Review the cancelling lease penalty on long leases

[Tha_Ape]

Currently, when cancelling a lease, one has to pay 50% of the sum of all remaining leases.

While I plainly understand the necessity of such a penalty / compensation (both for realism sake and to avoid exploit in the game), I feel such a high percentage makes absolutely no sense on long leases.

Say I am young airline, unexperienced player, take something for 10 or 15 years as I'm lured in by a lower price, by the knowledge that irl leasing is more and more common, but then discovers that long term leasing is not viable in AWS current model, especially from the 2000s onwards: the penalty I have to pay can easily be equivalent to at least 70-80% of the price of the plane. This to return a bird that's potentially almost new and that can hit the market the day after.

So currently, an inexperienced player that did this kind of usual, normal mistake is basically doomed because there's no way he could pay such a high sum.

I suggest that beyond a certain duration (5 years, maybe), the % of the penalty applied slowly diminishes, to reach maybe 15% for a very long lease (10-15 years remaining). That would still be a very generous sum, would prevent exploit (exploit would generally be made through short leases), but at the same time wouldn't sentence to death the newbies.

Thank you.

[Zobelle]

Agreed.

Beyond 5yrs remaining the penalty should reduce by 3% per year.

[DanDan]

i think that rate should stay as it is - also from a lessors perspective. i would rather try solving the problem by subleasing:

- so if i dont want to use the plane, i can sublease ot some other airline, maybe make a profit on it, or maybe just cover my costs.
- additionally, if a lessee goes bankrupt, in my opinion, all the assets of that airline should be taken into account, and be used to - as far as possible - cover the liabilities.

[Zobelle]

i think that rate should stay as it is - also from a lessors perspective. i would rather try solving the problem by subleasing:

- so if i dont want to use the plane, i can sublease ot some other airline, maybe make a profit on it, or maybe just cover my costs.
- additionally, if a lessee goes bankrupt, in my opinion, all the assets of that airline should be taken into account, and be used to - as far as possible - cover the liabilities.

Interesting concept. So if an airline can find someone else to take on the frame then the penalty should be forgiven. I like it.

[DanDan]

Interesting concept. So if an airline can find someone else to take on the frame then the penalty should be forgiven. I like it.

well, or one can even make profit on it, if that airline is willing to pay more! or if noone takes it... bad luck >>> pay the penalty.

[Cornishman]

This game does aim to have much in common with real life - FACT.  Otherwise so much time and effort would not have been put into getting route speed calculations corrected with wind speeds & directions, for example.

So where there are glaring incongruencies with RL surely some fixes are due.  The whole leasing business model of this game sadly is inaccurate to RL.  As Arthur points out to start this discussion, penalties for breaking a lease absolutely exist, yet there are ways to navigate around this necessity IRL. In this game there are none. 
A). It is bizzare that one can buy a leased plane from a robot leasing company, yet from another player an enormous fuss is necessary for all parties to return the plane then re-list it back again to be bought. OVERDUE fixing!
B). It is bizarre that if one has leased - for example - A fleet of of L.1011-500 TriStar for 6 years (on a 7yr lease agreement), and then I wish to purchase them, that I would have been robbed at gunpoint to pay $90m each for them, when I was able to buy brand new ones from the OEM for $55m. (The L.1011 was almost out of production when this was happening) - IRL anyone who owned such planes would have been delighted to sell them off - even if they would have been priced at say just under the price of a brand new one). But such a rip-off weird high price???   OVERDUE fixing!
C). Any airline IRL is able to onward-lease a plane, unless (in a few specific cases there might be) there is a specific clause in the lease agreement to forbid this. Why does this game have such unrealistic harsh penalties to break a lease without a get-out facility such as onward lease? OVERDUE fixing!

Please for the love of this game - can we get some better fixes for the leasing model.

[Tauge]

I had just though the other day that it would be nice if subleasing were in the game. After starting GW2, which is my first actual game world, I made some poor plane choices and went for long leases on those poor choices. This ended up being one part of the reason for going bankrupt.

