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some thought about more realistic

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:14 am
by fdiponzio
Hi all

Last days we had in our VA Team the discussion how FSAirlines can be more realistic.

1.
Almost all days they growth new VA, which are not a premium account. After few days they close their "Business" and leave FSAirlines. At the end, those pilots are potentially new crew members in several existing VA. The really issue here is, that is very hard to get more pilots because every single user want to create his own VA.

2.
Further more we saw, that some VA got two or three pilots with a VA-balance of more than one Billion v$. This sounds not very realistic even though they have seven, eight or nine aircrafts. The point here is, even more aircrafts you have than more MRO you have to do. And not just when you fly the aircraft. You need to pay a parking fee, maintenance as well employees for ticketing, technical and so on. Even bigger the Airline is, than higher the monthly expens should be.

3.
Or in such case, where a VA got a very big fleet, why they cannot share the MRO, as Swissair, KLM, UTA and SAS done in the past, with another airline. Then you can share the expens with a partner.

4.
Per example, if you have two fleets in your VA. One is your main airline and the other is maybe your charter airline. But both still under one holding company. At the end it would be very helpful, if you got two different balance but related to the holding structur. So you are more flexible and you have to bankaccounts.

5.
And last but not least. I saw many VA, which are bankruptcy. But they still flying. How it can be possible. If an airline are not liquide anymore they should ask for chapter 11, or other VA should be possible to overtake this VA in percentage. Maybe a question can be, how to ask for loans to create liquide funds for growth and to buy new aircrafts.

That are just some thoughts about more realistic and more fun I guess.

Regards Francesco

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 6:54 pm
by Matthew
I like these ideas.

An insurance feature would also be a good idea, Where you pay a monthly fee. And (IF) your VA has a crash the insurance will pay the loss of aircraft and for a more comprehensive package even Keep your airline rating as it was.

This is a good idea for pilots who join a VA and well crash

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:39 pm
by joefremont
fdiponzio wrote:
Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:14 am
Hi all

Last days we had in our VA Team the discussion how FSAirlines can be more realistic.

1.
Almost all days they growth new VA, which are not a premium account. After few days they close their "Business" and leave FSAirlines. At the end, those pilots are potentially new crew members in several existing VA. The really issue here is, that is very hard to get more pilots because every single user want to create his own VA.

Regards Francesco
We have made it easy easy to create an airline, we probably should make it easier to find airlines that are looking for pilots, will have to give that some though.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:45 pm
by joefremont
fdiponzio wrote:
Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:14 am

2.
Further more we saw, that some VA got two or three pilots with a VA-balance of more than one Billion v$. This sounds not very realistic even though they have seven, eight or nine aircrafts. The point here is, even more aircrafts you have than more MRO you have to do. And not just when you fly the aircraft. You need to pay a parking fee, maintenance as well employees for ticketing, technical and so on. Even bigger the Airline is, than higher the monthly expens should be.
We have been thinking about adding parking fees and having aircraft reduce there maintenance percent by certain amount if the plane is not moved (say 0.1% every 30 days is one idea) and parking fees (busy airports in populated places would pay more than airports that are not busy in remote areas), but not everyone wants to operate that kind of airline so there would be ways to opt out.

Not certain about ticketing or other employees as those are pretty much a fixed cost per a flight and could be wrapped into the parking fees, technical employees also also wrapped up into the maintenance costs.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:55 pm
by joefremont
fdiponzio wrote:
Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:14 am
3.
Or in such case, where a VA got a very big fleet, why they cannot share the MRO, as Swissair, KLM, UTA and SAS done in the past, with another airline. Then you can share the expens with a partner.
There have been suggestions in the past for "Maintenance Centers", a VA would basically open a maintenance center at an airport, it would cost some amount to setup and then run based on the size of the center but then could do AC maintenance at reduced cost. It could even do maintenance for partners and other airlines were the VA could make money back, would need to figure out the numbers to see how it would work.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:56 pm
by joefremont
fdiponzio wrote:
Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:14 am
4.
Per example, if you have two fleets in your VA. One is your main airline and the other is maybe your charter airline. But both still under one holding company. At the end it would be very helpful, if you got two different balance but related to the holding structur. So you are more flexible and you have to bankaccounts.
Making finances fleet specific is an idea worth thinking about.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:57 pm
by joefremont
fdiponzio wrote:
Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:14 am
5.
And last but not least. I saw many VA, which are bankruptcy. But they still flying. How it can be possible. If an airline are not liquide anymore they should ask for chapter 11, or other VA should be possible to overtake this VA in percentage. Maybe a question can be, how to ask for loans to create liquide funds for growth and to buy new aircrafts.

