Fleet Commonality Question

[flyboy842]

Hi,

If I have 3 bases and 3 fleet type and I want to add a 4th type but only at one of my bases, does the commonality cost of the 4th only impact my one base in which I fly the new aircraft? or does it increase the cost for all my bases?

[schro]

Should hose everything.

All types go up exponentially when you add your 4th in service regardless of base status.

[LemonButt]

If you add a 4th fleet type, it will increase the costs of all fleet types.  Furthermore, if you fly that 4th fleet type out of a base (versus your HQ), you'll see an additional 15% increase on those individual planes flying out of your bases.

[psw231]

  I do it all the time when I base out of CYYZ with 3 other Canadian bases, in JA4 I had a top 5 airline ( by fleet size ) with 4 fleet types at 3 bases and a 5th fleet type at the other base to again have 4 types at that base. It will cut into your profits a bit but you can still be very successful with more than 3 fleet types at multiple bases. I would not add a second type in the small or medium type, only in large or very large.

psw231

[schro]

 I do it all the time when I base out of CYYZ with 3 other Canadian bases, in JA4 I had a top 5 airline ( by fleet size ) with 4 fleet types at 3 bases and a 5th fleet type at the other base to again have 4 types at that base. It will cut into your profits a bit but you can still be very successful with more than 3 fleet types at multiple bases. I would not add a second type in the small or medium type, only in large or very large.

psw231

In DOTM1, I had 600 planes in service and another 400 on the market. When I had 3 active plane types, my weekly staff training and commonality costs ran about $20 million per week. If I put a 4th type "in service" (like when it got returned off lease and auto-C/D checked), my weekly costs rose to $100-120 million per week.  To me, that is a fairly significant cost of having the 4th fleet type. It might not be as exaggerated in smaller fleets, but it out about half of my weekly profit (on about 700million in revenue).

[swiftus27]

commonality means nothing right now.  it is one of the reasons I am not playing.  You will only feel its impact early on if you have a few planes.  You CAN easily run an airline with a mixed fleet of MD80s, 737s, and A320s.

[slither360]

I agree with both you and schro.

If you play the game "wrong", starting with 737, A320, and MD-80 all at the same time, your airline will adapt to the cost structure, and fleet commonality won't change anything. At the same time, if you play the game "right", limiting your fleet types, if you try to start a new fleet, the results are disastrous.

[ACfly]

I agree with both you and schro.

If you play the game "wrong", starting with 737, A320, and MD-80 all at the same time, your airline will adapt to the cost structure, and fleet commonality won't change anything. At the same time, if you play the game "right", limiting your fleet types, if you try to start a new fleet, the results are disastrous.

Am I reading this correctly? If i start the game with lots of fleet types (say 3) and I add the 4th  5 years later, I will not feel the hit much. However  if I start with 2 types and add a third and forth 5 years later, the impact will be greater assuming both have the same fleet types and flying the exact route in 5 years?  Is that right?

[slither360]

Am I reading this correctly? If i start the game with lots of fleet types (say 3) and I add the 4th  5 years later, I will not feel the hit much. However  if I start with 2 types and add a third and forth 5 years later, the impact will be greater assuming both have the same fleet types and flying the exact route in 5 years?  Is that right?

hmm, yes.

Although the best option is to start with 2 and end with 2, starting with 5  and ending with 9  would be less painful than starting with 3 and ending with 5.

[DenisG]

I am confused: If you fly 600 aircrafts and then receive a returned leased out aircraft that will feature a new fleet type, your fleet. comm  and  staff training costs rise from 20m USD to around 100m USD? That would mean +400%.

I have conducted similar approaches, e.g. adding the long-haul fleet later in the game and going from 4 to 5 fleet types. But I have never heard or seen of a +400% increase in costs. Did I understand this correctly?

Cheers,
Denis

[alexgv1]

Here is an example from a previous thread.

https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,17667.0.html

The attached picture is very enlightening. This guy ran a large enough operation, and when they added a 4th fleet type the training costs rocketed by four times. Then after ten weeks the fleets went back down to three and the costs shot down again.

