WHEN ARE VARIOUS COSTS DEDUCTED?

[connect2ashes]

First of all... a HUGE thank you to the game designers and everyone who has put sooo much into this forum!!!!!    I am new to AWS... have been looking for something like this for a long time (since the days of AirBucks, for those of you with long memories!), and I am extremely impressed with this game and its economic model.  Is it exactly like real life?  No, but I wouldn't want it to be... that's too complicated.  My new airline may only be a tiny fleet of 12 planes, but from what I can see, this game is done well.  And almost all of my questions have been answered by the awesome forum contributions so many have made!  THANK YOU!!

However, there's one thing I have not found in the forum anywhere... is there a listing somewhere of what cost deductions happen at what times?  From what I've been able to figure out by watching my numbers, there are four routine deductions that take place:

1. Tuesday noon is payroll (and I think staff training is deducted at the same time?)
2. Every noon has some type of operating cost deduction (but I don't know which ones... fixed maintenance costs, lease payments, advertising, office space, not sure?)
3. At midnight when I get my route income, some costs seem to be deducted (maybe fuel, gate fees, etc?)
4. Aircraft maintenance checks (do they get deducted from my Sunday income at midnight, or when?)

I think I have the four deduction categories accurate, but I'd really love to know exactly what items are included in each deduction time.

Thanks if anyone can help!!!

Cheers,
Adrian   (Eight Mile Air... Go Motor City!!!)

[Sami]

There is no need to look at these at daily level. Just stick to weekly and monthly overviews...

(some of the functions indeed happen only once a week, to reduce calculation time)

[connect2ashes]

Thanks for that, Sami!

I'll watch the monthly side a bit more closely, then.

I guess I'm just being a micro-managing CEO, but I'd been focused on the daily cashflow just to track the impact of the tweaks I make in my schedule each week... maybe I'm just too impatient to wait for the longer-term data to be visible.

The other thing is that I'm running my airline pretty close to zero cash available 24/7 (as soon as I get a little bit in the black, I'm re-investing the $$$ in routes or another plane).  By doing that, I'm needing to watch the cashflow really carefully to stay out of the red, and I'd just been hoping to get a sense of what comes out when.  I know the answer ppl will give me to that comment... I should try to operate on a better cash buffer.  Yes, probably true, but like I mentioned, I'm new to this and probably being a bit foolish!!!   

Thanks again,
A.

[schro]

Weekly or monthly management is the way to go.

In the early days of an airline, it doesn't make a huge difference, but once you get big enough, you'll want to be mindful of the staff payment - so if you have 100m in staff to pay and you clean out your bank account buying stuff on monday, it'll be off to the bankruptcy warning and related mayhem for the rest of the week.

Thus, overall, I just make sure I start Tuesday off with enough cash to pay salaries, and that keeps everythign in check....

[connect2ashes]

Awesome, thanks Schro!

Cheers,
Adrian

[exchlbg]

Maybe you really are a little bit impatient, you´ve registered just a short time ago, so your airline and business are still small. At that stage of game it really is sometimes painful to just wait for things to happen, you are tempted to be a little overactive. During the first game month it is normal that your business seems to suffer, everything is growing so slow. But being too hectic, spending every dime that comes in for new planes and routes, is not advisible for starters. Save a bit of money for a rainy day, you will need it !
Game is designed for players that have a certain strategy of how their business shall evolve in the big picture. Hectic changes on a daily basis won´t work out.
Greetings
Chris

[connect2ashes]

Thanks, Chris... yes, guilty as charged.  I just got hit with my first C-Check for $700,000 and change!  Ouch.  Makes trips to my auto mechanic seem like visiting the candy store.  I went down to about -$400,000 before slowly climbing out over 3 days.  So, yes, I think that's the kind of "rainy day" you were talking about.  Lesson learned... it was fun to grow the airline so quickly to start with, but I think now I'll try to run it with a bit more financial sense!  (Of course, now I've invested some time into it, so I want to be a little more careful with what I've created!!)   

A.

[Sanabas]

First of all... a HUGE thank you to the game designers and everyone who has put sooo much into this forum!!!!!    I am new to AWS... have been looking for something like this for a long time (since the days of AirBucks, for those of you with long memories!), and I am extremely impressed with this game and its economic model.  Is it exactly like real life?  No, but I wouldn't want it to be... that's too complicated.  My new airline may only be a tiny fleet of 12 planes, but from what I can see, this game is done well.  And almost all of my questions have been answered by the awesome forum contributions so many have made!  THANK YOU!!

However, there's one thing I have not found in the forum anywhere... is there a listing somewhere of what cost deductions happen at what times?  From what I've been able to figure out by watching my numbers, there are four routine deductions that take place:

1. Tuesday noon is payroll (and I think staff training is deducted at the same time?)
2. Every noon has some type of operating cost deduction (but I don't know which ones... fixed maintenance costs, lease payments, advertising, office space, not sure?)
3. At midnight when I get my route income, some costs seem to be deducted (maybe fuel, gate fees, etc?)
4. Aircraft maintenance checks (do they get deducted from my Sunday income at midnight, or when?)

I think I have the four deduction categories accurate, but I'd really love to know exactly what items are included in each deduction time.

Thanks if anyone can help!!!

Cheers,
Adrian   (Eight Mile Air... Go Motor City!!!)

Every noon covers stuff like fleet commonality, marketing, etc. I think lease payments are there too.
Every midnight you get your daily profit, ticket sales less all the route costs. You also get maintenance deducted.

You can safely ignore all of those on a daily basis, except for heavy maintenance if you are cutting things fine with zero cash. Then you do want to know exactly when that C-check will be charged.

There are 3 important bits in the week: Monday at noon is when loan payments are made. Tuesday at noon are when staff get paid. Sunday nights are when your loan availability will be highest. You can safely ignore all those too. But if you do want to micromanage, and spend every available dollar on expanding, then paying attention to them helps.