That are just some thoughts about more realistic and more fun I guess.

Regards Francesco
Actually there are only 4 VA's that have a below zero balance and all are inactive, but bankruptcy and liquidation is on my task list.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 12:31 am
by Cat
We track all of our fleets independently through separate spreadsheets not associated with FSA.

In this manner we have our small plane division "Wrangler Air Charters" a part of the mothership "Fly Vegas". The main reason we have done that and NOT start a separate VA is simplicity regarding pilot ability to fly anything from Cessna's to Jumbo's and retain those hours within the main airline.

Anytime an operator starts expanding their operations to incorporate a wider variety of aircraft and services it will get complicated no matter how the numbers are tracked. It takes a ton of paperwork to make any operation more "realistic" so be careful what you wish for.

check out our website and associated spreadsheets at www.flyvegasvirtual.com then click on FINANCE DEPT link in the left margin
It's all done for free using Google Sheets so if anyone would like to set up something similar, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help you out.

In my opinion, it should not be FSA's responsibility to generate forms/paperwork for each airline. FSA's task is to generate the "business" - Connectivity - Flight Revenue/expenses -prices/maintenance costs/aircraft values, etc. It should be each operator's responsibility to take that data and "do what you will", nothing at all or full on realistic with the same amount of paperwork real airlines generate (and the associated staff to complete that paperwork).

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 1:47 am
by wings138
Hello everyone...

I have not commented in this forum for sometime and have spent some recent time thinking about FSA and other systems. Ok first there is only three systems that use a web service and make it easy. that I know of anyway. There is FSA, FSEconomy and VAFinancials. All have there Pros and Cons.

FSE is with out routes, nice idea but hard as heck to buy an aircraft.

VAFS is almost just like FSA, except there routing system can be buggy, delete the aircraft before the route and you can't ever access the route but it shows up ... They have a more far system for paying out cargo for airlines that carry cargo.

FSA, great system, easy to use in every respect. I think still working out a lot of details hence the conversation in this forum. I'm not sure how you would introduce airport fees, I would think that would be great, but the thing with cargo pay out isn't fair. I have a friend that was flying for UPS (Real World) and they make good money moving freight. So, we get a lot of money moving passengers but not really freight.

My airline, Pacific International Airlines (PIN) has a good size route section just for freight, but a small fleet because the pay out isn't that realistic.

As far as a way to advertise airlines that need pilots, hmmmm... not sure about this, as I have gotten pilots sign up out of the blue. Maybe some of the statistics on the sign up page, things like monthly activity, so only airlines that are actually active. Flags would be Active (paid), and open for new members. This way, if you want to be on the list, you are going to have to be actively flying in your airlines...

I hope my ideas and such are understandable... I don't like to compare, but this service is a good one, and can always have more added... Thanks

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 1:57 am
by joefremont
Matthew wrote:
Fri Oct 05, 2018 6:54 pm
I like these ideas.

An insurance feature would also be a good idea, Where you pay a monthly fee. And (IF) your VA has a crash the insurance will pay the loss of aircraft and for a more comprehensive package even Keep your airline rating as it was.

This is a good idea for pilots who join a VA and well crash
One thing we would need to do before considering this is update the client to detect how severe the crash is and do damage accordingly, right now a plane can crash and still be 99% condition, where it should be more like 01%. Then insurance would make more sense.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 5:49 am
by VegasTim
Regarding "crash insurance": Would it be optional? Would VA owners be charged a set fee or based on the current aircraft value? Would the rates increase when the insurance company has to pay out a claim?

This also opens up another can of worms regarding insurance: will the insurance carrier 'write off' a 'destroyed' airframe and pay the airline the current value? Will airlines have to pay a deductible in the form of a percentage of the aircraft's value when they file a claim?

