Aircraft Overhaul/Refurbish Suggestion

[MisterE21]

Can we have the option to overhaul or refurbish and aircraft to bring it back to zero age and hours.
In the real world the many airlines will fly an aircraft for 10 to 20 years. In AM it, in my experiance, 5 to 7 years is the oldest aircraft one should keep in service.
I would suggest that in order to overhaul an aircraft one would would have to build a maintenance center at a terminal.
That the overhaul would cost at least 25% of the purchase price of the aircraft and would take a period of time for which the aircraft would be out of service. The out of service time should be no more than 50% of the delivery time of a new aircraft of the same type.

[Khalifa]

This is a great idea create a maintenance center, when you have enough money in the game. Aircraft maintenance fees will become lower and smaller airlines can use your maintenance center and your airline earns extra cash.

[Mastafa]

I agree too. 110%!

[Rionescu]

Yeah, being able to operate planes for longer would be great.

[norge]

Totally agree! Many real airlines have airplanes in their fleet for over 15 years, and here we only do half...

[CHR]

I don't think the problem is that we should be able to completely overhaul our planes to brand new - something which clearly doesn't happen in real life. Instead, I think the problem is that the maintenance formula is too imbalanced - too cheap initially, and (maybe) too costly later on. The current system admittedly favours replacing planes quite regularly, but the way to solve that isn't too make up something which simply doesn't exist.

The other problem with something like this is that it would save people money... and people have too much money in AM as it is. The fact that you can go from an airline with a million Euros in assets to billions in a matter of years suggests something is wrong. Of course, part of this relates to loadfactor/fare scripts too. Though ultimately I think they all end up related - as the actual prices you play around with can be inflated/deflated relative to real world ones, as long as all the prices are uniformly inflated...

With the eventual release of hotswap - the ability to transfer routes automatically to another plane - it will be easy enough to change aircraft anyway (though don't expect to get anything when you sell the old planes).

[Mastafa]

I don't think the problem is that we should be able to completely overhaul our planes to brand new - something which clearly doesn't happen in real life. Instead, I think the problem is that the maintenance formula is too imbalanced - too cheap initially, and (maybe) too costly later on. The current system admittedly favours replacing planes quite regularly, but the way to solve that isn't too make up something which simply doesn't exist.

The other problem with something like this is that it would save people money... and people have too much money in AM as it is. The fact that you can go from an airline with a million Euros in assets to billions in a matter of years suggests something is wrong. Of course, part of this relates to loadfactor/fare scripts too. Though ultimately I think they all end up related - as the actual prices you play around with can be inflated/deflated relative to real world ones, as long as all the prices are uniformly inflated...

With the eventual release of hotswap - the ability to transfer routes automatically to another plane - it will be easy enough to change aircraft anyway (though don't expect to get anything when you sell the old planes).

So, you don't agree?   I can't usually sit in front of the computer; I sneak on, just like now   :

What about stopping the maintenance cost from being determined by the age? The center would only reset the hours and stuff.  


Edited by iranair777: Removed the excessive smilies

[pseudoswede]

Do you seriously need to use all of those smilies? 

As noted ad naseum in this forum, the maintenance costs will eventually be changed to be determined more by cycles and hours than age (although that will still have an effect).

[Mastafa]

Oh sorry.... 

[BINDU]

Yes, but if you guys are implementing hotswap... then this is useless. Hotswap is what keeps driving me away from the game. I'll build up a huge airline, and then get bored when I have to replace 200x A320s

[iranair777]

Very good idea, but not to reset the hours to 0. There should be two age systems if this is (hopefully) implemented. One would be the original age of the aircraft from new and another from last overhaul. The overhaul idea is very, very helpful and will slow the game down a awful lot while making it as realistic as possible. There can be A-D check with dedicated or automated maintenance facilities based in real life overhaul cities such as Frankfurt and Beijing.

Please Stephen, do get something new implemented

[CHR]

That's a very interesting idea actually. Rather than just resetting the age, having to manually schedule major aircraft checks, the time which has elapsed since the last one affecting maintenance. I guess it could be implemented along with the maintenance overhaul - because I think as is, it would be a fairly major change.

[Mastafa]

Very good idea, but not to reset the hours to 0. There should be two age systems if this is (hopefully) implemented. One would be the original age of the aircraft from new and another from last overhaul. The overhaul idea is very, very helpful and will slow the game down a awful lot while making it as realistic as possible. There can be A-D check with dedicated or automated maintenance facilities based in real life overhaul cities such as Frankfurt and Beijing.

Please Stephen, do get something new implemented

I was just thinking of that...

[Mastafa]

What about instead of scheduling, you have to choose when to maintain the airplane? There can be a "maintain" or "refurbrish" button in which after you press, the aircraft will reset it's cycles and stuff, but NOT the age. Also, the airplane will remain inactive for about half of its manufacturer time, and will also charge your bank account 75% of its purchase price. (this option will also be available to outdated aircraft). This will lower the maintenance cost to about 99% than it was before..

To further clarify:

I have a 767-300ER in fleet, which is 1 yrs old.

Purchase price: 140M
Cycles: 640
Hours: 56320
Costs to maintain: 1M
DOC: 350K
Days required to be delivered: 100

I press the "button"

The following happens;

1) The plane is inactive for 50 days (about 2 months)
2) Cycles: reset to 0
3) Hours: reset to 0
4) Now cost to maintain: about 10,000
5) Age: the same (1 yrs)
6) $$$ charged: 70M

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This is like replacing the metal/steel!!!

[Mastafa]

StephenM, any suggestions?