some thought about more realistic

You are missing something, or have a cool idea for us ? Tell us here !

Moderator: FSAirlines Staff

wings138
Flight Attendant
Posts: 71
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:57 am

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by wings138 » Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:03 pm

Ok, all sounds good, I guess. So if there is a choice of using wings span or MLW, it would be best to use what the airport has, but that might be too much work so just go with what is easier.

For changing things if your going to start changing the multiplier then you will take away the bonus of early startups and could discourage new start ups. just my two cents, I like that the way it is.

So, for the fees, I would be find with a percentage based on airport size, and not aircraft parked there, but number of flights that happen. So, a busy FSA airport could see higher fees then a small regional.

I do like the way things work here, the client is pretty stable. Just don't make things too complicated for yourself or those that use it. Can't think of anything else to add for today. So thanks for a great system.
Image

User avatar
Cat
Chief Pilot
Posts: 818
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 5:56 am

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by Cat » Sun Oct 21, 2018 1:13 am

At what point does the dynamic multiplier change levels now?

To keep new startups competitive with established airlines I propose the dynamic multiplier change as follows
1000x - up to 400 million
500x - up to 750 million
250x - up to 1 billion
100x - up to 1.25 billion
50x - up to 1.5 billion
25x - 2 billion

There is no way an airline such as ours with almost 7 billion in cash and assets should still be at 50x but that's what the current dynamic multiplier has us at.

How would existing airlines be integrated into the new "user optional" system?
Image

User avatar
joefremont
FSAirlines Developer
Posts: 3694
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 5:46 am
Location: KSFO

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by joefremont » Sun Oct 21, 2018 3:02 am

Just for reference, here are the current multiplier limits.

Up to 500,000,000 1000x
Up to 1,000,000,000 500x
Up to 2,000,000,000 400x
Up to 3,000,000,000 300x
Up to 4,000,000,000 200x
Up to 5,000,000,000 100x
Up to 10,000,000,000 50x
10,000,000,000+ 25x

i agree we should keep the big multiplier for the early startups as I don't want to discourage anybody and have them leave, so we will have to strike a balance.

As for existing airlines, I think they should get enough notice about this so they can go in and turn the feature on or off as they wish before it goes active. I probably will set a default based on how active the airline is so the busy airlines will be on by default and the less active ones will be off but everyone will get a change to set it before it goes live. Once its live you would still be able to change it but for some period of time, say 30 days you would get the worst of both worlds, just to discourage changing it too often.

For parking I would rather do all airports MLW or wingspan so its consistent, with the many thousands of airports out there the research to find out which does which would be overwhelming. Also since we have not wingspan data yet it will take some effort to collect all that.

My first thoughts were that based on the size of the airport there would be a number of spots, say 512 for a super airport, 256 for international, 128 for regional etc. Then the rate would go up based on the percent of spots being used, basing it on how busy the airport is instead could be an option, certainly airports in more remote locations would be less expensive and we could use population to figure it out. One thing I saw on for one airport is that the daily rate is 2.5 times the monthly rate, so maybe airlines could reserve spots at airports on a monthly basis and get a 60% discount.
Image
I've sworn an oath of solitude until the pestilence is purged from the lands.

VegasTim
Flight Attendant
Posts: 116
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 9:29 pm
Location: KLAS

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by VegasTim » Sun Oct 21, 2018 4:42 am

How will parking slots be distributed?
Can airlines claim an airport as their hub and if so how many airlines would be able to claim the same airport as their hub?
In what manner would hubs be allocated? Bids via airline seniority?
Would declared hubs get a discount on parking?
How many hubs is one airline allowed to declare?
How would the parking fee's be assessed …. and how would owners get invoices for such parking fee's?
Would an airline have to have the hub first in order to install their new maintenance facility (soon to be offered as part of the new program)?

The whole parking fee thing is going to get way out of hand rapidly as far as I can see ....... just way too many variables.

If the program is changed to a "landing fee" instead of parking fee, now you are essentially penalizing the airlines who fly the most.

I am liking everything else about the new proposed advanced financials except for the parking fee idea. Maybe it's just me, but we track every dollar of income and expense per plane and I don't see how daily / monthly parking fee's will be billed so operators have a clue as to what is charged to what airplane.

[edited] - Just to have someone add parking fee's daily to our aircraft logs for all 91 of our aircraft would be a full time administrative job that no one wants. Remember this is supposed to be fun too.
Image

User avatar
Cat
Chief Pilot
Posts: 818
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 5:56 am

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by Cat » Sun Oct 21, 2018 5:46 pm

A landing fee would make more sense and be easier to implement than a parking fee, a one time charge as part of the PIREP, built into the expenses in the Flight Tracker Client. With the new proposed maintenance downgrade for planes that sit parked, you will essentially already be charging a parking fee, just not in money but in aircraft status.

