Lease, Buy, or Order

Five acquisition channels put the same metal on your roster at very different prices and commitments. What each one costs you up front, per week, and on the way out.

Every aircraft in PlaneSim is a real, individual airframe. The market lists exact tail numbers, not catalogue entries, so the acquisition question is never just which type. It is which specific aircraft, on which contract, with which exit.

The five channels

The numbers above are world defaults and your world may differ. The structure does not.

Two lease shapes, two commitments

A lease charges rent weekly, plus a non-refundable maintenance reserve billed per flight hour to the lessor. Past that, the two contract shapes are not interchangeable.

Used-market leases, from a leasing company or another airline, derive rent from the airframe's appraised value. Age and condition drive the number, and the percentage climbs for older metal. Terms default to 52 weeks with auto-renew, and either side can end the lease: the tail goes home, your deposit comes back in full, and there is no condition penalty. This is the flexible end of the market.

Factory leases are the opposite bargain. Rent is a fixed percentage of the list price, 0.32% per week by default, locked at signing rather than tracking condition. In exchange for that stability the minimum term runs 416 weeks, and breaking one early costs the remaining rent, capped at 52 weeks. Treat a factory lease as an eight-year commitment with predictable rent, not as a flexible line you can hand back.

Whichever you sign, the tail is handed over where it currently parks, not at your base. Budget a ferry flight to bring it home. And every hour you fly stays on the airframe forever; the record follows the metal, not the operator.

Buying and selling used

You buy the exact listed tail at its asking price. Unsold asks drift down over time, and the card flags a deal priced below appraisal, so patience has a payoff. Bankruptcies feed the shelf too: fire-sale bargains carry a warning badge, and worlds with estate auctions run sealed-bid lots instead. Selling works in reverse. Offload a tail to a lessor at appraisal minus a dealer margin, or list it yourself and let a rival decide what your ex-fleet is worth.

The skill here is reading, not clicking. Every listing shows registration, type, age, total hours and cycles, cabin layout, location and owner, plus condition, time since heavy check, and an appraisal. Nothing is hidden and none of it costs anything to see. Condition and the heavy-check clock tell you what the tail will cost you after you sign; the appraisal tells you whether the ask is fair. A cheap airframe with a heavy check falling due next month is not a bargain.

Ordering new

The Manufacturers page both sells and leases anything currently in production. Buying means a deposit now and the balance due as each unit delivers. Lead times are deliberately short: 2 days for props and regional jets, 3 days for narrowbodies and widebodies by default, with multi-unit orders arriving one further unit per day. Factory-fresh aircraft arrive in a dense all-Economy layout, so the refit belongs in your launch plan, not after it.

Matching the channel to the problem

The contracts sort themselves once you name the problem. Capacity you may want to hand back next year points to the used-market lease: walkable terms, deposit returned in full, no condition penalty. A core type you will still be flying in eight years points to the factory lease, which trades that flexibility for rent locked at signing. Buying used converts reading skill into equity for airlines with cash on hand, and estate lots sharpen the same edge on distressed metal. Ordering new is for when the airframe has to be factory-fresh and the delivery date has to be known; the deposit is the price of certainty.

Contract mechanics, deposits, and the maintenance reserve are laid out in full at wiki.theplanesim.com.