Premium Accounts.

[polirom]

How can a pilot tell me that my company wants to enter if you want to fly you have to pay for it. The most certain is that I run out of pilots. To prevent this happening we must find an alternative system.

[polirom]

Bearing in mind that if you are left with 50 pilots
50 x 2 € per month month = $ 100;
100 months x 12 months = € 1200 euros per month.
that's only if there are 50 drivers to guess a few others.

Do not tell me this is not a business.

I would also like to me. I do not make in my work.

[Brian Peace]

At least I think there open to listening, as this thread hasnt been locked so far, even though it is very negative towards the new pricing. That's one small step I guess.

As a CEO I agree with the guy above. I wont be able to attract anbody to my VA when I tell them "oh and if you want to fly more than 4 times a week, YOU gotta pay" they''ll tell me to "eff-off" and go find another VA... so that leaves me with little options now doesn't it?

As I said before, you'd be much better off charging a CEO a fixed monthly rate to run an AIRLINE on here, that would cover ALL the pilots of the VA, and then maybe offer the account / premium acount to those who are single man va's etc.

some things that would accomplish...

1 - VA's that are going to be forced to leave would stay, and even have a better chance of attracting pilots that are active.
2 - active single man va's would still upgrade to premium account and get you money
3 - less total people would leave FSA becuase less large VA's will leave, and single pilots running their own VA that cant afford to continue on FSA will have the option of joining a large VA and remaining active.

what you guys need to understand is that a lot of people in todays economy simply cannot afford your rate... or cannot grasp the concept of why you chose to implement it in the way that you are doing so. I myself figured this wouldn't be free forever... but at this point I have to agree with most posters and say.... where's the extra features?? Where's the goodies? Hell, the belongings section that has been on "the list" has been on the list for around 2 years now... not much actually has been done within the system to change it or make it better other than bug fixes... in those 2 years. There hasnt been any extra candy, nor has there been additional tools to help a CEO manage his VA. (like being able to unbook a flight from a pilot, etc).

and the fact that the developers will not respond to this thread leaves us in the dark. I'm ready to jump on another option now... BEFORE fsa is no longer viable for us. I wish the dev's would reply to this post with a positve or a negative,... might be helpfull to those making a decision at this time. If the new accounts coming in are set in stone and that's the way it's going to be in black and white, then "cya" is going to have to be our decision and I'd be sad to go. best of luck.

[vaccaro]

Hello
I have been reading this topic for a long time.
First of all, I was thinking like the developers. Thus, each member pays his/her share to fly.
I don't know anything about this bandwidth and such issues. I also don't know anything about creating web pages (I even have trouble with the pre built ones). So, I will continue to use FSA (free or paid) depending on my financial situation.
However I must say, I agree with most of the users who has responded to this topic.
* Given the fact that most of the FS users (even the CEOs) are young people who doesn't have a regular income, they might not be able to pay for this service. This means even though they would want to remain free members at first, 4 flights a week for them would be so few and they might leave and look for another option. That will cause FSA would lose some future paid members.
* I don't want to compare other systems with FSA but the close competitor (VAFS) provides its users with a similar system. But the membership is per airline. For example, if BC NORTH moves there FSA team will lose 20+ members plus a paying member airline.
* The team should consider membership per airline instead of per person, and should more focus on the advertisements. And let's not forget the fact that if you have few members you will get few advertisements.

[MadJosch]

You also could consider charging higher fees for more flights per VA.
Example:

VA's monthly total flights 0-50: charge amount X
51-150 monthly flights: charge amount Y
.
.
.
and so on

The more traffic - the more charge for the VA (not the pilots)

[yourradio]

Hello.

I am agree with those who said that the CEO's have to pay for their VA's.

Just to let everyone know that the RUSSIAN SKY TEAM VA will be moved to another system on 1.1.10
There is no paypal in our country and here is nothing to pay for.

Anyway, it was good time to be here.

