dealer, used aircraft, listings, auctions and your own rental
New aircraft
A new aircraft from the dealer costs the list price plus a markup, and the dealer delivers it to the airport you choose — only where the runway is long enough for the type. You can pay part of the price with a loan secured by the aircraft you are buying. The aircraft is insured automatically on purchase.
Used aircraft
Used aircraft from stock are aircraft retired by rental firms: cheaper than new, but older and worn. A type that is no longer built — the MD-82, 747-400, Il-76 and others — cannot be bought new: the dealer has it only used and only a few, at most twelve of each, one more every twenty days, and the fewer are left, the dearer they get. Their condition is only an estimate from age and hours — the exact figure shows after purchase. A used aircraft stays where it is and you have to fly out to collect it; a cheap aircraft on the other side of the map is therefore a decision, not just a lower price.
Sales, listings and auctions
You can sell your own aircraft to the dealer at once, but below market value. Players pay more: you list the aircraft at a fixed price or put it up for auction. Listing costs a small fee, the aircraft does not fly while listed and a commission is taken from the sale. In an auction no money is blocked when you bid, but the winner must have it at the close — whoever does not loses the aircraft to the next bidder and pays a penalty from their bid. An unsold listing closes after its period and the aircraft comes back. An aircraft pledged for a loan cannot be sold until the loan is repaid, and an aircraft won in an event not before thirty days.
Your own rental
In Fleet you can offer your own aircraft for rent to others — dry, where the renter pays for fuel, or with fuel included, where you pay for it. You set the rate per flight hour yourself and the rent arrives after each of the renter’s flights. You cannot offer a crew with it: a rented aircraft is flown only by a player. While it is rented out you cannot use, refuel or repair it yourself.
Value and depreciation
An aircraft’s value falls with age and hours, and the drop is written off once a month. Market value decides the dealer’s buy-back price, how much the bank lends against it as collateral and the highest insurance payout.
Live used aircraft prices
Every aircraft type has a worldwide price index. Used-aircraft purchases — from the dealer as well as from player listings and auctions — raise it; sales to the dealer and a surplus of aircraft for sale lower it; and when the type is not traded it slowly returns to the base. It moves slowly, over weeks, and has a cap. The index multiplies the price of used aircraft, the dealer’s buy-back price and the market value of your aircraft — and with it how much the bank lends against them and the most the insurer pays out. It does not change the price of a new aircraft from the dealer. In the market you see it next to offers as a percentage tag with a small chart of the last 90 days, a larger chart in the Details window, and an arrow next to the market value in Fleet. The cap is ±15 %: it cannot go higher, otherwise reselling to the dealer alone would turn a profit.
Maintenance, repairs and insurance
wear, workshop and parts, A to D checks, insurance claims
Wear
An aircraft is made of components — airframe, engines, propellers (main and tail rotor on a helicopter), landing gear, avionics, hydraulics, electrics, APU and interior — and each has its own condition. Flying wears them; faster after a hard landing, an overspeed, on an unpaved runway, with a check overdue or with a deferred defect. Below a certain condition the risk of failure climbs steeply and a badly worn aircraft will not be dispatched at all. Fleet shows the condition of the components.
Repairs: the workshop matters
A repair restores the selected components to full condition and takes four hours per component; meanwhile the aircraft stays in maintenance. The price depends on where the aircraft is. Large and medium airports have their own workshop; at an airport with none — not the airport’s, not yours, not an ally’s — the repair is a field repair with a surcharge. When your maintenance shop at that airport has spare parts in stock, they replace part of the price and the repair is cheaper. Repairing the whole aircraft also closes its deferred defects. It is paid from the aircraft’s maintenance fund first: every flight adds to it, and in normal flying it covers repairs and checks. Whoever works an aircraft hard — hard landings, overspeeds, unpaved runways, overdue checks — wears it faster than the fund grows and pays the difference from cash. The fund has a cap; when it is full, flights take nothing for maintenance. It goes with the aircraft when sold, and the remainder is refunded when the dealer buys it or it is written off. When and what you repair is still up to you.
A, B, C and D checks
Checks fall due by flight hours and by calendar, and can be ordered in the last fifth of the interval or once overdue. A medium airport’s workshop handles an A check, a large one a B check; a C check needs a level 3 shop and a D check level 4 — your own or an alliance partner’s. A check takes time, restores part of the components’ condition and costs more when overdue. You can keep flying with an overdue A or B check, the aircraft just wears faster and the insurer cuts payouts; with an overdue C or D check the aircraft will not be dispatched.
