Pilot Recruiting and Retention

English Boards Suggestions and Ideas
1

This might have been suggested before; sorry if it has been. Anyway, there is a pilot shortage that the real world airlines are facing right now.  Pilot recruiting and retention can make or break an airline.  I think I might have some ideas to (at least somewhat) introduce this to the game. 

Pilot Flying Hour Requirement:

The airline can choose what is required to be employed at their respective airline.  I think a drop down box/radio button option would work: 250 hours, 1500 hours, 5000 hours, 10,000 hours.  Make it so 40% of pilots are in the 250 hour mark, 30% of pilots are in the 1500 hour mark, 20% of pilots are in the 5000 hour pool, and 10% of pilots are in the 10,000 hour pool.  Now these "hour requirements" are just minimums to be employed at the airline, so an airline with a 250 hour requirement could hire a 10,000 hour pilot. The different pilot skill levels will bring in additional features, which will be discussed below. But first and foremost, let me state that You do not know how experienced the pilot is when you hire him.  You don't get to see how many pilots are in each pool; just two values: A pilot pool (how many pilots in the country/world there are total), and An Applicant pool: How many pilots have "applied" to fly for your airline.

Pilot Pay

First of all, most pilots in the real world are unionized.  So therefore, I think our pilots should have a "contract".. i.e., once you set a pay rate for your pilots, you cannot adjust it for two weeks, unless you add a different aircraft type.  Then you can adjust the pay for just that new aircraft type.  Pilot pay can do two things.  First of all, impact staff mood (like it does already).  Secondly, it can also dictate how many pilots you have in your "applicant pool".  An entry level pilot with 250 hours can expect to make entry level wages, and would therefore expect to make less money.  The pilots with 10,000 hours would want to make a ton of money.  I think this should be a random percentage of the national average salary for each pilot tier in order to attract the respective tier.  So (for example) If you pay... 50% of average salary, you attract 250 hour pilots.  100% of the average salary (so.... the average salary), you attract 1500 hour pilots.  If you pay 150% of national average, you attract 5000 hour pilots.  If you pay 200% (so double the average salary), you attract 10,000 hour pilots. Again, this would be random and not known to the community or the individual airlines.  Now in the real world, you get 250 hour pilots who think they're entitled to 7 figures a year, and you have some 10,000 hour pilots who got 10,000 hours just because they love to fly.  So I think this should include a random "fudge" factor from each pilot group.  High time pilots who will work below the wage requirements mentioned before, and low time pilots who will work above the wage requirements mentioned before.  This would require airlines to play with their salaries to see what happens to their applicant pool.

Fleet Size/Type/Age:

Pilots want to fly the biggest, newest, fastest, and best.  Your fleet should have some impact on your applicant pool.  I'd say the popularity with passengers should coincide with the popularity with the pilots.  Also, if you add/subtract any aircraft to your fleet, that could be a sign of growth or shrinkage that can influence morale by a certain factor.  

So.... what does this all mean?

Low Time vs High Time Pilots:

Why would someone want to market to low or high time pilots?  Well, like I said, you have fleet and pay implications for each "tier".  But I think low time vs high time pilots should also contribute to the image and reliability of your airline.  If you have an airline full of newbies, you might incur delays and cancellations because they did something wrong.  Highly experienced pilots know what they're doing, so less cancellations or delays will occur.  Also, highly experienced pilots know how to find smooth air when encountering turbulence, so our passengers can have a smooth ride, therefore increasing image.  Obviously the turbulence situation is hypothetical, but that's how high time vs low times can influence your image.

Pilot Retention:

Lastly, if your pilot mood gets below a certain threshold for whatever reason, I think they should start quitting.  Conversely, if you have high morale, pilots might start telling their "friends", and you might start see your applicant pool creep up.  

This might make things interesting.  Again, sorry if it's been suggested before.  Let me know what you think!

2

It would make things interesting, but incredibly complex compared to the existing model, where some random person on the street gets black van'ed and forced to become a pilot whenever a player needs one.

3

One problem is: if you have an old server, the most experienced pilot might be all taken by the old airlines, and it will be even harder for new airlines to compete with the old ones, unless you make the pilot in AS being able to leave the company and finding another job. In this case, it might be too much micromanagement. 

