could have easily been resolved with a MX validation filter.

Either way, since this is a sudden and significant change to game mechanics, it is not fair to implement the changes with a mere 5 day warning towards the end of a weekend. This gives players a work week to schedule all their planes or face stiff penalties. For airlines that have 100+ planes to dispose of or otherwise schedule, this is NOT a fair amount of time to give to them. For example, I'm going to be plane hopping this week for work and realistically won't be able to do adapt my airlines to avoid getting bent over the barrel. I think at least a few weeks is needed especially for those of us with busy schedules and limited time (as we often get stuff done in spurts as time allows).

Additionally, I do not see the point of removing a plane's value from CV when it is in long term storage. This will make it easy to obfuscate the health of an airline by manually adjusting CV through swapping planes in and out of storage. Additionally, it goes against the sim's accounting model that bases CV on the value of owned assets minus liabilities. There is no concept of depreciation or useful life implemented AT ALL, only the concept of market value. Since an airline could take a plane out of storage and place on the used market at any time for that "value" there's really no loss of value to the company  (unlike in the real world, where a plane with no salvage value or prospect for sale would have to be marked down to zero).

[b757capt]

The concepts being added for plane management seem a bit extreme and basically kill an ant with an acme anvil dropped from a 10,000ft tall cliff. The main issue getting addressed was the littered used market which could have easily been resolved with a MX validation filter.

Either way, since this is a sudden and significant change to game mechanics, it is not fair to implement the changes with a mere 5 day warning towards the end of a weekend. This gives players a work week to schedule all their planes or face stiff penalties. For airlines that have 100+ planes to dispose of or otherwise schedule, this is NOT a fair amount of time to give to them. For example, I'm going to be plane hopping this week for work and realistically won't be able to do adapt my airlines to avoid getting bent over the barrel. I think at least a few weeks is needed especially for those of us with busy schedules and limited time (as we often get stuff done in spurts as time allows).

Additionally, I do not see the point of removing a plane's value from CV when it is in long term storage. This will make it easy to obfuscate the health of an airline by manually adjusting CV through swapping planes in and out of storage. Additionally, it goes against the sim's accounting model that bases CV on the value of owned assets minus liabilities. There is no concept of depreciation or useful life implemented AT ALL, only the concept of market value. Since an airline could take a plane out of storage and place on the used market at any time for that "value" there's really no loss of value to the company  (unlike in the real world, where a plane with no salvage value or prospect for sale would have to be marked down to zero).

I guess this change will encourage all of us to run a tight ship from now on out........

[[ATA] - lilius]

Correct me if Im wrong but isnt the marketvalue mirroring the shape and age of the aircraft? Or in some cases the demand of it? Putting the marketvalue on something constantly while its being depreciated must be as close as you can get to a valid accounting value? The other part of the argument where you can "hide" value I do get though.

[xyeahtony]

So basically the alliance full of airlines that like to hoarde 300+ useless planes to inflate their CVs are upset with this new change. Not too surprising.

In the real world, major airlines also don't have 100+ parked 737s or DC10s, etc.

[Sami]

One possible problem for one small part of the implementation still; when you have 50 planes listed in the market and all have expired D checks and the feature goes live, after two weeks all are returned from the market. If you have automated D check on, this may become costly.   ...or do people read these news and infos, and are aware of the change in a week?

[Hillians]

I think that most people read their personal messages.. but many people may not read the forums.

any way you can communicate to all users via a mass PM to avoid anyone stating "they weren't aware"?

just a thought.