Is this a bug?

So my holding company had around 1M AS$ in the bank from dividends so I decided to buy a small plane and fly to the smaller airports in my operating country.

When I signed off yesterday, I had only 8 employees.

I logged on this morning to over 50!!!

half of which are under fleet management.

22 people to service a tiny plane worth 750k???

I am not sure whether this is a glitch or what but this could bankrupt my holding company within a week so I need to know what to do to get rid of these extras without paying to drop them.

EDIT : Forgot to mention, my main airline/ company only has 130 staff on fleet management even though that has a fleet of 20+ worth 25M AS$+

Yep, the number of fleet management personnel for one plane is 22. It goes up slowly after that, but to have just one plane, you need at least 22 fleet management.

Caithes is correct. I remember about an event for introducing a new aircraft at a german airline, the management told about 250 new jobs for one 747.

Caithes is correct. I remember about an event for introducing a new aircraft at a german airline, the management told about 250 new jobs for one 747.

But this number included everything from cockpit and cabin via ground crew and maint to the one extra who's boiling hot coffee in the enlarged lounge.

So, only very few of them could be found under “fleet management”.

22 for one Cessna Caravan or the like is WAY over the top.

Sure, but this is not only Fleet Management. This is only a category - there are many other employees within an airline.

I don't think it's unreasonable for a few dozen employees just to startup and manage an airline operating 1 or more aircraft between several airports and countries.

Potentially many different regulations, contacts, languages, procedures and so on that needs to be mastered to just be allowed to operate at all.

In reality I guess you will not find many airlines using only a single small aircraft in commercial operation, it doesn't sound very profitable.

The sim isn't about starting up an airline like they show in that old show 'Wings'. It's designed for airlines that are a bit larger. If you are using the plane at all hours of the day (instead of the usual workday, which I'll say for now is 8 hours), then that's about 7 people per 8 hour shift. Between all the unnamed jobs in the staff, that sounds about right to me.

I don't think it's unreasonable for a few dozen employees just to startup and manage an airline operating 1 or more aircraft between several airports and countries.

I very much think it is for one 25 seater plane operating between 5 very close airports in the one country.

that's 2 people per seat..

I'd possibly understand if it was the operation of 1 A319 or A318.

I very much think it is for one 25 seater plane operating between 5 very close airports in the one country.

that's 2 people per seat..

I'd possibly understand if it was the operation of 1 A319 or A318.

If you are talking about having a small plane traveling to five cities... that's basically 4.4 people per city. I think that's pretty acceptable. Keep in mind it's not 22 per airplane. One of my airlines has four very small aircraft (nothing over 19 seats) and it has 70 fleet management, effectively spread out over fifteen cities.

It's never been very profitable to operate 1 small plane in AS.

Take this case as a model:

http://airchive.com/blog/2014/06/18/analysis-part-ii-nostalgia-is-not-a-viable-business-model-for-peoplexpress/

For the route in question, the operating cost per available seat mile works out to 9.3 cents, which is in line with operating costs for Allegiant once you adjust for stage length (keep in mind also that as PEOPLExpress grows, if it grows, it will gain some benefit from economies of scale, which will drive down “other” costs). Thus the break-even PRASM is 9.3 cents, or $70.09 per seat (at 150 seats), which is not insurmountable. The open question is whether PEOPLExpress’ route network and ULCC model can generate even that much revenue.

Basically how does this apply to your case? As you grow, you will be able to spread the "other costs" (in this case wages of all those employees) among more planes and flights. The employee count will not grow arithmetically with the number of flights, so as you have more flights the economy of scale will kick in.

Now, the problem I see is that this is your "holding", and you bought a plane from the dividends proceeds and you thought to put that money to work by buying plane and scheduling a flight. Now that is NOT a good approach as you have found out. Holding companies that "own" operating subsidiaries rarely fly and do business, unless they function as an operating company from the get go.