Heavy cargo charter
The board of a large airport always keeps a few large cargo jobs available for freighters that would load nothing from the ordinary board: at a hub (T0) two of 60–100 t to 1,000–4,000 nm and one of 20–40 t to 500–2,500 nm, at a large airport (T1) 15–30 t to 300–1,500 nm and 4–8 t to 150–800 nm, at a medium one (T2) 2–8 t to 100–600 nm. They do not count towards the board, last 48 hours and are replaced once taken or expired. They are public and paid from the ordinary price list — heavy cargo has a higher rate per tonne. On the board they carry the “charter · heavy cargo” tag.
Work for the aircraft nearby
A large aircraft at a small airport finds nothing on the job board — small airports have small jobs on purpose. Fleet → aircraft detail → the Work nearby tab goes through the job boards of airports within range, runs the same check on every job as dispatch does (load, fuel, take-off weight, range, runway) and works out the profit after the costs of the flight and of the empty ferry from where the aircraft stands. It sorts them by profit per hour and shows only those you earn on. You can book a job right there; dispatch the empty ferry to it in Dispatch afterwards. The profit is an estimate before tax from the job board price — the punctuality bonus, slots and night operations are decided by the flight itself.
Range by load
How far an aircraft can fly depends on how much it carries. With a typical load — a full cabin or a full hold — it may go at most 15 % beyond the range in the type sheet; with less load further, and empty up to the ferry range. Above that, fuel decides: the take-off weight must not exceed MTOW and the tanks must hold fuel for the trip, the alternate and a 45-minute reserve. That is why an Il-76 with a full 47 t reaches about 2,100 nm, with 30 t about 3,000 nm and empty over 3,700 nm.
Cabin classes: business and VIP charter
Every type has a cabin class: basic (unpressurised piston and turboprop aircraft), comfort (pressurised turboprops and airliners) and executive (business jets); the administrator can override it on the type sheet. A business charter is carried only by a comfort or executive cabin, a VIP charter only by an executive one. Both are paid for the whole aircraft by distance, not per person: business $1,000 + $15 per mile (groups up to 12 people), VIP $2,000 + $30 per mile (a large group from 6 people ×1.5) — and the boards of large airports (T0–T2) always have a few VIP charters available at 200–1,500 nm; they do not count towards the board and are replaced once taken. On the board such a job carries a cabin tag and the “does not fit” rating tells you when your aircraft cannot carry it.
Aircraft age and airframe life
An old aircraft is cheap to buy and dearer to run, as in real life. From ten years of age the maintenance fund rate and repair cost rise by three quarters of a percent per year (at most 30 %) and the failure probability by a percent per year (at most ×1.4); the Maintenance tab shows what that means for your aircraft. Jet types whose production started before 1990 pay half as much again for landing and handling at large airports (T0, T1) — noise and emissions. The airframe has an hour limit by category (piston 25,000 h, turboprop 40,000, business jets 30,000, regional 60,000, narrowbody 75,000, widebody and freighter 90,000). In the last 10 % of its life the aircraft’s value falls towards scrap, and an exhausted airframe cannot fly. That is when a life extension can be bought: a tenth of the price of a new aircraft (each further one half as much again), a fifth of the limit added, a month in maintenance and a level 3 workshop — your own or an ally’s.
Deferred defects
A failure you may still fly with is logged as a deferred defect. Depending on what broke, it limits the payload and speeds up wear on the rest of the aircraft. A serious one (hydraulics, landing gear, engine, electrics) must be fixed within three days, avionics and APU within ten, minor cabin items within a hundred and twenty; after the deadline the aircraft stays on the ground until you repair it.
Insurance
Your own aircraft is insured automatically on purchase and the premium is paid per flight hour; worse reputation makes it dearer. A claim arises after a crash — a touchdown above the g limit, or when the repair would cost more than a large share of the aircraft’s value; the aircraft is then written off. It also arises after a flight that leaves the aircraft unserviceable with substantial damage. The insurer pays only for the damage from that flight — the difference between the aircraft’s condition before and after it — or, for a written-off aircraft, its market value, always less the deductible; wear flown earlier is a matter for maintenance, and an aircraft grounded by wear alone is not covered; for an aircraft that was not airworthy on paper (overdue check, expired defect) the deductible is doubled. Nothing is paid for a flight voided by the anti-cheat, and a crash costs reputation. When the simulator reports a crash, the flight ends without pay, the jobs on board fail and, depending on the impact rate, the aircraft waits damaged for repair at the nearest airport or is written off.
Components. Airframe, engines, propellers or rotors, gear, avionics, electrics, hydraulics, cabin and APU — each with its condition, TBO and deferred defects. This is where you see what breaks next.
Market. New aircraft from the dealer, used ones, auctions, player listings. Buy on credit with the purchased aircraft as collateral.
Based on the in-game help and manual (Help tab) — the numbers are the default rule values; the in-game manual shows the ones the server is using right now. Post questions and experience in this thread.
