Irregularities and inconsistencies in maintenance fees

[kcclieou]

Airline: Ivy League Airways - ID 22903 [W506]

I discovered some irregularities and serious inconsistencies in aircraft maintenance expenses, which pushed me to the verge of losing money.

The screenshot below shows my maintenance fees for the past few game months:


My maintenance fees had been fairly low until August 1969, when it skyrocketed from $0.3b to $0.7b.

The following screenshots display my activities in the aircraft market:









Evidently, the return of leased aircraft (most, if not all, were over 5 years of age) must have caused the hike in maintenance fees, but that would sound utterly ridiculous, because I had been paying for the maintenance of these leased-out planes all the while.

I know that my trading of second-hand Boeing 707-320B aircraft in the open market must have contributed to a further jump of my maintenance fees from $0.7b to $1b over Nov and Dec 1969. Yet, I don't believe that this alone would account for the hike in maintenance fees (which eliminated my profit from mainline service), for at this moment I still have 19 used B707-320B aircraft on sale, while the maintenance fees for this month (Jan 1970) dropped significantly to a reasonable level.

Meanwhile, the average age of my mainline aircraft is pretty low (less than 1 year).

I would tend to believe that we are automatically forced to pay an inconsistently heavy sum of maintenance for each airplane returned from lease, which sounds like a bug - would AM have double- or triple-counted the maintenance charges on these planes?

Can someone explain if this is indeed the case?

[StephenM]

I wont be able to have a look until tonight, but when I do I'll see what I can find on that front. There shouldn't be any difference between leased out planes and when they are returned to your fleet.

[CHR]

Just to establish what was happening
Up to 07/1969 = slowly rising to $312M - reason: maintenance slowly increasing with age
08/1969 = $708M - reason unknown (potential bug)
09/1969 = $706M - reason: few aircraft sold
10/1969 = $739M - reason: increasing with age
11/1969 = $1043M - reason large number of used aircraft purchases (on 15.10.09)
12/1969 = $1016M - reason number of sales/scrappages (1.11.69 onwards)
1/1969 = $344M - reason - number of sales (surely that few sales would not be enough to cause such a drop in maintenance fees)

A large maintenance cost on 08/1969 (if it were not a bug) would have been the result of a large purchase during 07/1969. The data you provided is cut off during the middle of 7/1969. Did you buy a huge number of aircraft in this month?

This seems like a bug to me. Even without the information about the first potential bug, the drop back seems to indicate a problem. The number of aircraft you sold on 12/1969 was less than on 11/1969, yet the former resulted in a 700M drop, compared to a 30M drop from the sales during the latter month.

Regarding leasing, you pay maintenance the whole time the plane is leased out, so you should not have seen any maintenance cost rise once they were returned. The cost rise from $700M to $1000M is a little surprising, but you did purchase a lot of second hand (therefore higher maintenance costs already) aircraft, which are worth a lot of money (maintenance is proportional to the aircraft purchase cost).

The most strange things in this are the jump from $300M to $700M and then the jump back to $300M later on.

[rampboy]

I just had the same thing happen to my airline in PW#930 - MesAAba.


1/2/89 - 190,000,000 - Monthly Maintenance Fees
1/1/89 - 560,000,000 - Monthly Maintenance Fees

The maintenance fees were killing me.  I started a fleet renewal with A320's but nothing extreme.  It would not have reduced my fees by 370m.  Something was going on.  I am not sure what it is.

[TTA]

I just had the same thing happen to my airline in PW#930 - MesAAba.


1/2/89 - 190,000,000 - Monthly Maintenance Fees
1/1/89 - 560,000,000 - Monthly Maintenance Fees

The maintenance fees were killing me.  I started a fleet renewal with A320's but nothing extreme.  It would not have reduced my fees by 370m.  Something was going on.  I am not sure what it is.

How old were these aircraft when you started renewing them?

[LSA]

PW 452
got the same.. i was wondering .. but anyway

our time now is:13/10/1942   Daily Ticket Revenue

maintance fees seems to be correct

0/9/1940   Consolidated Monthly Ticket Revenue   €1,566,615,906   €0
0/8/1940   Consolidated Monthly Ticket Revenue   €1,566,749,564   €0
0/7/1940   Consolidated Monthly Ticket Revenue   €1,557,949,947   €0
0/6/1940   Consolidated Monthly Ticket Revenue   €1,532,958,362   €0
0/5/1940   Consolidated Monthly Ticket Revenue   €1,101,133,178   €0  <<<<<
0/4/1940   Consolidated Monthly Ticket Revenue   €1,549,775,661   €0
0/3/1940   Consolidated Monthly Ticket Revenue   €1,545,933,465   €0
0/2/1940   Consolidated Monthly Ticket Revenue   €1,536,311,627   €0

0/7/1940   Consolidated Monthly Fuel Expense   €0   €24,870,390
0/6/1940   Consolidated Monthly Fuel Expense   €0   €25,711,759
0/5/1940   Consolidated Monthly Fuel Expense   €0   €18,171,158  <<<<<
0/4/1940   Consolidated Monthly Fuel Expense   €0   €25,305,108
0/3/1940   Consolidated Monthly Fuel Expense   €0   €25,167,360

0/7/1940   Consolidated Monthly Misc Revenue   €14,337,619   €0
0/6/1940   Consolidated Monthly Misc Revenue   €13,982,483   €0
0/5/1940   Consolidated Monthly Misc Revenue   €10,005,421   €0 <<<<
0/4/1940   Consolidated Monthly Misc Revenue   €14,037,113   €0
0/3/1940   Consolidated Monthly Misc Revenue   €13,885,002   €0
0/2/1940   Consolidated Monthly Misc Revenue   €13,600,482   €0

so i think some flyts or planes are not counted