[DenisG]

Thx for the example. In that case, they doubled -1,8m to 5,0m, around +100%; anybody have an example of +400%? There must be something else to it, I guess...

Cheers,
Denis

[flyboy842]

Is it only training costs that increase for commonality?

[slither360]

Is it only training costs that increase for commonality?

No,
Administrative costs
Maintenance costs
also increase. I think there might be some other stuff that increases too, but this is all that comes to mind right now.

[schro]

I have conducted similar approaches, e.g. adding the long-haul fleet later in the game and going from 4 to 5 fleet types. But I have never heard or seen of a +400% increase in costs. Did I understand this correctly?

Cheers,
Denis

Commonality bites harder at types 4, 7, 10, etc.

For fleet types 1-3, they have a negiligble impact on the other's cost. When you add type 4, then it seems to me that the total costs for types 1-4 are about 5x higher than they would be if you only had 3 total types. When you add type 5 and 6, it doesn't impact your other commonality costs until you add number 7, etc.

So if you happen to have a 600+ plane airline hanging around in your pocket somewhere and it only has 3 types flying, go to the fleet commonality page and jot the numbers down. Then add a 4th type. Revisit the commonality page, then pick your jaw up off the ground.

[DenisG]

Well, sounds like step costs at certain intervals; I have experienced the +100%, but not the +400%.

From a system point of view, sami will either have it interval-based relative to the current costs and maybe another jump due to size or as a fix variable. In both cases, the number of a/c in fleet then should not make a difference for the percentage.

But I am still curious about the +400%.

I will look into my case when I will be having 4 types on the fleet during replacement.

Cheerios,
Denis

[Jona L.]

From my experience (which is not small [!!])

It is 2nd type +0% 3rd +25% 4th +100% 5th +25% etc.
So every X+3 types you have a 100% cost-rise.

To make it easy understandable for also the not mathematicians (I don't have a clue of maths either, but I still do understand ):

Say type one costs you $100,000.
Then type two costs another $100,000 but not affect the former one.
Type three will add $100,000 BUT adds 25% to all, so you have 3x $100,000 + 25% --> 3x $125,000 --> $375,000
Type four will add it's own $100,000 adds 100% to the prior. As I have not yet investigated this phenomena this deeply, I must now offer 2 ways:
a) 4th type is NOT affected by the 25% of type three: So to make the example calculation: we have $375,000 [see above] + $100,000 --> $475,000 x 2 [+100%] = $950,000 Monthly cost in total.
b) 4th type IS affected by the 25% of type three: Example: ($375,000 [as above] + $100,000 +25%) x 2 --> $500,000 x 2 --> $1,000,000 in total.

The difference between a) and b) is marginal (5%) but will of course rise with rising number of types. It would go to far to list all that. Basically the tweaks are (as already named): 4, 7, 10, 13, etc.

Anyhow 400% are damn unrealistic, maybe if you add about 6 types or so you can reach that, but definitely not with only one.

I hope you understand this

Jona L.

[swiftus27]

Simply put, you shouldn't be able to have this many types imho without massive penalties. 

[alexgv1]

I've decided that I'm less in favour of punishing extra fleets and more in favour of rewarding common fleets. I'm actually quite happy with the fleet commonality system as it stands. I might draft up a proposition when I get some time. This would be more of a simple feature which can be worked into the current model.

[swiftus27]

I've decided that I'm less in favour of punishing extra fleets and more in favour of rewarding common fleets. I'm actually quite happy with the fleet commonality system as it stands. I might draft up a proposition when I get some time. This would be more of a simple feature which can be worked into the current model.

I've proposed many ideas.  None of them ever seem to get much attention from 'above' despite tons of positive feedback. 

The used system is jacked up so that the F5 spammers win great planes early so they get the money needed to order all these types in order to get all of the slots.  It is a very simple way to dominate an airport.  Running a lean efficient fleet system is a path to failure.