Aircraft: buying, selling and leasing
dealer, used aircraft, listings, auctions and your own rental
New aircraft
A new aircraft from the dealer costs the list price plus a markup, and the dealer delivers it to the airport you choose — only where the runway is long enough for the type. You can pay part of the price with a loan secured by the aircraft you are buying. The aircraft is insured automatically on purchase.
Used aircraft
Used aircraft from stock are aircraft retired by rental firms: cheaper than new, but older and worn. A type that is no longer built — the MD-82, 747-400, Il-76 and others — cannot be bought new: the dealer has it only used and only a few, at most twelve of each, one more every twenty days, and the fewer are left, the dearer they get. Their condition is only an estimate from age and hours — the exact figure shows after purchase. A used aircraft stays where it is and you have to fly out to collect it; a cheap aircraft on the other side of the map is therefore a decision, not just a lower price.
Sales, listings and auctions
You can sell your own aircraft to the dealer at once, but below market value. Players pay more: you list the aircraft at a fixed price or put it up for auction. Listing costs a small fee, the aircraft does not fly while listed and a commission is taken from the sale. In an auction no money is blocked when you bid, but the winner must have it at the close — whoever does not loses the aircraft to the next bidder and pays a penalty from their bid. An unsold listing closes after its period and the aircraft comes back. An aircraft pledged for a loan cannot be sold until the loan is repaid, and an aircraft won in an event not before thirty days.
Your own rental
In Fleet you can offer your own aircraft for rent to others — dry, where the renter pays for fuel, or with fuel included, where you pay for it. You set the rate per flight hour yourself and the rent arrives after each of the renter’s flights. You cannot offer a crew with it: a rented aircraft is flown only by a player. While it is rented out you cannot use, refuel or repair it yourself.
Value and depreciation
An aircraft’s value falls with age and hours, and the drop is written off once a month. Market value decides the dealer’s buy-back price, how much the bank lends against it as collateral and the highest insurance payout.
Live used aircraft prices
Every aircraft type has a worldwide price index. Used-aircraft purchases — from the dealer as well as from player listings and auctions — raise it; sales to the dealer and a surplus of aircraft for sale lower it; and when the type is not traded it slowly returns to the base. It moves slowly, over weeks, and has a cap. The index multiplies the price of used aircraft, the dealer’s buy-back price and the market value of your aircraft — and with it how much the bank lends against them and the most the insurer pays out. It does not change the price of a new aircraft from the dealer. In the market you see it next to offers as a percentage tag with a small chart of the last 90 days, a larger chart in the Details window, and an arrow next to the market value in Fleet. The cap is ±15 %: it cannot go higher, otherwise reselling to the dealer alone would turn a profit.
Maintenance, repairs and insurance
wear, workshop and parts, A to D checks, insurance claims
Wear
An aircraft is made of components — airframe, engines, propellers (main and tail rotor on a helicopter), landing gear, avionics, hydraulics, electrics, APU and interior — and each has its own condition. Flying wears them; faster after a hard landing, an overspeed, on an unpaved runway, with a check overdue or with a deferred defect. Below a certain condition the risk of failure climbs steeply and a badly worn aircraft will not be dispatched at all. Fleet shows the condition of the components.
Repairs: the workshop matters
A repair restores the selected components to full condition and takes four hours per component; meanwhile the aircraft stays in maintenance. The price depends on where the aircraft is. Large and medium airports have their own workshop; at an airport with none — not the airport’s, not yours, not an ally’s — the repair is a field repair with a surcharge. When your maintenance shop at that airport has spare parts in stock, they replace part of the price and the repair is cheaper. Repairing the whole aircraft also closes its deferred defects. It is paid from the aircraft’s maintenance fund first: every flight adds to it, and in normal flying it covers repairs and checks. Whoever works an aircraft hard — hard landings, overspeeds, unpaved runways, overdue checks — wears it faster than the fund grows and pays the difference from cash. The fund has a cap; when it is full, flights take nothing for maintenance. It goes with the aircraft when sold, and the remainder is refunded when the dealer buys it or it is written off. When and what you repair is still up to you.
A, B, C and D checks
Checks fall due by flight hours and by calendar, and can be ordered in the last fifth of the interval or once overdue. A medium airport’s workshop handles an A check, a large one a B check; a C check needs a level 3 shop and a D check level 4 — your own or an alliance partner’s. A check takes time, restores part of the components’ condition and costs more when overdue. You can keep flying with an overdue A or B check, the aircraft just wears faster and the insurer cuts payouts; with an overdue C or D check the aircraft will not be dispatched.
