End New Aircraft Touting

[Viscount Bailey]

Hi Sami and everyone.
Well I just know I'm going to get shot down in flames for this post by many who make a small fortune out of this, but here goes anyway:

We all hate how concert and film ticket touts operate IRL don't we, so why do we tolerate new aircraft touting here at AWS?  May I make a suggestion to clean this game up a little, because we all know there are many large bulk purchases made out there with the sole intention to put all the new planes straight onto the UM and make profit on selling them to folk who would have liked the opportunity to buy them from the manufacturer direct, but the delivery queues are huge. And thus the problem perpetuates itself in greater and greater circles until in some GWs, certain aircraft types have queues of more than 4000 aircraft.  I know some protesters will come back and say, "we sell our planes onwards at cheaper prices than would currently be available to order direct" - my argument would be, yes true - but that's only because demand has gone sky high on the model and that's due to this very action of the aircraft touts buy up so many in the first place!

I am also aware though, that many airlines really depend upon other airlines helping them out buy ordering a fleet which they want but couldn't afford fully. Well I'm all in favour of that scenario. I would suggest then that this can be allowed as currently happens, but one must be part of an Alliance to do this. lets face it - there needs to be a few good reasons to be in an Alliance and that should remain one of them imo. 

So may I suggest:

1.  No airline can buy new planes and then put them on the open UM at any greater price than they paid for the plane until the plane is at least say 7 years old. That way it soon needs a D check and defeats this racketeering.  After that length of time if plane values are that much better then good luck and list all your planes at max permitted prices and make whatever you can on the sale.
2. If you want another airline to buy you a fleet, there should be a "Nominate Purchasing Airline" button on the new aircraft purchase pages, maybe just above the "Confirm Order" button. If you hit that and nominate another airline to buy the fleet of planes you just selected, then obviously you negotiated this first with that airline, so after this action, the nominated airline will get a message to go and "Confirm a Nominated Order".  This then means the buyer can sell these aircraft on ONLY to that airline, as new and at anything between min and max alliance prices - whatever the agreement may be between the two alliance airlines.
3.  If a "nominated" sale goes bad because the airline initially wanting the planes has hit hard times or even gone BK - then the nominated purchaser can still sell the planes off, but only at max. same price as he paid for them. There has to be this risk one takes if you nominate to buy planes for your alliance - but this should keep the system from being abused too much.

I recon this could greatly cut down the wildly unrealistic events where the queue for 737s and A320s for example, reaches over 4000 planes.  The knock on benefit of this system.... allow faster deliveries of these major aircraft types up to say 4 per month.  Surely that benefits the majority of players and only the minority who are "touting" would be in objection to this?
Dave

[schro]

<lights the dumpster on fire>

So, you're saying for a capitalist/free market sort of game/simulation that there should be restrictions on business as usual activities to prevent players from being able to make a profit?

[Viscount Bailey]

<trying already to douse out the flames>

...well if you want to put it so simplistically shro.... but actually it's still just "ticket touting" isn't it... and we all despise that in real life, even in our free capitalist markets 

[Sami]

Aircraft brokering by players is encouraged. There is a cap on how many orders each airline can have a) in total and b) from each production line, so that one or couple of mega airlines cannot clog the prod.lines totally.

[Viscount Bailey]

I consider myself duly shot down in the most ultimate flame... rather faster than predicted! 

[schro]

<trying already to douse out the flames>

...well if you want to put it so simplistically shro.... but actually it's still just "ticket touting" isn't it... and we all despise that in real life, even in our free capitalist markets 

See, the thing is, the players that do speculative brokering can easily get burned if market conditions are not right. Yes, there will be some that print money on the resale of new planes, but others will have to eat their hat if demand for a particular type doesn't pan out. If a player isn't allowed to make a profit on a transaction, does that mean they shouldn't be allowed to take a loss on the same transaction?

What often ends up happening later in in game worlds, even for new/popular types, most are already spoken for in the brokering to others market (i.e. within alliances), often at very reasonable prices. So if someone comes along and tries to make max allowed, they will not sell their planes, assuming everyone in a broker arrangement has sufficient planes. However, if someone does need more planes that can't be obtained through brokering, then perhaps paying a premium is justified as it hastens the retirement of old jalopies and/or helps avoid the 4th fleet type penalty.

[JumboShrimp]

I know some protesters will come back and say, "we sell our planes onwards at cheaper prices than would currently be available to order direct" - my argument would be, yes true - but that's only because demand has gone sky high on the model and that's due to this very action of the aircraft touts buy up so many in the first place!

For popular models, such as A320, 737, the demand would still be sky high, no matter what limits are put in place.  So the purchase price would still go up the same way.

As far as buying new or buying from player broker / reseller, not only you can often get the aircraft cheaper, you can get it in 2 weeks as opposed to months and months from factory.

