What?
When ordering aircraft directly from the manufacturer, these orders are based on a base model which then gets customised to the airline’s specification:
- weight variants (for example, increased MTOW certification for “ER” variants)
- engine type
- winglets/sharklets/etc.
- additional fuel tanks
- amount of galleys/restrooms
- satellite internet systems
- other features like gravel/noise kits, integrated stairs, etc.
All individual components combined will result in a more or less individual aircraft and price.
Why?
The Improved Aircraft Performance formulas will, if everything works out according to plan, offer a lot more possibilities for fine-grained aircraft performance profiles. On the flip-side, this has the potential to cause an explosion in aircraft variants if we stick to the way we currently handle aircraft types in the game. Think of the BGW/HGW variants of the 737 series or the light/medium/heavy variants of the A320 and then imagine how many of those we’d need if we introduced different engines alone.
Custom configs based on base models would address this.
When?
As said, this really only starts to become relevant with Improved Aircraft Performance formulas. The resulting variety of second-hand aircraft might tie in nicely with Broker-based aircraft trading.