The hangup I’m having with all these msfs career addons is they have this universal “job board” where you choose your flights.

I don’t have any real-world experience with this but that strikes me very unrealistic.

for air charter companies how are the flights determined? Purely customer driven?

advertising and what about having a sales Dep.?

im trying to generate a more realistic generation of jobs.

Hi Brian,

Long time no chat!

One phrase you need to learn: "On-demand air charter"

Meaning (for most Part 135 Charter Operators), flights are scheduled per client request. Departure Times, destinations, and aircraft type are all determined by client needs / preferences.

Depending on the type of operation, that could mean as little as 2 hours' notice for the crew from the time of trip confirmation to wheels-up. Those don't tend to be the norm though (again, it depends on the type of operation, with many trips booking days, weeks or sometimes even months in advance. 

Advertising is for getting your name out there so customers can find you.

Sales people are for quoting and selling trips to clients (Also going out and finding business) <<A bit of an understatement of the actual scope and workload, but that's the general gist of it).

 

As for creating a realistic scenario for a pilot:

You'll get an email notifying you of an upcoming trip, usually with the following details:
 - Date(s)
 - Reporting time
 - Full routing with scheduled departure times
 - Number of passengers
 - Any additional relevant info. e.g. passengers are bringing golf clubs (can be a space issue on some aircraft).....or 1 dog on board etc.

Many companies have a "Pilot Self-Dispatch" system, meaning: It's your responsibility as a pilot to take a look at the trip, confirm no operational concerns, do the flight planning and operate the trip safely. 

Note: a good sales / flight coordination team will not usually sell trips on your aircraft to airports you can't safely operate into, but there are edge cases where things slip through and you, as PIC have to make a change for safety/operational reasons. e.g. Runway closed by NOTAM for annual drag-racing event  (This has happened to me before) ..so you have to find an alternative airport to pickup the client.


If you'd like to simulate this, pick a random destination at a random time, do all the planning yourself and go. It's that simple.  I'm pretty sure I built a random destination finder some years ago (in Excel) where you could specify min / max distance and runway length. I'll see if I can dig it up for you.

There are a bunch of details and dozens of different scenarios I left out, but these are the basics. Happy to discuss if you have any further questions.

 

Cheers,
DB

Edited June 19, 20232 yr by DaviiB
typo

14 hours ago, DaviiB said:

If you'd like to simulate this, pick a random destination at a random time, do all the planning yourself and go.

I suspect the "universal 'job board' where you choose your flights." does this fairly well. 🙂 

Hook

28 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I suspect the "universal 'job board' where you choose your flights." does this fairly well. 🙂 

Hook

Sadly, in real life you rarely get to choose. 

Many crews are all too familiar with certain airports for that reason. You're lucky if there's good food in the area, or at least if the FBO has a good crew lounge. 

e.g. " Teterboro.... again...." 

DB

Edited June 19, 20232 yr by DaviiB

The scene:  A small dingy office reminiscent of a film noir private investigator.  The charter pilot is pouring over his current accounting and wondering if he'll be able to pay the electric bill this month, much less have anything to eat beyond ramen.

A sultry blonde saunters in and says, "I need to charter your plane to fly to an unmarked airfield in Mexico tonight and pick up 10 duffel bags and fly them to another unmarked airstrip in Arizona, no questions asked, and don't look in the duffel bags."

"Uh..."

Hook

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

The scene:  A small dingy office reminiscent of a film noir private investigator.  The charter pilot is pouring over his current accounting and wondering if he'll be able to pay the electric bill this month, much less have anything to eat beyond ramen.

A sultry blonde saunters in and says, "I need to charter your plane to fly to an unmarked airfield in Mexico tonight and pick up 10 duffel bags and fly them to another unmarked airstrip in Arizona, no questions asked, and don't look in the duffel bags."

"Uh..."

Hook

Not in this market (North America). Everyone is insanely busy right now (unless you're based in the middle of nowhere)

Cheers

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

The scene:  A small dingy office reminiscent of a film noir private investigator.  The charter pilot is pouring over his current accounting and wondering if he'll be able to pay the electric bill this month, much less have anything to eat beyond ramen.

A sultry blonde saunters in and says, "I need to charter your plane to fly to an unmarked airfield in Mexico tonight and pick up 10 duffel bags and fly them to another unmarked airstrip in Arizona, no questions asked, and don't look in the duffel bags."

"Uh..."

Hook

Sounds like you're describing the movie "Cocaine Bear"!

2 hours ago, charliearon said:

Sounds like you're describing the movie "Cocaine Bear"!

I looked it up.  Looks like a good one to watch!

I can't tell from the trailer... is it supposed to be a comedy?  

Hook

14 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I looked it up.  Looks like a good one to watch!

I can't tell from the trailer... is it supposed to be a comedy?  

Hook

No, not really a comedy.  It's based on actual events.  Some of the scenes, though violent, made me laugh!

@DaviiB: Great post, I was looking for that kind of information for a long time. Thanks!!

@OP: I have read somewhere that many 135 operators depend on one customer for regular jobs, usually a company in the vicinity. 

As for current simulations: Newsky has an interesting market model with demand proportional to real-world population, but it is focused on airline operations. I haven't checked in about 2 months, but their operation seemed still to be in early stages then.

Peter

2 hours ago, qqwertzde said:

@OP: I have read somewhere that many 135 operators depend on one customer for regular jobs, usually a company in the vicinity. 

The 80/20 rule is alive and well. I've definitely seen it in the industry, but I've also seen companies that put the effort into diversifying their customer base to reduce concentration risk.

Usually ends up being a good idea. 

DB

@briansommers

I found the destination finder I built. Let me know if you'd like to take a look at it. 

You just input an origin airport ICAO, min/max runway length and min/max distance, and it'll spit out a random list of up to 10 airports that meet the criteria. 

DB