Maintenance category cost question/dilemma

#1

So I have a dilemma.

I already have three aircraft type under my parent company, but I would like to expand my cargo network, however the cargo aircraft I want to purchase is in a different maintenance category than the three planes I have.

Correct me if I am wrong but in order to avoid the maintenance penalty, the only option would be to found a new enterprise under my parent company. I’m apprehensive to do that because the only way to realize those profits is to create an IPO, however the server I’m on doesn’t allow IPO’s. So it’s either found an enterprise under my parent company and they operate as virtually two separate companies, but I can interline, or found a separate holding (with no parent company) but they still have to operate as separate companies, and no interlining.

I know I can transfer fully purchased airplanes, but I usually lease them all as I’ve never made enough money on the temporary servers to have enough money to purchase a plane outright, without losing time or market share opportunity.

So my question. What would be the BEST option.

To take the 15% penalty across all my aircraft in the entire fleet for the 4th model?
Open another enterprise or holding?
or another option I’m overlooking?

Thanks.

#2

You can open up a subsidiary of your main airline too, not just a subsidiary of your holding. This limitation was abandoned years ago.

Other than that, it’s usually more of a hassle to start a subsidiary and deal with all of its problems than to just swallow the (neglegible) extra costs of a forth maintenance category. I think you are overthinking everything a bit.

#3

As long as you don’t reach the limit with the flight numbers, I would accept the fourth maintenance category. But of course it will only pay off if you use enough machines of this type, because of a few planes it is not worth it.

#4

It mostly depends on your size. If you are small the penalty isnt a large problem but when the penalty would mean paying 10 million more per week, its fairly uncomfortable. The honest answer is simply you dont need more than 3 maintenance categories per airline. Especially if you want to run dedicated cargo I would not use my main airline for price adjustment and statistics purposes. I would just found a subsidiary and buy some cheap wreck that I never intend to operate (max 100k purchase price) just to transfer funds around. That 100k will quickly be saved in maintenance and IL costs. When getting bigger I would put the wreck in a subsidiary and liquidated it and just transferred around planes from my leasing division that where momentarily out of lease (usually A320s).

#7

I think you’re right, I believe I am overthinking it a bit. Right now, the costs are low, but long term I can the cost being an issue. Lower margins with longer time to expand on a temporary server.

As long as you don’t reach the limit with the flight numbers, I would accept the fourth maintenance category. But of course it will only pay off if you use enough machines of this type, because of a few planes it is not worth it.

I thought transferring funds around was expressly prohibited? Or did something change?

Also when you say “buy some cheap wreck that I never intend to operate just to transfer funds around.” How are you transferring funds in this situation? In this scenario, are you not using the wreck and leasing other aircraft?

Right now my airline is small so I don’t have enough money to purchase aircraft outright, so leasing is my only option for now.

#8

Use the Asset Management tool to transfer money between companies of the same holding by gifting a cheap aircraft from airline A to B and then sell it back from B to A. Repeat as often as needed.

#9

By far the simplest and most legal method is the one @khoianh mentioned. I probably think you have 100k to spend on some random plane that you dont want to operate but just use to sell around. Transferring 100k per time isn’t much but it ads up.