Finally: The completely rewritten second-hand aircraft market will be activated on all game worlds on Wednesday, August 8th. Since many things will change due to this release, here the most important notes in one place:

Depreciation to zero

One particular aspect of the new aircraft market is a clearer distinction between book and market value. Consequently, aircraft won’t be written off to an arbitrary minimum value but all the way to zero. UPDATE: The value of existing aircraft written off to the current base value of 15% will not be deprecated any further. This is to avoid sudden irregular drops in value.

Price according to supply and demand

Contrary to how things worked so far, prices for used aircraft are set according to supply and demand. Aircraft can be put on the market at a starting price between 10% and 100% of the original purchase price. After that, any player can place bids in fixed-size steps. The auction ends as soon as no further bid arrives within one hour after the last one. As such, an aircraft’s age only affects the pricing indirectly. The only important factor will be how much players are willing to pay for a particular aircraft.

Offers by official AirlineSim enterprises are always available for immediate purchase. At 110% of the factory price an aircraft can be purchased without bidding.

Loans for everyone

Another introduction is the distinction between buying and financing an aircraft and that leasing and loans are available for used aircraft for the first time. Loans for aircraft purchases - also for new aircraft - are not tied to the rating anymore and as such are available to all enterprises. Caution though: Whether loan financing makes sense depends on the current interest rate and the initial interest payments - especially for expensive aircraft - can be dangerously high. Therefore we only recommend the use of loans to advanced players.

Starting prices at introduction

When the new aircraft market is introduced the official AirlineSim companies will offer their aircraft at 75% of factory price. Over time - when aircraft arrive from liquidations or are automatically bought - offers will be placed at 100% of the value AirlineSim received its aircraft at (UDDATE: Has been 75% before as well). For older or less popular models the initial prices will consequently drop over time.

Asset Transfer Tool

Since there are strict rules in place concerning the permitted parties of a transaction, no aircraft can be transferred between enterprises of a single holding. To make up for this we added a tool that will allow aircraft transfer within a single holding as soon as the new aircraft market is introduced.

Future Adjustments

Since we are unable to predict precisely how the new market mechanisms will work in practice, all mechanics and parameters are subject to change. Especially if we discover cheating possibilities we haven’t thought of so far it might become necessary to make adjustments. Generally we will try to keep the amount of changes that might disturb the running game to an absolute minimum.

If you have further questions or you come across problems after the introduction, please refer to the forums or contact us at support@airlinesim.aero.