While it's true those who fly the most would pay the most, you have to look at it as a "cost of doing business". Busy major airports should have higher landing fee's than GA "feeder" airports in the same city. Small rural airports may have no landing fee as they do in the real world. Most public GA airports do not charge landing fee's to GA airplanes, but many times they will for commercial operators so having the fee tied to MTOW would be perfect. In FSA, all airports could have some landing fee applied to simulate the cost of tie down fee's, airport shuttle service, etc.

One more question regarding the multiplier: Are maintenance costs tied to the multiplier as well? So if we reduced our multiplier from dynamic (50 currently) to 25x, would the maintenance costs decrease accordingly? I think I read in another thread somewhere that an airline's "lifetime average" is used to determine the multiplier for pilot bonus fee's paid to FSA so I'm not sure how the maintenance thing works.

I would not "bid out" maintenance facilities either, let the market set the ebb and flow ..... if 50 airlines all want to have their maintenance facilities at the same place, that creates a price war and benefits everyone else who needs maintenance and is shopping for the lowest price. When an owner clicks on the "service aircraft tab", he/she should see a drop down menu of available facilities and current prices. FSA would set the lowball number like they do for selling aircraft so an owner cannot service planes "below cost". Facility Owners would be allowed to service their own planes at the lowest number allowed. This would provide an incentive for owners to justify the cost of building and maintaining their maintenance facilities.

The owner in question after selecting the place to service their aircraft would then see their current multiplier added in if that is truly how it works now. Perhaps also FSAviation would get into the FBO business as well so any airport that has real world service facilities would have them in FSA but at the FSA "standard" rate if no one has a maintenance facility there. When an owner builds a maintenance facility they would have the option to price match FSAviation or charge more or charge less much like the current ticket program for flight routes. Airports so small they would not have service facilities can be excluded from the maintenance database so a pilot would have to fly to a place that has service facilities in the real world to service that airplane. just some ideas.....
Image

User avatar
joefremont
FSAirlines Developer
Posts: 3694
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 5:46 am
Location: KSFO

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by joefremont » Mon Oct 22, 2018 5:06 am

Gate fees, landing fees, ticketing fees, these are all transactional fees that are pretty much the same per a flight weather you fly your once a month or 30 times a month as such they just increase the cost of doing business without changing things much. With parking fees that I think would be valuable is if you leave a bunch of your aircraft idle at a large busy airport your going to pay a lot for that, but if you move them to a place that is less busy you will pay less.

I was planning on having fleets declare a hub, and at that hub there parking would be discounted, actually I already added that to the database. I would not want to add anything where one airline could monopolize an airport, so even if all the spots were taken, as more aircraft are added the price just keeps going up.

For maintenance right now its not effected by the multiplier and so far I had not though about changing that. The way I assumed maintenance centers would work is very much the way Cat described it. You would press the button that says this AC need maintenance, instead of just the cost as you see it now you would see a list of available centers and how much each charges, along with what is the wait to get in. Of course FSAviation would be there offering full price service for those places where nobody else works or if you don't want to wait to get into some place cheaper. Right now to keep things simple I am considering three sizes, Small for up to 8000kg DOW, Medium for up to 72000kg and Large for above.
Image
I've sworn an oath of solitude until the pestilence is purged from the lands.

VegasTim
Flight Attendant
Posts: 116
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 9:29 pm
Location: KLAS

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by VegasTim » Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:35 pm

I am still concerned about how a parking fee system would bill out …. For us to have to update every one of our aircraft logs daily would be a deal breaker and we would not be participating in the advanced system as the paperwork would just become too much to do. Of course not all airlines do the paperwork we do and in fact I don't think there is another virtual airline that does what we do, so we would be the odd duck out. :mrgreen:
Image

User avatar
joefremont
FSAirlines Developer
Posts: 3694
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 5:46 am
Location: KSFO

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by joefremont » Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:13 pm

Parking fees would not be included in the flight reports, they would be separate transactions, if they did they would effect pilots compensation and would not want them to have an incentive to not choose ac that have been parked a long time.

At the end of the month all the aircraft would be evacuated and parking fees charged, one transaction for each AC or fleet, airport. After a flight a separate transaction would be generated if the AC had been at the airport long enough to be charged a fee. I have not worked out what the fees would be so I understand nervousness at the unknown of it, let me get some ideas worked out.

But if nobody is interested in parking fees we don’t have to do them.
Image
I've sworn an oath of solitude until the pestilence is purged from the lands.

User avatar
joefremont
FSAirlines Developer
Posts: 3694
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 5:46 am
Location: KSFO

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by joefremont » Wed Oct 24, 2018 9:55 pm

Been doing some research on parking fees and am finding a lot of variation out there. Looking at the various super airports pricing can vary quite a lot. For a 747-400 prices can go from 5000 quid per day at Heathrow to 150$ a day at LAX. Comparing LAX to SFO, LAX is actually in a more populated area and has more flights but charges much less than SFO's 1005$ per day. Also noticed that most of the airports I looked at use weight rather than wingspan so let's go with that.