My alternative doesn't let you potentially make a profit as dandan's suggestion would. What I was thinking was more along the lines of having a third party take over your existing lease for some extra fees...Fees that are lower than the buyout clause of the lease. This alternative shouldn't require any extra tracking of the original lessee and/or new lease, as the sublessee could structurally be the new lessee to the owner. The aircraft transfers to the new sublessee and the original lessee gets to take the lease off his books.

[groundbum2]

my only concern about sub leasing is that this would allow large airlines to gobble up huge number of frames, killing the used market and the production lines, both items in the top 5 complaints about the game, and then lease them out. So it is a solution, but has dangers. And yes I know large airlines may have the cash to buy planes rather than lease them, but this would accelerate their domination.

If the problem we're solving is inexperienced airlines that have mistakenly taken out a long lease on a poor chosen plane, then I would suggest airlines with less than, say, 20 airplanes could be allowed to sub-lease/cancel the lease with a lesser penalty. After 20 planes then I'm not sure inexperienced newbie applies anymore.

Simon

[Zobelle]

my only concern about sub leasing is that this would allow large airlines to gobble up huge number of frames, killing the used market and the production lines, both items in the top 5 complaints about the game, and then lease them out. So it is a solution, but has dangers. And yes I know large airlines may have the cash to buy planes rather than lease them, but this would accelerate their domination.

If the problem we're solving is inexperienced airlines that have mistakenly taken out a long lease on a poor chosen plane, then I would suggest airlines with less than, say, 20 airplanes could be allowed to sub-lease/cancel the lease with a lesser penalty. After 20 planes then I'm not sure inexperienced newbie applies anymore.

Simon

Gobbling up frames is already a fact of AWS even with a 3/8 restriction..this won’t change that so long as the goal posts aren’t adjusted elsewhere. I do think if subleasing were allowed though one should not be able to profit off it, only make it so the metal is actually put into play rather than rot from lack of flying.

[Cornishman]

Gobbling up frames is already a fact of AWS even with a 3/8 restriction..this won’t change that so long as the goal posts aren’t adjusted elsewhere. I do think if subleasing were allowed though one should not be able to profit off it, only make it so the metal is actually put into play rather than rot from lack of flying.

Absolutely - remove the incentive to make this a potential way to profit and you remove the monopoly concerns, yet alleviate the lease problem. It's not always an inexperienced player that gets caught - things change in life and same with GWs and when they do, a common-sense solution is all one needs.  I absolutely like the idea of being able to sub-lease and also to be able to find an alternative buyer / lessor if you want out.  But as I said above - much needs fixing in this games leasing model.

[Tha_Ape]

If the problem we're solving is inexperienced airlines that have mistakenly taken out a long lease on a poor chosen plane, then I would suggest airlines with less than, say, 20 airplanes could be allowed to sub-lease/cancel the lease with a lesser penalty. After 20 planes then I'm not sure inexperienced newbie applies anymore.

Maybe we need to precise what newbie means.

That feature request I posted comes from a "real" situation, and the newbie in question is completely able to make valid scheduling and initially grow a successful airline, however his strategic choices are poor, and he cannot maintain a successful airline.
In a nutshell, he understood one part of the game, but not yet the other.

Solving the current situation should be possible IRL considering he's still in the black, has some assets, etc. Any bank / supplier / manufacturer / lessor would see there are some issues, but that they could still make money through this company and thus would propose a solution. But the current system of AWS prevents this kind of move at a stage in which it should still be possible. This is the problem I noted.

So in order to sort things out and respect the rules, we're forced to make wonky and nonsense moves. While I completely accept the rules and the spirit of the rules, I find that their translation to this context is broken as they fill one goal, but also prevent logical, legal moves.

Edit: Sami, the feedback from very experienced players is absolutely necessary, as they have a "professional" eye to the game. However I think that the experience of new players should also be considered and taken into account - the complexity of the mechanics of the game makes it very complicated if one is not completely involved, and their playing experience suffers from that. I really believe that it's possible to make a game for both hardcore player and "light" players, but finding the right balance is paramount. Thank you.

[groundbum2]

Maybe have a tutor message pop up on long leases like she does for skinny routes and says "are you sure?"

[Zobelle]

Maybe have a tutor message pop up on long leases like she does for skinny routes and says "are you sure?"

Not enough.

But perhaps less of an incentive to do super long leases (like with new aircraft) can be a compromise.