[wilian.souza2]

Hi Sami and everyone.
Well I just know I'm going to get shot down in flames for this post by many who make a small fortune out of this, but here goes anyway:

We all hate how concert and film ticket touts operate IRL don't we, so why do we tolerate new aircraft touting here at AWS?  May I make a suggestion to clean this game up a little, because we all know there are many large bulk purchases made out there with the sole intention to put all the new planes straight onto the UM and make profit on selling them to folk who would have liked the opportunity to buy them from the manufacturer direct, but the delivery queues are huge. And thus the problem perpetuates itself in greater and greater circles until in some GWs, certain aircraft types have queues of more than 4000 aircraft.  I know some protesters will come back and say, "we sell our planes onwards at cheaper prices than would currently be available to order direct" - my argument would be, yes true - but that's only because demand has gone sky high on the model and that's due to this very action of the aircraft touts buy up so many in the first place!

I am also aware though, that many airlines really depend upon other airlines helping them out buy ordering a fleet which they want but couldn't afford fully. Well I'm all in favour of that scenario. I would suggest then that this can be allowed as currently happens, but one must be part of an Alliance to do this. lets face it - there needs to be a few good reasons to be in an Alliance and that should remain one of them imo. 

I also have no sympathy for aircraft brokering - I'd rather get all new aircraft straight from the new market, leasing all of them at a fair price.

But unfortunately, in AWS aircraft brokering seems to be the only way to properly finance yourself - loans are very hard to get and there's no bond system, so the capacity to leverage yourself is ridiculously low - unlike real life, where airlines are 50-100% leveraged most of the time in short or long term loan contracts. On the other hand, you can pick some units of a popular model just launched, wait 4-5 years until delivery and then sell all of them, getting 20 - 30M profits for each plane sold.

Also, the fact that new aircraft are delivered so slowly to players (1 per month per airline for large/VL aircraft and 2 for medium/small aircraft) feeds aircraft brokering further, as players enduring fleet transition need to count on orders of other airlines to replace their fleets a little bit faster.

This is good for airlines on top, which can buy tons of aircraft so they really have an eternal source of non-operational profits with this self-sustainable cycle of buy-it-low-sell-it-high, but it's annoying for small and medium airlines that have their access to new aircraft extremely limited because of the sky-high prices sustained by these bulk purchases. Even leasing prices of used aircraft are affected by these new aircraft prices jacked up!

I do aircraft brokering, too - because there's no better way to finance yourself and I need to play the game the way it is. But I'd like to see improvements on loan contracts (bond system, higher leveraging!) which would diminish the need to broker aircraft just to get extra money, although it wouldn't end aircraft touting; this would require a complete change of aircraft delivery dynamics, which is a thing no one wants to think about right now.

And there's an easy way to defend yourself from aircraft touting: constantly monitoring aircraft prices and REFUSING TO BUY aircraft that are at really expensive prices, EVEN THOUGH YOU NEED IT. I do it. Look for alternatives while waiting the prices to come down (they'll eventually come) - sometimes the fresh new aircraft is not exactly what you need and you aren't penalized in routes' market share for flying a 15 year old aircraft.

[schro]

But unfortunately, in AWS aircraft brokering seems to be the only way to properly finance yourself - loans are very hard to get and there's no bond system, so the capacity to leverage yourself is ridiculously low - unlike real life, where airlines are 50-100% leveraged most of the time in short or long term loan contracts. On the other hand, you can pick some units of a popular model just launched, wait 4-5 years until delivery and then sell all of them, getting 20 - 30M profits for each plane sold.

<snip>

I do aircraft brokering, too - because there's no better way to finance yourself and I need to play the game the way it is. But I'd like to see improvements on loan contracts (bond system, higher leveraging!) which would diminish the need to broker aircraft just to get extra money, although it wouldn't end aircraft touting; this would require a complete change of aircraft delivery dynamics, which is a thing no one wants to think about right now.

Completely disagree about the brokering being the only way to finance yourself in this game. Profit margins are rather high compared to reality that allows airlines to easily fund huge fleets out of earnings with no help from brokering. I typically do NOT do speculative brokering as I prefer not to take on that risk, yet I manage to run a handful of small regional airlines that print cash...

[dmoose42]

I agree. I used to do a lot of brokering, but with some rule changes some time ago, and just the general hassle of brokering, I only do it in special situations, or when someone PM's me with a specific request.

[gazzz0x2z]

Completely disagree about the brokering being the only way to finance yourself in this game. Profit margins are rather high compared to reality that allows airlines to easily fund huge fleets out of earnings with no help from brokering. I typically do NOT do speculative brokering as I prefer not to take on that risk, yet I manage to run a handful of small regional airlines that print cash...