Thanks everyone! See ya on the other place!

[Konny]

Well, first of all some words about the bandwidth discussion. It's not really the bandwith causing the trouble on our system but the complexity of the database requests. The current server hardware is just not fast enough to do all the database calculations when there are a lot of people online. But with the money from the premium accounts we will be able to upgrade our hardware.

And all the people who have trouble using paypal (e.g. people from Venezuela, Russia, Iran, ...), please contact us ( support@fsairlines.net ) giving a detailed explanation why you can't use paypal in your country and we'll find a solution.

And last but not least the premium accounts. We originally also had the idea that premium accounts would allow you to use airline management functions and to access future features. So you would need a premium account to create an airline or to be given fleet/route/... manager rights. I don't know if more people would prefer this kind of premium accounts as you mostly only get negative feedback when you're talking about money. You can of course discuss this, but I can't promise that we'll change it if the feedback here goes in one direction.

[Brian Peace]

Konny:

The only way MY va would feel it's a good move to stay (Ive dsicussed this with my guys) is if the VA pays as a whole. Another words, you'd have to offer: Free accounts (unlimited flights) for pilots to play FSA and join any airline, but pay accounts to create or run one, would be your best option.

Your current scenerio prices you right out of the ballpark. Why would I pay over 5 bucks canadian here for just myself, when I can pay about that on another system and all my pilots fly for free too when I pay?

You've got to realize that my VA and many, many, many others are in the process right NOW of making that choice. Give us a reason to stay, and we will. But I'm giving you the up front facts. Sorry but it's true. I'd like to stay but the current situation forces our hand.

Now, I'd be more than willing to pay about 3-4 euro/mo to run my whole VA here... but anything different will see us and probably every other large sized operation on here migrate elsewhere. I'd hate to see you lose that business. But in truth, every day I get more and more mails from ceo's that have already left, telling me.. "it's good over here".

So... I guess that's where we sit. I'm quite frustrated, but also saddened... to see FSA going this way.

[flightsimer]

Konny that last paragraph is probably the worst part if its actually going to be the case. why should someone in my airline have to pay just to be able to help me out in running the VA? they are probably going to be doing the least out of anyone else.

I still want to know about the number of flights, because nothing has been said yet of how you got that. And we all know 90% of the active pilots dont fly 4 flights a week since its impossible based on the own stats on the site.

a standard account shouldnt have all of the features taken away and then you have to be a premium to get them back.

so far no one here (Chris or John, this isnt directed at you) has tried to explain what exactly is going to happen and why and this is just 3 weeks off from happening. As of right now, i wont be leaving but im also not upgrading as of yet. you havent convinced me that i should. If it takes this long just to get a response then how long is it gonna take to get upgrades?

i understand you guys have a life and this isnt your job, but by making premium accounts that we actually pay for, it will be. we WILL be paying you so you will have to treat it as a real job and as of right now you have yet to proove that to me. that means all developers will have to be checking things daily and always working on things to get done. there are things on the to-do list that still havent been done and the last time it was updated was 3 years ago.

you have already lost 100 pilots in the last week and have multiple very large airlines saying they are looking elsewhere or are indeed leaving. so obviously something isnt right there with your product and without further info it will just continue to drop till you wont have many left. I dont want to see that happen, but hopefully this all will get you to see our side of view here.

I EXPECT YOU TO TREAT ME AS A PAYING CUSTOMER. giving us three lines of generic info in a reply doesnt help us. can you explain further on the hardware "issues" which need updating? because really i havent seen anything on the site that has been slow and im normally on a peek times. and if i cant get in, oh well, ill wait until i can. but right now we have dead features that are pointless to the system right now and are just taking up space that i dont think we need like the personal items.

this right here is the biggest issue i have... hopefully since this was posted that had changed, but still we know hardly anything on this whole matter of accounts.

