Feature: Sell-Off Planes from the Production Line

[DanDan]

Summary:
A possibility for an airline to sell planes with direct delivery to the "end-customer".
Instead of taking delivery of the plane, an airline should be able to transfer delivery directly to a different airline.

Vision:

Screen 1) Changes to the "Aircraft on order - New aircraft" page:
- Reuse the column with the delivery-base that the planes would get delivered to (my screenshot is from a one-base airline, sorry).
- Also a new checkbox for marking all the plane orders from the fleet group would be great (also for changing order [e.g. seat config]).
- A new functionality one could select "Create Offer". If selected, we get to point 2.
- This functionality works only for planes that are purchased - not any leased planes to be delivered (as we do not have the concept of sub-leasing).

Screen 2) A new "Offer aircraft" screen:
Here we have similar functionalities as in the regular "sell aircraft" screen.
- By selecting one of the values, the radio button becomes active; optionally, the radio button can be clicked.
       By selecting any of the buttons other than "Manual Price", the price is not saved as a numerical value, but as recommended/book/min/max/min alliance/max alliance (this would be a great change also for the regular aircraft transactions to avoid constant adaptions in regards of transaction rules. ) - therefore the "used-market"-table has to be adapted slightly here, including a job that recalculates prices accordingly on the used market. This step is crucial since aircraft prices fluctuate.
       If different subtypes/weights/ranges/... of the same fleet type are offered, the prices shall be shown as "Varying" - except an average book-price and an average recommended price shall be shown.

       Possibly a warning message (from the nice company advisor) if "fixed" or "book" price is set and the aircraft is not yet certified that "very likely the price may change a lot until delivery. Also, if book/manual price is set, check if the price is within the price tolerances.

- Selection of a "customer" for the offer must be mandatory in this case though.
- The "Aircraft can be bought or leased" shall be deactived - 2 functionalities only: purchasing OR leasing.
       I recommend that instead of a maximum leasing duration, a fixed leasing duration is agreed on, as with a new plane, with automatic "extend lease"-possibility setting.
- By clicking on "Confirm", a new offer is being created and pending.
       As long as the offer is pending, the seller can cancel or adapt the offer.
       In Screen 1), the options for the plane on the side of the Seller are reduced to "Go to offers". If clicked, the Screen 3) opens.
       Therefore, if changes to the order from the manufacturer are necessary, the airline has to cancel the offer and recreate it.

Screen 3) A new page "Aircraft offers":
For all the pending aircraft offers of an airline a form should be created, showing both the offers an airline made and the offers an airline has gotten.
It looks similarly structured as the "Aircraft on order" page, with a few different infos and the functionalities accept/decline and adapt/cancel.
- If an airline made an offer, the Seller, the airline can either adapt the offer (so its back to point 2) or cancel the offer and the aircraft are not available to the Buyer anymore.
- If an airline receives an offer, the airline can either accept the offer or decline it. If declined, the Seller can offer them to again or to another airline.
- If the offer is accepted, the aircraft are directly delivered to the airline that got the offer, at the delivery dates.
       The airline that ordered the aircraft initially pays the amount due at delivery.
       The airline that accepted the offer, pays the agreed amound at delivery of the aircraft (or starts the agreed leasing contract including any downpayment on the leasing).
       The airline that offered the aircraft gets the agreed on amount at delivery or gets the money from downpayment and the leasing fees when they are due.

Screen 4) Also in the "Aircraft offer" page, there should be a similar function as in the aircraft on order, where the details for each plane are being shown.

Screen 5) After the offer is accepted, therefore, contracts have been created, the buyer that accepted the offer, gets a slightly different view of their "Aircraft on order - New aircraft" page.
- For aircraft that is to be bought in a contract, the delivery terms are not adaptable. If necessary, the contract needs to be cancelled and recreated.
- But: the airline has the functionality to "Request the cancellation" of a contract.
       In case the Buyer requests the cancellation, the Seller gets the possibility in Screen 1) to accept the cancellation.
       While the Buyer is waiting for the Seller to accept the cancellation, the Buyer has the option to click on a pending-cancellation-icon and cancel the request for cancellation.
       If the cancellation is accepted, the contract for that aircraft is deleted, and the Seller would once again be taking delivery of the aircraft (or can create a new offer for it).

Screen 6)
- By clicking either the "Request Cancellation-Icon", "Accept Cancellation-Icon" or "Pending-Cancellation-Icon (to cancel a cancellation request)" [in screen 1)/5)], the user should be promted to confirm; similar to the current confirmation when clicking the red "Cancellation-Icon" for manufacturer orders.

