Plan and indicators
What the project is working on and what comes next — and how the indicators behind the calculation change. Suggest work through the project's Telegram bot; accepted suggestions appear here credited to their author, if they chose to be credited.
Suggest work — the project's Telegram bot →One person builds this project in their spare time: dates are a guide, not a promise.
Done 8
- Telegram bot for data, error reports and plan suggestions
- Network building in separate processes: many simultaneous runs no longer block each other
- “Plan and indicators” page: work plan and change series
An open plan crediting who proposed what, and charts: fuel, charges, air navigation, maintenance, ownership.
- Regional jet fuel prices — a series instead of one point per region
There is no open regional spot (IATA's monitor is licensed Platts data). Official series are used instead: US — airline cost per gallon (BTS), Russia — TS-1 exchange price plus into-plane mark-up, not tied to USGC; an agent extends them monthly. Europe, the Middle East and Asia stay on the article's point — no open series there.
- Research: dynamic pricing — objective fare and passenger data from open sources
Became the model check on Frontier and Southwest: DB1C tickets, late-purchase premium, average fare by pair traffic — now in the calculation.
- Model check on the Frontier and Southwest networks: 1.6 million flights against 2025 reports
Fixed US air navigation, US airport charges, crew pay level and taxi time by airport.
- Network calculation from the research: utilisation by network type instead of 300 h, crews from annual hours, reserve and scheduled maintenance as explicit shares
Done 9 Nov 2026: utilisation from the network's sectors within the base window × the annual factor of the network type (from Form 41 T-2: shuttle 0.81, hub 0.74, low-cost 0.52), crews from annual hours with a duty check, reserve and heavy maintenance as shares. Airport night restrictions — a reference file an agent extends every Tuesday; a ban at the base narrows the window.
- Maintenance by aircraft age and rate growth over time; new types bottom-up with an actual-to-catalogue factor
Done 10 Nov 2026: type rate from Form 41 (36 types), aircraft age as a calculator field, +3 % a year, new types from their predecessor × 0.7 (pairs B38M/B738, B39M/B739, A21N/A321). Check: Southwest −2 %, Frontier +14 % — ultra-low-cost carriers maintain cheaper than the average US carrier. Bottom-up from engine catalogues — later.
In progress 2
- Research: what an aircraft costs — list price, market value by age, lease rates
The most frequent uncovered search query to the site per Search Console. Since 10 Nov 2026 an agent collects list prices, deal prices, appraisals and lease rates from publications every Wednesday — a series on the type page, next to the Form 41 maintenance series. Next — the article and a lease rate by type and age in the calculator.
- Research: demand between cities — income, tourism, business activity, diasporas, visas
The calculator's gravity model knows only population and distance. Open World Bank, Eurostat and UN tables were connected on 10 Nov 2026; next — how much accuracy each factor adds, a seasonality profile and traffic for new pairs. The first part of a future price corridor.
Next 14
- Airport discounts and incentive schemes in the charges calculation
- Actual block time from open flight data
US taxi times from T-100 are already in; next — airborne time from actual flights and taxi outside the US.
- Fuel burn correction for the Boeing 737: the 737-700 currently runs 14 % low
- Tariffs of major US airports instead of a regional estimate
- Crew rate as a per-carrier input, with a hint by carrier class
- Comparison bands from all 30 ranked carriers, normalised to the flight length
- Payload limits in heat and at high airfields when the flight is mass-limited
- Pair ranking in Network mode: “large and growing market” and “slots” hints next to the pair
- Wind in fuel and block time
- Article series “How the calculator works”: fuel, charges, air navigation, maintenance, fleet, market, network, types, limits, data
- A simple beginner panel: from where and on what → where it pays and how much per day
One screen, a few fields, routes ranked by profit; data quality shown as one tag per number.
- Fleet report: compare at equal flying hours, not equal fleet count
The report should state its question first: who carries a given demand cheaper, or who earns more on the same capital.
- Short versions of the research in a Telegram channel with discussion
- Research: how to size a city and regional market — economy, population, tourism
The population-based traffic model explains about a quarter of the variance and misses resorts.