How you would see this ... The airline in the game must have staff to operate it but there are many options:
a) game calculates automatically how much staff you need, hires them all and assigns a base salary to them what you can change if you want. Salary level affects the "happiness" of the worker and via that to company image (and from there to amount of transported passengers). In this the management is easy and startup for new airline is instant.
b) game calculates a recommendation of how much staff you would need, but you must hire them manually - or fire extra staff. When you hire staff they will not be immediately available but they would join the firm after a week or so. For salaries, the same system as above. Management requires more clickwork here and also one extra turn for all new airlines before they can fly. Hiring of the staff would be done in some simple way like "hire 10 new pilots" .. but there could be also staff shortage when you wouldn't be able to start operations if you cannot find enough staff which may be hard for new airlines starting the game. Just need to figure out first how to create the staff markets then.
c) ... you name it :)
Also the amount of non-flying staff affects VERY much to the total amount of staff you have. In lowcost airlines the number of supporting staff is usually low and many services can be outsourced. But any thoughts on how to build the supporting staff to the game itself? There are a zillion different job tasks so separating them is not feasible - but the total number of this staff should be made adjustable and it should have some effects on the results.
For airline crews training needs to be established too. It's system depends a bit on how the staff system itself is done.
I'm preferring more the option b.
That's because I think this game is already quite realistic, so why stop now?
And then, I quess you're right with the salary, that the company can make at least minor changes to it.
This way, higher salaries would mean it's easier to hire new staff and keep the existing ones from quitting (if possible in the game). The higher salaries could also affect the happines of the staff thus maybe making them work a little harder, so to maybe get some work done a little faster (for example, if airplane maintenance is counted on hours, high salaries could reduce the maintenance time for at least few percents or hours depending on how long the maintenance usually otherways lasts.) And it could also affect some other things which I can't think of right now...
Then about hiring the staff... You could choose how much staff you need to either few major categories (like pilots, other flying personnel, catering, maintenance, check-in- and gate-personnel..) or just overall. This would affect on the services on the airports and in air to passengers and/or crew/airplane.
And, if you fire staff, that would affect the reputity of that company as well as the staff morale. Of course, one or two seldom fired persons wouldn't affect this but if a noticiable part of the crew gets sacked, would it be another story.
And to the hired staff, the delay of them coming to work is a good idea. However, in real there are also people who like to start immediately. This could also be applied here so as for example the staff would be available right away if you pay for example 10% of the months/years salary as a single payment plus the salary itself.
Also, when there are more and bigger companies, I think it would be easier for newcomers to have the option to lease a plane with staff in ground and air for say 50% of the profits of that airplane. This would give them some income and easy-introduction to game while at the same time getting some money while seeking the staff. This option should however be a lot more expensive than having own staff and leased/bought plane or be available for a certain time, say 3 months, only.
The staff outsourcing could be an option to make profit too. You could either give some of your resources to other airlines or receive them yourself just as maintenance is handled.
The training might be also handeld the way maintenance is, some one giving the training. There could be at least one government/non-player trainingcentre and then as some companies have more crew, they could start their own training and also give this service to others. The training should however bring quite high maintain-costs as they need the simulators, trainers, facilities, possible accommodations (for example fastening the training process for high single-payment (plus maintenance)), maintenance men...
So, these are my thoughts of what might be, and these are to get suggestions, how to fix something etc. I'm sure not all of these will be in the game, but it doesn't hurt while we think of everything.
And most of the stuff I've put here, is rather basic stuff about airlines/business management, so this might have already be taken noticed.
Make minimum staff recommendation and all extra staff builds up company image! :thmbup: Lowcost airlines can keep salaries down, but "normal" airlines can make passengers happier with good service!
Quote from: sami on August 28, 2007, 07:02:08 PM
a) game calculates automatically how much staff you need, hires them all and assigns a base salary to them what you can change if you want. Salary level affects the "happiness" of the worker and via that to company image (and from there to amount of transported passengers). In this the management is easy and startup for new airline is instant.
This is better for new/smaller airlines.... if they have to wait a week, the new players would go broke.
It should possible operate as a lowcost airline??
For example: Any shop in cities(only on-line ticket), same "check-in" and "gate boarding" personal (like ryanair)..
ecc..ecc...
leo
like ryanair??
then you have to fly to some remote airport. :laugh:
@cx717
ryanwho?
this is not an airline, not even a company - just awfullllllll!!!!!!!!!! >:(
i second that (about ryanair :thmbdn: and transport rights :thmbup:)
RyanAir is an airline,see: >:(
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ryanair_B737_Altenburg-Nobitz_02.JPG (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ryanair_B737_Altenburg-Nobitz_02.JPG)
I think option A would be the best then you could start right away rather then waiting for a week. :thmbup:
I would go with a combination of both A and B, as I like having a "company image", but I would like it to be a bit more realistic, so in that case this would be C, a mix of A and B! ;D
seattle, that's definately the way to go if you have that option(inwhich you do)!! LOL! ;D
Hi, I would do that a bit more detailed.
I would separate the staff into different types like ground, cabin, pilots.
For each group I would define 3 fields named like factor, salary, mood.
Factor stores the percentage of number of personnel compared to the (by the system) suggested number. Eg if factor = 100, the number of personnel is adequate. If it's higher, the airline has a good reserve during hitraffic events like christmas, holiday time, or stuff. If it's below 100%, the personnel is under pressure.
Salary stores also a percent value. If it's 100, the salary is adequate. If it's below, the personnel would probably not be satisfied with the situation.
Mood is calculated by the result of Factor and Salary. The more personnel, the less pressure, the better mood. The higher salary, the better mood, even though higher pressure. The better mood, the lower fluctuation! Less fluctuation means "veteran" personnel. The passengers feel if they have to do it with veterans or with newbies. Result is a better reputation of the airline.
The salary factor depends on the average income in the country of the airport where they work. In China the income may be lower than in Europe or the USA.
The Player can this way tune the income and the number of personnel thoroughly for different groups of personnel. He can have best quality pilots that can also land under difficult conditions, but can have cheap cabin personnel and cheap ground personnel to reduce costs on the other hand.
Or, can have excellent cabin personnel, excellent ground personnel like Singapore Airlines, with a big First Class and high fares. Singapore Airlines is the most profitable Airline in the world you know.
That's my suggestion.
Good Idea.... To bad this takes like a month to code :)
Quote from: Seattle on December 23, 2007, 07:12:40 PM
Good Idea.... To bad this takes like a month to code :)
I think it's simple, quite easy to code, and allows simple and performant calculations. ;)
Good suggestions, thanks :)
Staff is already separated in those 3 groups. At the moment one a bit tricky thing is that how the system calculates the needed number of ground staff. As in real life this depends on SO many things, mostly about how much you have outsourced things. But perhaps for the sake of simplicity in the first version you wouldn't be able to go that deep into the management.
The amount of non-flying staff is very big anyway. The airline to which I work has I think about 10 000 employees of which there are 2000 cabin and 700ish pilots, and staff salary expenses are about 25-30% of all expenses if I remember correctly.
Sami, you work for an airline? ???
Yes, been working in the industry for the last 6 years or so, first in one training school and now in an airline. Gives a nice insight to making this game when I think I know something of things related to airlines. (dunno if I really know anything but it's always fun to live in such illusion) ;D
I think I mentioned it somewhere around the forums before, but find it yourself .. LOL
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Is it a big airline like Finnair? :)