changing aircrafts

[olems]

Hey. how old will can a aircraft become before you wanna consider switching it for a new one ? i currently have around 50 aircrafts on a server, mostly fokker100 and A321-200 . but have some older aircrafts like a A320-xx at the age of 5, when will a aircraft stop being profitable due to age?

[pseudoswede]

Right now, aircraft maintenance costs are based only on purchase price and age. And as your aircraft gets older, the maintenance costs increase. It doesn't matter if it only flies 1 route per day or 20.

The more expensive the aircraft, the sooner you will have to replace it. General rule of thumb is 3 years for widebodies, 5 years for narrowbody jets, and 7-10 years for small jets and turboprops. This is also highly dependent on the plane's average DOC over its lifespan.

For example, if you have an A330 pulling in €250,000 every day, it's safe to say you should be able to generate quite a bit of cash over 36 months. And when you sell it for 50% off after 36 months, you most likely will have made a nice profit. However, if that same plane is only generating €150,000 per day, you might be losing money (after factoring in maintenance costs) by the 24th month. If you were to then sell the plane at 50% off when it turned 3-years-old, you could end up with a pretty significant overall loss (which would affect your airline value).

[olems]

so, in that case if widebody planes should be replaced more often, and longhaul in this game dont make a whole lot of cash, so the 757-200 is a good longhaul aircraft?

[dktc]

757-200 is ok, but long-haul is not going to be as profitable as short-haul regardless. If you really want to operate long-haul, try securing leases on lh aircrafts at reasonable rates. Since the owner / lesser pays the maintenance, you don't have to worry about that.

[olems]

ok, thats why im thinking in the lanes of a 757-200 because of decent range just to make a cool route map

will longhaul ever make profit ? i ordered a 747D to fly between Atlanta and Chicago etc. will that bring profit?

[pseudoswede]

i ordered a 747D to fly between Atlanta and Chicago etc. will that bring profit?

After factoring in maintenance costs, yes ... for the first 6-8 months of ownership.

[olems]

so there is no point of having big aircrafts. just for fun. i mean, i have Fokker100 that easy make 500k a day. and when i deside to use airbus 32x-xxx they only can make maybe on a good flightplan 500k. and my airbus 330-XXX only do 300k a day.

[Unknown98]

I've found, correct me if I'm wrong, that medium aircraft like the 757-200 can be pretty profitable if used on shorter popular routes that are ranked "excellent". Right now I'm using A320-200's for "very good", and sometimes I use them for "good" aswell, but I've started to use MD-87's on the "good" routes. I haven't done any avarage routes yet, but if I do I'd probablly use the CRJ-100 or Fokker 50. But as for the giant aircraft like 747's, A330 and A340's, they cost so much in maitnence they are just for fun as you say.

And, with me using the 757's, so far it hasn't hurt me, I am ranked 3'rd in my world and am closing in on 2'nd. That's up from last place about 2 weeks ago.

[PatrickZ]

If you were to then sell the plane at 50% off when it turned 3-years-old, you could end up with a pretty significant overall loss (which would affect your airline value).

But who wants to buy a plane that is 3 years old (or at whatever age you sell it) that clearly has had it's most profitable days? Then maybe you want to concider not to sell it but to keep flying the plane. That way the maintainance expenses may be higher, but you don't have to spend money on a replacement aircraft. In real life, planes usually have a pretty long lifetime. Here in the game the lifetime is practically endless, but at some point the maintainance expenses are so much they outrage the aircraft income. That would be the moment to scrap the aircraft and replace it with a newer one, but planes can stay profitable for a whole while.