I have asked this question with no response in the staff forum. I am hoping that we will get some more definitive numbers before this goes "live" to be able to fix it. I am unfortunately saddened to say that neither I nor John were consulted during the process of determining the limits, so we are both kind of "in the dark" on this and have expressed our displeasure in being excluded as we are the ones who do most of the "PR" for the network on the forums and in the "Help Desk".

[Martin Curacao]

I'm also reading this topic for a while and i also wanted to say that iam with the other ones. You can't let pay all the pilots. And if you can't pay ''only 4 flights a week''
thats way to less.

Maybe only the VA must pay. I think thats a better solution. because what flightsimer said is correct. Why should someone pay to help someone running a VA.

sorry for my crappy english.

[alemaobaiano]

We are not one of the big VAs, and it is rare that any of our pilots fly more than 4 times a week, but it does happen occasionally during the holiday periods.

Like many of your VAs we are discussing the situation internally, and where we want to go from here. The problem, as others have pointed out is that FSA is not really up to payware standard, too few features and too many bugs. There was a survey some time ago when the majority wanted to see more realism, whatever happened to that? As Tyler and others have said there is also the lack of communication to take into account. I haven't seen the developers here making the case for this change and responding to the comments of the people you expect to be your future customers, yet it's happening in a couple of weeks. That doesn't give us a whole lot of confidence that issues will be addressed promptly in the future, especially when Chris and John seem to have been left out of the loop.

The current majority view at our VA is that FSA isn't worth paying for, and certainly not at individual pilot level. Whether we stay and work within the proposed limits or move on to something else hasn't yet been defined, but one thing that is clear is that our pilots don't like the idea of individual payment. As the "owner" of the VA I wouldn't have a problem paying to run it, as happens on other systems, but then I would expect payware standards of service.

TTFN

[Konny]

Ok, a lot of airline's came to us asking for Airline Accounts, so we would like to offer a new premium account system now. I added a poll in the Crew Center where everybody can vote for his favorite payment solution.

When I look at the results after two hours it already seems like the majority prefers the new system. In addition to the VA-Accounts (Platinum) we will also introduce some new cool pilot features (e.g. enhanced flight monitor, more/better preflight info, ...) which will be available to 'Gold' members ( starting at 1.00€/mo, 0.50€ discount for long-term subscriptions ). The number of flights won't be limited in any account and anybody can be given management rights by the CEO, just the way it is at the moment. More details will follow next week when the poll is closed but I hope this will satisfy most of the people here

I still want to know about the number of flights, because nothing has been said yet of how you got that. And we all know 90% of the active pilots dont fly 4 flights a week since its impossible based on the own stats on the site.

Even if it doesn't seem to be so important anymore with the new system coming eventually I'ld like to say some words on this matter so you know we didn't just make this number up from nothing. I already told the admins how exactly I calculated the 90%. In short words I just had a look at the pilots who did at least one flight in the last 91 days and took their average flights/week.

The problem, as others have pointed out is that FSA is not really up to payware standard, too few features and too many bugs. [...] As Tyler and others have said there is also the lack of communication to take into account.

You're right, our customer support is not yet up to payware standard. The point is that we're currently doing this as a hobby, and with that many users we can't really deal with the support inquiries AND program lots of new features. Additionally we have to pay the server from our own private money (DaKurt and me are college students). With money coming in from the Premium Accounts this will definitely change. We will be able to put more time into FSAirlines and therefore improving the system faster.

[vaccaro]

I kinda didn't understand the "ability to create airlines" in Platinum thingy.
Is that mean if I chose not to pay 2 or 3 euros monthly I can't have my airline?

[Konny]

That's right, the standard account wouldn't be able to create/run an airline. So if you don't pay 2-3 Euro per months you won't be able to have your own airline, but you can join other airlines. I just added this info on the poll page to make it clear.

[vaccaro]

Thanks for the clarification Konny.
In that case I would like to thank to all FSA staff for their work until today, and wish you all great success in the future.
As of today Air Mermaid is closed.
Merry Christmas.