Bases and fleet commonality

[samomuransky]

Hi,
is there any "penalty" (higher costs) associated with having only single aircraft of certain fleet stationed at particular base, if I operated larger fleet of those planes at other bases?

For example: If I operated B737s at Base 1 and ATRs at Base 2, would I have higher fleet commonality costs if I stationed one B737 at Base 2?

Thanks!

[Oscjo290]

Yes, is the short awnser

[qunow]

Yes, is the short awnser

Wait, that mean if I have 100 B767 all at FRA and 100 A330 all at CDG, and then when I put my 101th A330 at FRA, the cost increase would be higher than putting the plane at CDG?

[schro]

So.. the answer is a bit more nuanced than "yes" as it is misleading. Let's run through a couple things.

First, overall commonality costs (disregard bases for now) - these are computed based upon the number of fleet types you have scheduled in service and the number of each of those fleet types in service. Once you get over a dozen or so of each type, each incremental addition is fairly cheap.

Next, when you open a base, there is an additional commonality cost that's something like 15% * commonality costs of planes at that base (which is still a trivial amount).

For the OP's question, no, there's not really much of a penalty of having a single 737 among ATRs at a base from a commonality perspective. However, from an overall cost perspective, that single 737 forces you to use a Large base instead of a Medium base, between which there's a significant amount of overhead difference such that even the most profitable single 737 at a large base will result in fewer profits for your company than a medium base with all ATRs.

To simplify qunow's question, suppose you have 100 767 at CDG and 100 767 at FRA (and assume your HQ is CDG), then adding an additional 767 to FRA will cost 15% more than adding that same plane to CDG. Of course, keep in mind that this amount is essentially a rounding error in the grand scheme of things (especially if you're running 3 or fewer fleet types).

[samomuransky]

Thank you