Depends on where you play. in current GW2, brokering has been half of my financing power between 1955 & 1975. But that's also because I played a small market(Poland). The biggest broker of that game plays in Panama, and that's not random either. Both him & me were profitable without brokering, but brokering allowed us to reach another dimension.

That being said, I fully agree with the risk associated with brokering. I once lost 11M$ in average on a batch of 50*Q400. Yep, it hurts. Big boys don't cry, even when it hurts.

And there is another thing : any slot taken by brokering is not used for fueling your own growth. When reachin a certain size, you need to limit your brokering activities just to keep replacements going on. I've been non-stop nearing the 450 ordered planes limit since the 1970s, and it has a strategic cost - I missed several plane launches. Still a relevant tactic for a medium-sized company as mine, but for the big boys flying 1000+ birds(I've been one, once), a useless, dangerous, costly distraction.

[groundbum2]

perhaps for large airlines there could be 3 golden tickets per game play, that allow a 4th fleet without excessive penalty for say 6 months. So 3 times in a game you can go through a fleet transition without the huge penalty. My commonality went from $26M/month to $300M/month recently. Perhaps golden tickets could be bought for $50M or some multiplier of the airlines worth?

Simon

[jezbanks]

Its part of my business
If I run an aircraft leasing operation then there are more aircraft to lease

Some I make profits on but some I lose. Its speculation and works just fine

Do you want a game with challenges or do you just look for an easy win where everything goes your way?

[MidWorld]

In GW2 I was in business in IST only because of aircraft trading. My flight operations were in the red as I had 4 very capable competitors, who were more successful than I was in getting good slots, and network building, so I had difficulty utilizing my fleet efficiently. (I had to quit due to real-life priorities around GW2 1985).

The whole thing looked quite superficial to me, but then I thought that this can resemble the real-life market only to an extent. And since we already have avoided the uncertainty of the future (everybody knows that 737 comes up in late 60s), and overall model success on the market, this is a bearable trade-off.

[stealy]

Like others have said, aircraft brokering comes with risks that the "big boys" must be willing to take. You can make a good profit on some planes, barely break even on some, or LOSE money selling some planes that nobody wants because of either an oversaturated market or a wrong prediction on demand.

Take my A330neo for instance, I am having a hard time selling them and I ordered 100 of them... but that's the risk I took when I made the decision to order them.

Take my A320neo and A321neo for instance, they are selling like hot cakes at max price... so I guess I made the right investment decision?

I have sold plenty of planes at or below market price that helped lots of airlines. I have also took advantage of the free market economy and sold plenty of planes for profits.

How about you just let capitalism do its job? 

[Zobelle]

I say it stays.

If anything the latest production preorder system makes it both easier and harder at the same time.

Easier because one can get the best price within the preorder whether you were there camping out and waiting for launch customer discount..

Harder because less planes coming in initially and lose out on pricing those first few years at a heavy premium for the most desired types.

[Zobelle]

Buying and selling is just one component of this business.

The fact is, the game worlds are honestly too big as far as player capacity compared planes available to order within reasonable time frames. People can't get metal fast enough so something has to give.

Brokers actually ease market pressure by buying and selling aircraft that the target audience may not have even been able to order due to lack of funds, lackadaisical delivery times, at their order allocation limit, etc.

[stealy]

Brokers actually ease market pressure by buying and selling aircraft that the target audience may not have even been able to order due to lack of funds, lackadaisical delivery times, at their order allocation limit, etc.

Very true. I am in the process of replacing 400+ 737NG with 737MAX, but I have reached the 500 planes order limit a while ago already. The only way for me to replace the old 737s in time is to seek help from other airlines. Money isn't the problem, but the delivery times and maximum order limit are issues airlines with large fleet face.

[Zombie Slayer]

In AWS as in life you cant, as they say, have your cake and eat it, too. There are ways to reduce brokering, most notably reducing/eliminating the penalties for too many fleet groups. The problem is if you do that, the big get bigger with access to more types for expansion. So you "fix" one problem just to exacerbate another. AWS is not perfect but eliminating brokering will fix nothing without relaxing other limiting factors.

[tungstennedge]

Maybe this is just because I have not experienced large plane queues in the past, but I don't particularly think brokering is even unfair at all for other players as long as they can still obtain the planes they want, even if they cannot get them new. I would personally be fine with paying a 10% premium on aircraft if it meant not waiting years to get them. Also I see in AWS production ramps up very quickly to very high rates, so I would think that there would be very healthy supply on the used market, and also as the model get older they will probably even start to be selling for much less than the new cost. The last airline I ran out of Japan used almost all 733 and 734  all bought for nearly 20% off the new price as 737NG line came out and large airline with large orders of planes were getting there last of the classics.

Basically I think brokering is fair way to make money as long as player can still but the planes they need.