You now have two options ... if your plane at least makes money to pay the employees, you should be fine. If it does not ... you have a problem. You need to put that plane in fleet inactive status, meaning transferring it into a 100% owned subsidary, or putting it on used market for sale/lease (offering it for lease may not be available if you have low equity, so putting it up for sale would be your only option, but you have to remove it form the market before two weeks are up or AS will buy it at 15%of the value and you will lose the plane). Once your plane is off your fleet, you can fire all those employees paying them 4 weeks severance package. Or you can keep them on your payroll. You can fire them only if you have sufficient money to pay their severance. If you keep them and you do not have money when the week end closing comes, you "may" be given a rescue loan for two consecutive weeks... but that is not 100% guaranteed. If you are not given rescue loan, your holding (and with it, your subsidiary) will be liquidated.

The best approach would be to see how you can make the plane work in your favor, and for it to earn enough money to pay the employees.

If that is not an option, and If you do not have enough money, you should enter in an emergency mode and try to sell some stock of your publicly traded subsidiary. Maybe ask the investors to help you out (at the end, if your holding is liquidated, they may lose their whole investment, so they may have some incentive to help you out). Selling stock to pay off those employees and putting the plane on used market is your best option, if you cannot get that plane work for you and make profit.

If you put it on market, as I mentioned, fire all employees and you will have a clean holding. Before two weeks are up, get the plane off the market into your fleet, DO NOT CLICK on STAFF button, and then immediately put it back on the market so your two week's clock starts ticking again. If you go to STAFF tab while your plane is within your fleet YOU WILL get those employees hired again even if you have no flights scheduled (see here: http://community.airlinesim.aero/topic/6860-new-bug-aircraft-asset-transfer-createshires-staff/#entry57271 ).

Hope this helps.

George

...Keep in mind it's not 22 per airplane. ...

That's what I somehow ignored in my previous post. For whatever reason I thought it's 22 per airframe which is of course not the case (I checked and it's immediately 44 if you have a fleet of 10?)

Still, operating ONE Cessna 208A between two cities in AS gives you at least 36 persons on the payroll - which certainly is way too much. Let's not forget: maint, being among the most labour intense fields, is sourced out in AS.

As you correctly said, this is a simulation intended to "play" the average airline and not some bushflyer activities in central Africa, so there's not much to argue about the size of staff in general.

It'd be neat if you could choose your "archetype" at the beginning that would give you certain bonuses and penalties for doing certain things, at least until you realize archetypes are just a way to further categorize and label things and people. There's a way to do a small bush-flyer in AS. You might even make a few hundred bucks.

Well if anyone is interested in a Nord 262 aircraft on Quimby,

I have a brand new one on the aircraft market at $150,000 (5th of book value)

or at 10% of book value now.. just need to get rid of this aircraft.

Another thing, if I lay off these staff am I going to end up paying 10 times the weekly wage in layoff compensation or something?

It's either 5x or 6x the national average for each employee. So if your weekly payroll was $500,000, and you laid off your whole staff, it would cost you somewhere around $2.5 million to $3.0 million. You can fire one and note the amount of money it cost in severance pay and the national average for that position and figure out the exact multiplier.

It is 4x if I am remember correctly

Yes it is about 6x

I just fired a flight attendant to test this.

Country average at that time was $516. Severance pay turned out to be $2940. That's 5.69767x, which is between 5 and 6, just as I said.

To retest, I fired a pilot. Country average was $1237. Severance pay was $7140. That's 5.772029x. So be aware, it's not an exact number, as the country average is an average, but the calculations probably go to the exact amount. But between 5x and 6x is where you want to approximate.

Severance pay is based on the standard wages

I just fired a flight attendant to test this.

And I find what you are doing rather cynical. You’re talking about people here… :wink:

And I find what you are doing rather cynical. You're talking about people here... ;)

You know, I was going to say I fired one that was suspected of stealing from passengers, but then I noticed how much I had to pay that former employee. I figured while I might be doing something cynical, that flight attendant made out better than I ever did when I lost a job.