Heavy cargo charter
The board of a large airport always keeps a few large cargo jobs available for freighters that would load nothing from the ordinary board: at a hub (T0) two of 60–100 t to 1,000–4,000 nm and one of 20–40 t to 500–2,500 nm, at a large airport (T1) 15–30 t to 300–1,500 nm and 4–8 t to 150–800 nm, at a medium one (T2) 2–8 t to 100–600 nm. They do not count towards the board, last 48 hours and are replaced once taken or expired. They are public and paid from the ordinary price list — heavy cargo has a higher rate per tonne. On the board they carry the “charter · heavy cargo” tag.
Work for the aircraft nearby
A large aircraft at a small airport finds nothing on the job board — small airports have small jobs on purpose. Fleet → aircraft detail → the Work nearby tab goes through the job boards of airports within range, runs the same check on every job as dispatch does (load, fuel, take-off weight, range, runway) and works out the profit after the costs of the flight and of the empty ferry from where the aircraft stands. It sorts them by profit per hour and shows only those you earn on. You can book a job right there; dispatch the empty ferry to it in Dispatch afterwards. The profit is an estimate before tax from the job board price — the punctuality bonus, slots and night operations are decided by the flight itself.
Range by load
How far an aircraft can fly depends on how much it carries. With a typical load — a full cabin or a full hold — it may go at most 15 % beyond the range in the type sheet; with less load further, and empty up to the ferry range. Above that, fuel decides: the take-off weight must not exceed MTOW and the tanks must hold fuel for the trip, the alternate and a 45-minute reserve. That is why an Il-76 with a full 47 t reaches about 2,100 nm, with 30 t about 3,000 nm and empty over 3,700 nm.
Cabin classes: business and VIP charter
Every type has a cabin class: basic (unpressurised piston and turboprop aircraft), comfort (pressurised turboprops and airliners) and executive (business jets); the administrator can override it on the type sheet. A business charter is carried only by a comfort or executive cabin, a VIP charter only by an executive one. Both are paid for the whole aircraft by distance, not per person: business $1,000 + $15 per mile (groups up to 12 people), VIP $2,000 + $30 per mile (a large group from 6 people ×1.5) — and the boards of large airports (T0–T2) always have a few VIP charters available at 200–1,500 nm; they do not count towards the board and are replaced once taken. On the board such a job carries a cabin tag and the “does not fit” rating tells you when your aircraft cannot carry it.
Aircraft age and airframe life
An old aircraft is cheap to buy and dearer to run, as in real life. From ten years of age the maintenance fund rate and repair cost rise by three quarters of a percent per year (at most 30 %) and the failure probability by a percent per year (at most ×1.4); the Maintenance tab shows what that means for your aircraft. Jet types whose production started before 1990 pay half as much again for landing and handling at large airports (T0, T1) — noise and emissions. The airframe has an hour limit by category (piston 25,000 h, turboprop 40,000, business jets 30,000, regional 60,000, narrowbody 75,000, widebody and freighter 90,000). In the last 10 % of its life the aircraft’s value falls towards scrap, and an exhausted airframe cannot fly. That is when a life extension can be bought: a tenth of the price of a new aircraft (each further one half as much again), a fifth of the limit added, a month in maintenance and a level 3 workshop — your own or an ally’s.
Deferred defects
A failure you may still fly with is logged as a deferred defect. Depending on what broke, it limits the payload and speeds up wear on the rest of the aircraft. A serious one (hydraulics, landing gear, engine, electrics) must be fixed within three days, avionics and APU within ten, minor cabin items within a hundred and twenty; after the deadline the aircraft stays on the ground until you repair it.
Insurance
Your own aircraft is insured automatically on purchase and the premium is paid per flight hour; worse reputation makes it dearer. A claim arises after a crash — a touchdown above the g limit, or when the repair would cost more than a large share of the aircraft’s value; the aircraft is then written off. It also arises after a flight that leaves the aircraft unserviceable with substantial damage. The insurer pays only for the damage from that flight — the difference between the aircraft’s condition before and after it — or, for a written-off aircraft, its market value, always less the deductible; wear flown earlier is a matter for maintenance, and an aircraft grounded by wear alone is not covered; for an aircraft that was not airworthy on paper (overdue check, expired defect) the deductible is doubled. Nothing is paid for a flight voided by the anti-cheat, and a crash costs reputation. When the simulator reports a crash, the flight ends without pay, the jobs on board fail and, depending on the impact rate, the aircraft waits damaged for repair at the nearest airport or is written off.
Components. Airframe, engines, propellers or rotors, gear, avionics, electrics, hydraulics, cabin and APU — each with its condition, TBO and deferred defects. This is where you see what breaks next.
Market. New aircraft from the dealer, used ones, auctions, player listings. Buy on credit with the purchased aircraft as collateral.
Based on the in-game help and manual (Help tab) — the numbers are the default rule values; the in-game manual shows the ones the server is using right now. Post questions and experience in this thread.