4

While interesting and realistic, I consider it personally very complex, involved, and time consuming, for a very little benefit.

Some aspects of it could be useful in the future though, with a possible multiple passenger types, LCCs need to differentiate not only on revenue side of tariffs, but also on the cost side… And having cheaper and more expensive pilots might be a way to go, but in somewhat simplified form. The one presented is very complex.

5

It would make things interesting, but incredibly complex compared to the existing model, where some random person on the street gets black van'ed and forced to become a pilot whenever a player needs one.

That thought always goes through my mind every time I train a new pilot.

"You wanna go places, buddy?"

6

If it would be because of the painful media nobody passager would ever know that pilots are exhausted or under paid :). There is no media in the game and 99% of passagers will never be able to see the difference between a bad pilot and a good pilot. Unlike me, not all passagers abandon their comfortable seat and ask for a cockpit jump seat when they board the plane. I learned the trick to ask the pilots directly as those "cruel" flight attendants will never let you.

7

There would probably have to be crashes in the game before pilot experience were made a competitive factor! :-/

8

I also don't see how pilot experience can affect anything in the game at this current point in time. Flights are simply operated, and there are no crashes or anything. There's even no penalty for landing at 'difficult' airports such as GIB.  The planes just go from A to B and that's it.

If you want pilot experience to matter, you will need to introduce weather. An experienced pilot will be better able to deal with weather than a less experienced one. And imperatively you will also need to introduce incidents and even crashes. Incidents could be an emergency landing which could damage the aircraft, redirection to another airport due to weather, etc. And, in rare cases, a complete crash killing all your crew and pax on the aircraft and destroying it. Odds of incidents would be increased due to inexperienced pilots, low aircraft condition and weather.

I think it's been mentioned before that loading real life live weather onto the servers is just undoable. So it would need to be some randomized system that's remotely realistic. Thunderstorms and heavy winds would be more likely to occur at certain locations than snowstorms and blizzards, for example.

Without incidents, what's the point of having an experienced pilot? The plane will always go from A to B no problem. ALLWAYS. I would certainly not invest in it.

9

If I remember correctly, it was told over several times, there wold be no crashes in Airlinesim.

10

I also don't see how pilot experience can affect anything in the game at this current point in time. Flights are simply operated, and there are no crashes or anything. There's even no penalty for landing at 'difficult' airports such as GIB.  The planes just go from A to B and that's it.

If you want pilot experience to matter, you will need to introduce weather. An experienced pilot will be better able to deal with weather than a less experienced one. And imperatively you will also need to introduce incidents and even crashes. Incidents could be an emergency landing which could damage the aircraft, redirection to another airport due to weather, etc. And, in rare cases, a complete crash killing all your crew and pax on the aircraft and destroying it. Odds of incidents would be increased due to inexperienced pilots, low aircraft condition and weather.

I think it's been mentioned before that loading real life live weather onto the servers is just undoable. So it would need to be some randomized system that's remotely realistic. Thunderstorms and heavy winds would be more likely to occur at certain locations than snowstorms and blizzards, for example.

I do like the concept to randomize the game play more than it is currently affected by the AGEX.

Random or seasonal weather could influence for example the delays. The aircraft condition could also influence some AOGs which would lead to either cancelled or delayed flights. If there are big events (large snow storm that affects 80% of Europe) a big number of flights could get delayed or cancelled which would impact profitability. Airlines with a less tight flight plan might have an advantage as they can compensate for delays, while a end to end planning will impact more flights.

As AS already repositions an aircraft in case of cancelled flights automatically, I would believe that the micro-managing requirement wouldn't be too big, though it would provide for a bit more "noise" in the so regular flow.

11

As AS already repositions an aircraft in case of cancelled flights automatically, I would believe that the micro-managing requirement wouldn't be too big, though it would provide for a bit more "noise" in the so regular flow.

Actually, the repositioning is done during instancing of the flight 72 hours in advance to the moment of the time of instancing. If there is no scheduled flight at a time window 72 hours in advance to correspond to a time point of a canceled flight, there is not going to happen any instancing and canceled flights can accumulate until an instancing time that corresponds to the departure point of a flight 72 hours in advance happens.

