Hey y'all,
Hope you can help me out here with some confusion I have.
I noticed on the auction blocks that there are aircraft that seem to be more expensive than buying a new one. Are there unseen expenses I am not seeing that go into the new aircraft?
Please explain. Thanks!
New:
Used/Auctioning:
That's because the plane in auction is very 'new', both by age of the aircraft, and also age that it's in the auction setting. Someone can pay extra to get the plane in one hour (instead of say, 15 hours for an Embraer 195 or 21 hours for an Airbus or Boeing plane), or you can wait until the price drops below the new-lease cost, though someone in that time might decide to pay extra instead of waiting those few hours.
Seems silly to me, too. Deciding to pay extra, both security deposit and weekly rent, just for a few hours more of flying.
Also note that if you are beginning a new holding company, you get $10 million of non-wait aircraft. You should lease new aircraft from the beginning if you are playing on Aspern. If playing another server, you could use the money to get more used planes if you wanted. But in the information contained in the OP, you definitely should go with the new-lease option.
So it is not ideal to bid on auctions? All of my aircraft so far have been leased. I don't own any, yet.
You can bid on auctions. Your bid on public (AS-owned aircraft) auction can be to buy (outright with cash), buy (with loan), or lease. On private auction (privately owned aircraft) you will have only such options of acquiring that particular privately owned aircraft as deemed convenient by the aircraft owner.
So it is not ideal to bid on auctions?
If you build a successful airline, there will come a time when you will outgrow the production rate of multiple aircraft production lines (say 4 or 5). In other words, you will make more money than you can spend by continuously ordering aircraft from the factory for those 4 or 5 types of aicraft. By that time your choices would be limited to:
1. Order planes from other lines - but that would mean increasing maintenance costs significantly.
2. Lease planes that become available from your aicraft types (e.g. when an airline shuts down or goes bankrupt) at a premium. Trust me you *will* pay the premium even if it's 10 - 15%...
(but, of course, there are also more sane options such as:
3. Buy your leased aircraft.
4. Burn money by building terminals.
5. Experiment with odd flights such as intercontinental flights to 1 or 2 bar airports.
6. Reconfigure your entire fleet into C+F *only* and see what happens.
7. Bully new airlines by introducing high-capacity high-frequency aircraft at the minimum legal price on their routes etc.)
Ah, thanks for all the info y'all. :D