Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

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cajunjosh
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Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by cajunjosh » Thu Dec 01, 2022 3:55 pm

Good Morning,

Was comparing the 737-700 and the BBJ1 2 & 3. The ticket factor on the 737-700 seems to match that of most airliners with Economy 1, Business 2, and First Class 4.

The BBJ1 2 & 3 on the other hand are Economy 1, Business 1, and First Class 2. With the reduced pax capacity on a luxury aircraft being expected would the ticket factor values be a bit higher to reflect the premium experience?
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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by joefremont » Thu Dec 01, 2022 10:46 pm

At one point, when I added the first class and business class seat replacement factors I adjusted all the ticket factors to make things more consistent. For the BBJ's I purposely set the values so that the BBJ would generate less revenue that the corresponding passenger versions of the same aircraft. I figured most of the time business jets are more to satisfy the ego of CEO's and the ultra wealthy, not to generate passenger miles. if it was possible to generate more revenue in a BBJ configuration you would see more real world airlines putting it into service it, but you just don't.
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cajunjosh
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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by cajunjosh » Sat Dec 03, 2022 5:17 pm

Ahhh okay, I use ours as sort of a Net Jets like premium aircraft charter assuming there would be pax who want to pay for a premium flight experience over that of an airline first class seat but not want to experience the financial burden of full BBJ ownership, but I see how you are trying to keep the ecosystem closer to their real world use.
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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by projektzero3923 » Tue Dec 20, 2022 8:50 am

Would be nice for options to generate ideal rev numbers for those that run private charter VAs. I get making it not exact, but the factors make it WAY less than commercial. I ran the numbers on a flight I did from KEWR to KBUF in the 737-700 and based on the default configuration the most I could make in a BBJ is 5400v$ on tickets. The -700 flight with a duration of 1 hour 2 mins generated almost 12000v$ in ticket revenue. And the default configuration looks to be missing the full seating capacity which is 63. Could be the 10 First Class seats taking up that space though.

Google estimates 12000-15000 per hour rate on the BBJ. Purchase price of the BBJ here is 60Mv$ so from a high level, it looks to be impossible to make it profitable considering the upfront and repair costs. Longitude looks to be the same.

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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by joefremont » Wed Dec 21, 2022 7:13 pm

Was just doing some research, the BBJ1/2/3 we currently have are for the older NG line, not the current MAX line. So I have taken the older BBJ's and set them as out of production with a 50% price cut. Also added the BBJ MAX 7/8/9, the BBJ MAX 7 is not released yet so its still prototype but the 8 and 9 are available now.

The way I calculated the values, pax capacity is 45% of the standard aircraft with a 1:1 business seat replacement factor so they should make 90% what a passenger airliner will make. They should make less, otherwise we will see large airlines full of BBJ's that don't exist in the real world.
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Cat
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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by Cat » Tue Jan 10, 2023 9:49 pm

Another "unfixable loophole" in the FSA system is to use a 737-700C and set it up for all biz/first only. Unlike the BBJ, you will get a belly full of cargo to go with your exec passengers and even if you use generic only cargo, this is a big boost in income vs buying and flying a "true" BBJ which has most of the cargo space removed for things like holding tanks and fresh water tanks, water heater, etc.

The other "unfixable loophole" in the FSA system does counter the above one to some extent. You are not going to get full pax on a 737-700C with all biz/first going into executive airports and smaller regional ones (assuming of course your heavy jet doesn't rip their runway pavement to shreds LOL).

So you CAN make decent money flying "business charters" by using 737-700C's vs. BBJ's but you will have to stick to major airports too.

EDIT: what you WON"T get by cheating with a 737-700C is the incredible range of a 737BBJ as the BBJ has those aux fuel tanks the line jets do not.
EDIT 2: Actually you can get better range with a 737-700ER configured with 18 first and 36 biz than you can with a BBJ. PLUS have available cargo space. It all depends on just how much you really think you need to make per flight. I mean once an airline has tens of billions of dollars of cash on hand that you will never spend, what's the point in fudging the system? I use the 700s simply because there is something goofy in my FSX iFly737NG BBJ flight model that makes it very quirky whereas the 700's are rock solid stable like the real ones.
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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by joefremont » Wed Jan 11, 2023 5:34 pm

Hi Cat, Good to hear from you on this.

For the BBJ's because we base the cargo capacity on the volume of the cargo hold and those aux tanks are in the cargo bay they have less total cargo capacity. For the B738 it can carry 11,025 kg while the BBJ equivalent (the BBJ2) can carry only 6,250 kg.

For convertible aircraft like the 737-700C where you can load cargo up to the max capacity of the aircraft and its only reduced by the actual number of passengers. The package system will at least adapt the the number of seats installed, reserving enough capacity for a passenger in every seat, but then generic cargo will fill in the rest.

We have talked about having a more realistic way of managing seats, like actually having to buy the seats when you change seat configuration and it takes some time so its not done on a whim, and for convertible aircraft have each seat reduce the cargo capacity by some amount. When I will have time to work on that is a good question.
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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by Cat » Thu Jan 12, 2023 10:33 pm

I don't see any need to rush a project like seats ... I was just pointing out to the guys who are complaining about not making money with the BBJ that there is a bit of a workaround if money is all they care about. LOL

And for non-convertible aircraft, I could envision a fee for seat changing that would have to be done in a Service Center, much like freighter conversions - another reason to go buy a Service Center. Heh heh. Like an A check, it's not going to get done in an hour either. Now obviously a CRJ-2 converted into a biz jet with first/biz seats would not take as long as a Triple 7, so yeah there are lots of variables that would have to be incorporated..... again no rush. Happy New Year BTW.

But looking long term, seat changing fees/down time to do it would make airline operators think about how they want to configure their fleets as the constant seat flipping every other flight would come to an end. 8)

PS - the other reason I prefer the iFly737NG 737-700ER over the BBJ is I don't have to deal with that flip down HUD that's in the BBJ. LOL It may be fantastic for ex-fighter pilots, but I never got used to it and it just seems to be in my way on visual approaches. :shock:
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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by joefremont » Fri Jan 13, 2023 12:49 am

I Sam, I hope you saw my recent post about seat configuration where I detailed some ideas on that.

I was looking at the BBJ's and thinking, why not just set them so they can be used as ordinary jet liners, comparing the BBJ to its corresponding 737, it has a higher DOW, larger fuel capacity (stored in the cargo bay), longer range and less cargo space (because there are fuel tanks in the cargo bay). A 737-700 has a passenger cap of 148 but the weights on the BBJ1 would only allow 135.
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Re: Boeing Business Jet Ticket Facotor

Post by Cat » Fri Jan 13, 2023 9:09 pm

I think you said it best earlier in this post. You don't own a 737BBJ to make big money. Big time bling and status symbol.
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