Also I am unsure if the auto transfer calculates the airport that is necessary to transfer to time wise, or if it transfers to the next flights departure airport. In such case you could end up en route to an airport for flight X and have the flight X canceled because the aircraft does not arrive in time. Such approach to weather delays would need to be fine tuned in respect to auto transfers of aircraft, or even better we would need to have ability to switch spare aircraft (which airlines do in real life, http://crankyflier.com/2012/02/28/how-many-extra-airplanes-does-an-airline-need-ask-cranky/) and rebooking options… If flight X runs two hour late because of delay, and the airline has a different flight to that destination with available seats, pax should then be rebooked. The weather deals would open up a new book of complexities, and while they are very interesting these complexities, they would need to be programmed first :slight_smile:

12

If I remember correctly, it was told over several times, there wold be no crashes in Airlinesim.

I can understand why, partly (having your aircraft just deleted together with its entire flight plan would be a pretty big bummer especially for new players).

But still I think that at least incidents (even if you don't want to have people   killed in  crashes, which are incredibly rare in real life in any case) should eventually become a part of any realistic airline simulator.

Weather and incidents and how to deal with them are a crucial part of how airlines operate, and the handling of IRROPS is a major reason why people choose airline X over airline Y even if it costs a bit more.

I understand it takes time to program, but the goal should be, for any realistic sim like AS, to eventually incorporate it, even if it's but a very very simplified system.

13

Actually, the repositioning is done during instancing of the flight 72 hours in advance to the moment of the time of instancing. If there is no scheduled flight at a time window 72 hours in advance to correspond to a time point of a canceled flight, there is not going to happen any instancing and canceled flights can accumulate until an instancing time that corresponds to the departure point of a flight 72 hours in advance happens.

Also I am unsure if the auto transfer calculates the airport that is necessary to transfer to time wise, or if it transfers to the next flights departure airport. In such case you could end up en route to an airport for flight X and have the flight X canceled because the aircraft does not arrive in time. Such approach to weather delays would need to be fine tuned in respect to auto transfers of aircraft, or even better we would need to have ability to switch spare aircraft (which airlines do in real life, http://crankyflier.com/2012/02/28/how-many-extra-airplanes-does-an-airline-need-ask-cranky/) and rebooking options… If flight X runs two hour late because of delay, and the airline has a different flight to that destination with available seats, pax should then be rebooked. The weather deals would open up a new book of complexities, and while they are very interesting these complexities, they would need to be programmed first :slight_smile:

Actually, the repositioning is done during instancing of the flight 72 hours in advance to the moment of the time of instancing. If there is no scheduled flight at a time window 72 hours in advance to correspond to a time point of a canceled flight, there is not going to happen any instancing and canceled flights can accumulate until an instancing time that corresponds to the departure point of a flight 72 hours in advance happens.

Also I am unsure if the auto transfer calculates the airport that is necessary to transfer to time wise, or if it transfers to the next flights departure airport. In such case you could end up en route to an airport for flight X and have the flight X canceled because the aircraft does not arrive in time. Such approach to weather delays would need to be fine tuned in respect to auto transfers of aircraft, or even better we would need to have ability to switch spare aircraft (which airlines do in real life, http://crankyflier.com/2012/02/28/how-many-extra-airplanes-does-an-airline-need-ask-cranky/) and rebooking options… If flight X runs two hour late because of delay, and the airline has a different flight to that destination with available seats, pax should then be rebooked. The weather deals would open up a new book of complexities, and while they are very interesting these complexities, they would need to be programmed first :slight_smile:

In the instances I had so much delay that my flights got canceled (I like to plan tight), the game always handled it perfectly well, canceling for example a flight hub - spoke and the return flight, after which it operated as normal again.

So I think the cancellation handling is already quite good. If cancellations/delays become more common due to weather, all the algorithm needs is some more fine tuning, I think.

14

Yes, if all you're flying is A-B-A-B-A... the adjustment should work out fine (at most you should get 2 cancelled flights). But if you're flying A-B-C-D-B-E-C-E-A... for instance, you risk a never-ending wave of cancellations and repositionings. Granted, that's probably a rare thing.