Population may not be the best thing to base things on, it works fine for airport on the continent, but it's quite poor for islands. The island of Jersey for example has a only a population in the area of 240k but since it's a small island it has limited space for parking and is therefore not cheap.

Miami has an interesting way of doing parking, It's fairly cheep for the first five days, 342$ for a 747, the next week it goes up to 513 and by the end of the month its jumps to 1388$, they don't seem to want you parking your fleet there for an extended period.

My current thoughts are to keep it simple just have it based on airport size, discount for aircraft parked at there fleet hub or designated storage airport (designated by the FSA system) and leave it at that. The cost, even for parking at a super airport will be much less than you would pay for maintenance (compared to one A-Check a year) so it's not going much of a burden.

My first though is have it start at 8v$ per metric ton of MLW per day with a 100v$ minimum at super airports and those numbers would go down 1v$ per ton with a 5v$ minimum at municipal airports. I don't know how to handle private/military airports as they generally don't let just anybody park there private planes there.
Image
I've sworn an oath of solitude until the pestilence is purged from the lands.

User avatar
Cat
Chief Pilot
Posts: 818
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 5:56 am

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by Cat » Thu Oct 25, 2018 4:20 am

So we will be looking at costs for annual inspection/service, maintenance status drop for planes parked 60 days, maintenance centers to buy and maintain and parking fee's? WOW wonder how the guys with 200 planes feel about this, you may not get a lot of takers for the new "optional" financial program.
Image

flugkapitan
Flight Attendant
Posts: 134
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:24 am

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by flugkapitan » Thu Oct 25, 2018 5:32 pm

No, at least as this proposal is looking now, Venture Hawaii will not be participating.

As I've said, I've inherited a HUGE fleet - 388 planes - mostly museum pieces. I've been trying to sell some off, but no takers. Seems the FSA automatic buyout program has not located me yet, either ;-)

Scott
Image

"...now let's get this thing on the hump - we've got some flyin' to do!" ~ Major Kong

User avatar
joefremont
FSAirlines Developer
Posts: 3694
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 5:46 am
Location: KSFO

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by joefremont » Fri Oct 26, 2018 6:09 pm

Such negativity, granted we are touching on the negative parts of advanced econ, hopefully the plusses we will add will more than counter them, am hoping to revise the cargo system which should benefit those who use it. But I don't want to spend time implementing something nobody wants.

BTW Scott, I checked into why your aircraft were not being bought back and found a bug in the market cleanup program, I fixed it and now many of your AC have sold.
Image
I've sworn an oath of solitude until the pestilence is purged from the lands.

flugkapitan
Flight Attendant
Posts: 134
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:24 am

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by flugkapitan » Fri Oct 26, 2018 6:13 pm

Hi Joe,

Thanks for checking into why my aircraft weren't being picked up by FSA!

Regards,
Scott
Image

"...now let's get this thing on the hump - we've got some flyin' to do!" ~ Major Kong

User avatar
Cat
Chief Pilot
Posts: 818
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 5:56 am

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by Cat » Fri Oct 26, 2018 8:56 pm

Sorry to pop the balloon, not trying to be negative, just realistic. As our owner Tim pointed out - having to manually enter parking fee's into our personal Fly Vegas aircraft logs for every aircraft we own, be it daily or monthly is just something we have no desire to do. We track every flight every day and show the "lifetime profit/loss" of each and every aircraft.

I'm loving every other aspect of the new proposed system. We are already modifying our operation along the same lines so when it does go live we can transition smoothly. We are in the process of bringing aircraft up to date regarding annual inspections/A Service, we are not posting any aircraft for sale that has an outdated (more than 1 year) annual inspection and we have come up with a service plan so we can buy our maintenance centers and be ready for them. In addition we continue to downsize our operation to be more suited to the active pilots so we do not have a lot of "weed shades" just sitting on ramps for months and months.

Regarding Maintenance Centers, you said 3 sizes .... I am assuming GA / normal jet ops / jumbo jet ops? For our operation, we will probably use outsourcing for our jumbo's as we don't have enough to really justify our own maintenance center for them.

Before you spend a lot of time working on the parking fee's perhaps you should post a poll and get the pulse of the FSA Owners Association regarding parking fee's and if that feature should be included or not. There is a good possibility we are the small minority in which case we need to just shush and let the majority rule. LOL
Image

MrJTSZ
Ticket Agent
Posts: 39
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 10:39 pm
Location: LESB, Mallorca
Contact:

Re: some thought about more realistic

Post by MrJTSZ » Fri Oct 26, 2018 9:16 pm

Goodnight. I have been following this topic for some time and I have seen the good way that it is taking.

From our VA Voltor we would like to continue the idea of the rates according to the MTOW of the airplane since it would give much more realism to the operation of an airline.
Image

Post Reply