Maintenance

Depend maintenance costs in any way to the country or continent your Airline is operating in?

Maintenance in South America, Africa or Asia should be cheaper than in Europe or the US as salaries are lower (and salaries are besides spare parts one of main factors in theses costs). Just lowering the costs may produce other problems, as Cargo Airlines could be founded in Africa and mainly operate in the US. Therefore the costs could depend on where exactly the aircraft is grounded for maintenance. This would make the game a bit more complicated, but I it would be a very nice feature and a great way to give you more control over the maintenance costs.

No, it does not. It solely depends on your maintenance contractor.

Your maintenance cost calculation of course in part is right, but there are some downsides to your calculation:

  • spare parts: whilst readily available anywhere in europe, they will have to be shipped to a country like guinea, suriname or the tonga islands (which takes time and… MONEY!)

  • highly skilled people often are expats in third or second world countries, expats are paid wages that are at least as high as in their home countries and often receive a "hardship compensation" on top of that.

If you do criticise the maintenance system’s status quo, you might first want to start at the availability of maintenance facilities at every airport, regardless of size and region :) . Still, I think the team is well aware of the challenges associated with that. :)

However: Thanks for your suggestion!