We are still very much at early days here. As far as I am aware there have only been a couple of occasions where an aircraft was used that someone else had had their eye on. If you are going to 'swap' aircraft, a check of the maintenance status and then a log check of the aircraft should enable you to have an idea that someone else is probably going to continue onwards with that aircraft or not.RAF_Quantum wrote: We are bound to have a few glitches with aircraft distribution whilst I am still building the routes.
Regarding 'poaching' of aircraft. It is easy to check if the aircraft has recently been flown.
If the aircraft has recently arrived at the airport, check and see which pilots are also still at the airport.
If there's one aircraft at the airport and one pilot then common sense prevails.
Lets put what's happened behind us now and enjoy the flying.
One thing to bear in mind is that most routes A to B only have one flight scheduled. If someone makes a booking and holds it for 24 hours, as well as reserving the aircraft, it also reserves the route and stops anyone else flying that route. Most routes are a short flight time so if someone is going to fly it, within a short time the route will become available again for the next pilot.
A little planning beforehand can also save you some 'grief'. If the aircraft you are going to be using is coming up for maintenance, then it makes sense to fly to another airport where there is an aircraft of the same type that will be 'fresh. This will enable an 'aircraft change' to allow the 'virtual engineers' to maintain the aircraft. This was the case with the Viscount at Jersey - it is on maintenance until this evening.
We are all learning how to 'work' the system and as I have said in another thread we have not finished our aircraft acquisitions. It's very hard to second guess what aircraft types people will want to fly, the Viscount might be 'flavour of the month' today but another aircraft will be 'flavour of the month' tomorrow.
Paitience and tolerance is a virtue so lets keep calm about this. We are all grown-ups here and we are all here to have fun.
Rgds
John
Still on my 'hols', still somewhere in the Lake District, still keepeing my eye on you