Special Circumstances:
If either of the airlines goes "belly up", the contracts are deleted.
If a price is set as a "fixed price" and this price does not adhere to allowed price ranges [min/max or minAP/maxAp] at time of delivery, the delivery contract for that plane is void.
       (Optionally, the minimum/maximum permitted price should apply.)
Aircraft that are delivered directly to another customer this way should NOT be counted as used market purchases.
Optionally, I guess a 2-game-week minimum time can be made for making offers, meaning an offer can not be made less than 2 weeks before scheduled delivery.
Also, for consistency, a job is needed that automatically deletes all offers that concerrn aircraft that have a first delivery less than 2 game weeks ahead.


Benefits:
This will take a lot of pressure from people, currently waking up in the middle of the night for fleet renewals.
It would make aircraft brokering less of a pain in the ... (each time one has to scroll down the list to an airline starting with "W" or "Y"... god almight!), when you need to constantly post incoming aircraft to the right customer.
Plus aircraft would be ready when they are ready, and not have to be painted twice in different colours etc. and the weeks come and go while the aircraft age!

I think that with this feature - just two new tables [offers; contracts], the adaption of the structure of the "used market"-table, one new page [aircraft offers] and a few modifications of forms [in regard of the used market table] - a minimum invasive technique could be implemented to reduce and limit quite a few annoying, repetitive, time critical tasks and give some additional functionality.

Regarding data structure:
- "Offers" should be created for multiple planes of a production line, making bulk sales easier.
- "Contracts" (accepted offers) should be created one per aircraft (making adaptions easier due to cancellations of single planes from the production line).
       In this way, it is also less of a problem to make changes if an offer has already started being delivered.
- The airline-summary page and the production line-info should not be changed, therefore: to other playes, it appears as if the Seller would receive the plane.
- When creating this concept, the aim was to create it for designated customers, but it can easily be adapted to include a possibility to list offers openly/in alliance as well, so that various airlines could see an offer and accept it, creating basically a market for new aircraft.

p.s.: screen 3 and 4 are reduced in size. if interested in the concept, i can email them. - and the last two lines in screen 5 got a bit mixed up.

[WalnutWhip]

This seems like a very complicated work around to fix the issue of aircraft production lines. The bartering between alliances and airlines could be made much simpler by changing the order and delivery process. How? I don't know but your idea is complicated and would be unnecessary if people could get aircraft themselves easier

[Amelie090904]

It really does not need to be complicated. Upon ordering there could be an option:

1) Do you want the aircraft to be delivered to you? Yes/No
2) If "No" is selected: "Choose airline"

Done.

The selected airline will have to confirm the order obviously and will pay the amount the airline who did the order paid (or even a bit more).

[DanDan]

It really does not need to be complicated. Upon ordering there could be an option:

1) Do you want the aircraft to be delivered to you? Yes/No
2) If "No" is selected: "Choose airline"

Done.

The selected airline will have to confirm the order obviously and will pay the amount the airline who did the order paid (or even a bit more).

well, the idea is to give the option of choosing different prices for the aircraft that are "resold". lots of -especially smaller airlines- are doing a lot of profits with brokering. the idea of just transfer the orders fromone airline to another - with prices adaptable - is fine, but:

when does the Seller get paid for the "brokering fee"? when does the Seller have to pay for the aircraft? does the Seller receive money even if the Buyer goes BK? what if the Buyer cancels the orders? ... lots of open topics that are not in line with current gameplay concepts. if those kind of questions can be answered by administration: i agree, much easier to just transfer the order for a sum of money between Seller and Buyer!

the proposal i specified is to be working with the current concepts in place, while adding the feature of direct delivery and reliability in delivery, as well as significantly reducing the workload for both Buyer and Seller.

[WalnutWhip]

Don't you think it would be better to make it easier for people to get the aircraft they want without having to do things like this? It would also mean less policing required by admin too from money transfer issues

It is Airwaysim after all not aircraft-broker-sim...

[DanDan]

Don't you think it would be better to make it easier for people to get the aircraft they want without having to do things like this? It would also mean less policing required by admin too from money transfer issues

It is Airwaysim after all not aircraft-broker-sim...

thats why i am saying, that i specified a proposal that is in line with current gameplay concepts - like aircraft brokering, like delivery limitations, like keeping transaction prices in line during aircraft transfers - and just offers a few features for making things a bit easier; as described, imho "minimally invasive" to the current system.

if i would have a 1000-aircraft-airline, i maybe would just want to get 500 planes delivered from the manufacturer directly within a year, so to make my transitions go faster, sure. so if thats what you want, feel free to create a feature request "block production line for all other airlines and deliver everything to me!" - or if you can think of a different/better feature request, maybe try explaining in detail. and maybe Sami gets around to read the features at some point and actually thinks of implementing one of them.