Maintenance Fees Status (Admins, look HERE to see maint fees status from users)

[Hal]

No i am not CRAF. RCAF has mx   costs about 5b, but he is inactive.

[Flybynight747]

Well as any long standing player of AM can tell you, there are often many variables that seem strange or unexplainable.

I have been a member for some time, have created my own Worlds, played in others and also played in Public Worlds.
The latter being by far the best, mentally taxing, stimulating and when you play against 700 other players, you'd better have a good strategy.

But back to the thread. Maintenance fees. There are problems with the matrix used in this game.
But my own experience proves that you can use this to your advantage.
If you have some savvy you can make them work for you.

Dependant on which World you are in, what mix of A'C you use, where you are based and a fundamental understanding of which A/C accrue the largest M fees, you can make serious money.

For example, not really knowing the 'matrix' used, I am playing in a World where by simply replacing then scrapping a 4 year old ATR my M costs went down by 40 YES 40 MILLION!
This despite operating A330s A319s and 40 ATRs.

In another World, by sticking to only short haul A/C and having 200,000 LESS passengers than my nearest rival I am in the top 5 of a World DOMINATED by Long Haul carriers. There are 70 players behind me.

PsuedoSwede and Hal have posted on here frequently about how to maximise your profits and run a successful Airline, I suggest that while you may not understand how M works (I don't really either) the wealth of knowledge they give should be enough for you.

It works for me.

JAY

[Lord Voldemort]

I suggest staying at or around 100 seat aircraft.
I tested this out - for several routes, my Fokker 100, with around 110ish passengers, only got an extra 10-15% on most of my routes than my KFC thingy, with 78 passengers. It's not much of a difference, especially when you go to airports which have fewer passengers - this, I think, is a combination of supply optimality and the higher fuel costs which cut into your profits. The KFC costs around 13 million, the Fokker 100 around 40 million. Thus, much higher maintenance costs as well.

You know, this would all be manageable if there was hotswapping - or even better, fleet hotswapping, like say if you had 2 fleets, each with the same number of AC of the same type, then it would replace all the routes. yay.

[Virgin Serbia]

KFC thingy

That name always cracks me up. Kentucky Fried Chicken plane

[jayceon]

Well, a good summary would be to keep your fleet young (S/H 4-5yrs, L/H 1-2yrs) and don't use GIGANTIC aircraft (200mln+), right?

[Hal]

Well, a good summary would be to keep your fleet young (S/H 4-5yrs, L/H 1-2yrs) and don't use GIGANTIC aircraft (200mln+), right?

Yes, but there are different strategies in public and in private worlds.

In public you need big planes like A320 and A321 and at least A310 for long hauls at main routes if you are at hub with at least 20 mio pax.

In private with small or none competition you can use small planes like CRJ/ERJs, Dash 8-400 and Boeing BBJs and A319LR for LH. Bigger planes are wasting of money.

[GQfluffy]

Heck if I know...my MX fees just got cut in half, and while yes I'm trying to swap out old aircraft...I haven't touched my airline in 3 days, which coincides with the day the fees went in a tailspin. Sure I'm not complaining, but I only scrapped 20 aircraft, and I still have over 50 MD-90s over 4 years old, 5 777s over 3...

I cut out 10 757s and about the same 767s. Just doesn't make sense....Oh well. 

[StephenM]

Unfortunately the current formula doesn't look at fleet specifics, it instead looks at the whole fleet with a snapshot. Thats why making some small changes can have a drastic impact that doesn't always make sense.

[Lord Voldemort]

Now, since the formula uses an average fleet age, is it hypothetically possible to actually lower your overall MX costs by, say, buying a large amount of a very cheap aircraft?

[Vamerica]

Suggestion: Try to stay away from heavys. Like 747 family, 777 family, a340 family, etc... Right now international routes with these planes just doesn't make profit, just by buying the plane you are asking for big maint cost and for your end month profit to go down till its negative. I would suggest not going higher then 767/a330, and even these can make it so your profit goes down. In the end, Heavys are just bad atm.

[GQfluffy]

Oh I have long since figured out which aircraft do what to MX costs and profits.

I was just wondering why my MX costs were cut in half overnight. Didn't know if you guys changed the MX formula or not. Not that I'm complaining. 

All that said...I erm... ...make more than enough to cover excess MX costs of 30 767s, 10 777s, and 50 757s with my fleet of 300 MD-90s making the bulk of the profit.

I'll go away now.

[Lord Voldemort]

Oh I have long since figured out which aircraft do what to MX costs and profits.

I was just wondering why my MX costs were cut in half overnight. Didn't know if you guys changed the MX formula or not. Not that I'm complaining. 

All that said...I erm... ...make more than enough to cover excess MX costs of 30 767s, 10 777s, and 50 757s with my fleet of 300 MD-90s making the bulk of the profit.

I'll go away now.

Same!
My fleet age is 0.7 years and I have 170 aircraft but the majority are < 90 seats, so my MX costs were only 97 Million, but overnight they went down to 77 million. What a pleasant surprise!

[StephenM]

Didn't know if you guys changed the MX formula or not. Not that I'm complaining. 

Its the same formula.