Regarding crash damage assessment: bumping into the jetway and triggering a crash should not take the aircraft status down the same as doing a full "lawn dart" high impact crash. The way the current beta client is knocking down the status based on landing rates, a simple adjustment to the exponential curve setting a "max threshold" for -fpm would work, anything beyond the threshold would take the aircraft all the way down to 'destroyed' status.
There could be a "base value" established for minor crash events - ground taxi collisions that would take the aircraft to the high end of a B service level (5% status reduction from previous aircraft status). Even small ground collision events will take a real aircraft out of service for a few days while it undergoes repairs, a complete inspection and re-certification.
My guess for situations where crashes are not affecting the aircraft status much is due to the pilot in question still using the old "stable" client that was very forgiving regarding hard landing rates and status change.

Out of Fuel and Wrong Airport Landings still generate positive flight income as well, those parameters should be fixed where such an event creates at the very least a $0 net flight income.

Last but not least, VA owners can provide their own "insurance" by making sure all of their pilots fully understand they can just click EXIT on the Client and start the flight over without any penalty if they have a crash, run out of fuel, etc. Sometimes the only way new pilots with no real world experience can learn is through failing and the ability to exit gives them the confidence to continue without being chastised by the experienced verterans within their particular virtual airline. Simulator Flying is supposed to be fun and not a job.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 6:56 am
by joefremont
The more I think about insurance, the less I like it, I could very easily see it being a feature that would be abused, airlines crashing aircraft they are having a hard time selling to get the insurance money.

I agree an exponential curve that took into account both VS and airspeed would do the trick, until the AC is reduced to 1%. I would like to see Ground Collisions handled more like running out of fuel or wrong airport, and if your seeing revenue from 'Out of fuel' or 'Wrong Airport' flights your using the old client, its already fixed in the beta.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 1:00 pm
by fdiponzio
Matthew wrote:
Fri Oct 05, 2018 6:54 pm
I like these ideas.

An insurance feature would also be a good idea, Where you pay a monthly fee. And (IF) your VA has a crash the insurance will pay the loss of aircraft and for a more comprehensive package even Keep your airline rating as it was.

This is a good idea for pilots who join a VA and well crash
That's sounds very good and an advantage.

Just one question. I'm not 100% sure if it's good if the rating remains on the previous level in such case. Because a pilot should be fully responsible for his fly. Otherwise they don't take it serious...Maybe.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 1:25 pm
by fdiponzio
joefremont wrote:
Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:39 pm
fdiponzio wrote:
Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:14 am
Hi all

Last days we had in our VA Team the discussion how FSAirlines can be more realistic.

1.
Almost all days they growth new VA, which are not a premium account. After few days they close their "Business" and leave FSAirlines. At the end, those pilots are potentially new crew members in several existing VA. The really issue here is, that is very hard to get more pilots because every single user want to create his own VA.

Regards Francesco
We have made it easy easy to create an airline, we probably should make it easier to find airlines that are looking for pilots, will have to give that some though.
Oh great! As well it needs an approval from the real airline to use the brand. Maybe there it would be a possibility to make some progress.

Re: some thought about more realistic

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 1:37 pm
by fdiponzio
joefremont wrote:
Sat Oct 06, 2018 11:45 pm
fdiponzio wrote:
Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:14 am

2.
Further more we saw, that some VA got two or three pilots with a VA-balance of more than one Billion v$. This sounds not very realistic even though they have seven, eight or nine aircrafts. The point here is, even more aircrafts you have than more MRO you have to do. And not just when you fly the aircraft. You need to pay a parking fee, maintenance as well employees for ticketing, technical and so on. Even bigger the Airline is, than higher the monthly expens should be.
We have been thinking about adding parking fees and having aircraft reduce there maintenance percent by certain amount if the plane is not moved (say 0.1% every 30 days is one idea) and parking fees (busy airports in populated places would pay more than airports that are not busy in remote areas), but not everyone wants to operate that kind of airline so there would be ways to opt out.

Not certain about ticketing or other employees as those are pretty much a fixed cost per a flight and could be wrapped into the parking fees, technical employees also also wrapped up into the maintenance costs.
Very good news. So then you are working on progress. :D About the fixed cost for the airline it was more a administration fee per month, which the airline has to pay.