Well I’ve had a right nightmare and decided to do the lowest insurance, then had CTD during a mission only to load the game backup and my C172 requires over 400,000k to fix.
Basically restarted a career as it would be quicker to get a plane
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I think the payments and the company passive economy are an utter mess.
I left my plane yesterday in an area which had over 20 missions for cargo all which would have netted me between 80 - 120 k each based on my previous experience of now having flown about 20 of these missions. They all take around 60-90 minutes (unless you speed up the sim) and they net you within the above range.
Now, I turn on the economy and I get 20k for a 6 HOUR flight and the insurance bill comes back at double that. Based on this I have switched the pilots off, have sold the 2nd plane and will now just do the missions myself and speed up the sim. Will do this in small batches as it now feels grindy and its eroding my fun of the game. The only reason I upgraded from 2020 was the career mode and ultimately the reason beneath this is I want to start an SAR company and I want to buy a TBM 930 (millions) for my cargo company.
Oh - and the daftest thing. They flew one mission and they are at EXACTLY the same airport where they flew from…
There are obviously pressures on the game industry but also more widely. I work in the services field of Enterprise software and have done for the last 25 years. Customers expectations are higher (often more unrealistically so) and patience is much shorter. That is never a good combination.
In the gaming world I see more and more companies launching products that just are not ready for market yet and I think people get upset (often quite rightly) about feeling they are an extended user testing base.
Now, having said all of that I can appreciate that a flight sim of all things isn’t the least complex game to release so there should be some pragmatic approach to realisation that you aren’t going to get a perfectly working product from day one - that is certainly where I am. For my side, I am happy to put up with 6-9 months of the product being roughly where it is at for them to tune it and fix it up. It’s not great but it is still good enough to have enjoyment and a solid sense of satisfaction in my opinion.
I do however understand where people are coming from and if you have precious little time to game it is super-frustrating to lose your last 90 minutes of game time to a CTD just before you are about to land…
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Does it work with cargo as well?
From [the MS Instructions thingy (https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/17123300945052-Career-mode-FAQ)
Q: How does the Passive Income Mode work so I can earn more income?
A: When “Crew” trigger is set to ON, you need to launch missions with other airplanes or in Employee mode if you only have one freelance aircraft to trigger “passive income.”
Passive income calculation is based on how much time you spent in one or more career missions without using aircraft with “Crew On.”
NOTE: This will not work if you are on the menus, free-flying, doing world photographer, or with the game turned off
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It might be a bug, and it may have been fixed in patch 3, however I could not get a crew to fly my owned plane no matter how many employee missions I flew.
Once I bought a second plane I had a dialog about setting ‘Crew On’ and crew will now fly either or both of my planes.
I set ‘Crew On’ on both planes so if I decide to do an employee mission, both owned planes are generating revenue.
Ive 'always had my planes on “Crew”, and typically do the employee missions to “open new market” areas.
*** I’ve only had passive income once - two days after Update 3. ***
Maybe they’re using a bi-monthly salary pay period now. 
IRL, people usually know and are informed EXACTLY how they will be compensated for the position they accept.
But since this game is targeted at gamers, they might be modelling criminal “income” streams, where things are subject to change at any time. You’ll never be certain how much you’ll actually get paid - AND LIKE IT. 
Passive income is only generated if you fly for your own company. For example, if you own a transport business and a second company for VIP services, you need to fly for the transport company, and during that time, the crew from your VIP business will generate income.
However, if you’re flying as a regular employee (not for your own company), no passive income will be generated.
That’s how I’ve observed it—it seems you need to fly for your own company to earn passive income.
I “typically” fly as an employee, but I always at least risk a company SAR mission each day for a large quick payout.
Still, you have better passive income somehow. I’ve only seen it once in 3 weeks.
I’ll have to see tomorrow. Yesterday I did mostly company missions, as well as crash my SAR plane.
Also, the “clarification” suggested that it worked if you flew as an employyee too.
That’s been fixed, you can now fly as an employee and your company planes with Crew set to ON will generate passive income. I did a SAR mission and got 20 mins of time each for my two company cargo planes.
I wrecked the left landing strut and wheel on the XCub I was flying as an employee. It was a pain to taxi to the lost and found person. The plane only wanted to go left, not straight or right.
Somehow managed to get airborne. It handled well enough landing back at the paved airport runway.
I’m no longer doing the plane SAR missions. It’s not worth it to me. I’ll see if the Crew Guy ever generates any income with it, which I still have only had passive income once. I’lll wait until I get a helicopter or just do employee ones for fun.
Quick question for the chat:
Regarding passive income—there are different opinions on this.
Is the money really reduced when using Simrate compared to flying the full three hours normally?
Has anyone tested this and can confirm whether you actually earn more money by flying without Simrate?
I’m not 100% sure yet, but I’m almost there… You get paid based on the time you’re flying. Sim Rate is immaterial. If you spend 3 hrs flying, you earn more than if you spend 1 hr flying. If you fly sim rate you simply fly further in the given time. Distance means nothing however.
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I am now 285 hours invested in career mode and I am now realising how broken this product is.
Some times my crew earnings cover my premium insurance but today my insurance bill was 200k more than crew earnings.
To make things worse after a minor incident with my carravan I was hit with an 800k bill and no insurance payment to cover damage.
This is ruining the game and making it impossible to progress.
The comms with ATC is glitched refusing to accept inputs on progress box such as contacting arrival airport on approach or only works with comms. Sometimes not accepting any input after landing at destination airport and not progressing to end of task after hours of flight with perfect procedures.
This all needs fixing and fast.
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IMO insurance isn’t working properly right now. I set all of my planes to basic insurance. I know what to expect from the payout that way.
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I don’t understand what to do when I have a 2nd plane and have a Cargo Company. What I’ve been reading implies I must be flying. If so Who, How, Where, When and Why sums up my questions. Must I be flying all the time for an AI pilot to be flying only when I’m flying. Does the AI only earn credits when we are both flying? I know I’m stuck in MSFS 2024 hell. Please take a moment to help. Thanks.
Hi
- Set your 2nd plane to “crew on” from the company plane Icon that you have bought.
- You fly your own plane in career and from the moment you take off until you land the second plane (or more if you get more) will earn you passive credits.
- You must sign out of MSFS 2024 15 minutes before UTC, you can sign back in 15 minutes after, as this is when the SIM allocates you your passive earnings.
- Any company plane will earn credits at the same time so if you buy a second company and buy a plane this too will earn passive credits.
- Make sure that at least every 12 to 15 hours you check the maintenance of both planes and maintain them sufficiently - your AI pilot will not even take off if maintenance is not in the green - so no passive credits.
- Make sure you open each item and check because there is a bug in the maintenance system which will show green but be orange underneath.
- You may swap planes and fly the other one if you want maybe because you prefer the area it is in or it has a better mission. Make sure you swap the crew on/off before take off in that case.
- Once you decide you wish to purchase more planes - bearing in mind you have the credits, think about what planes you want to buy. The more expensive a plane is the more it costs to maintain but it also earns you more income and allows longer missions.
- If you do not have the Specialisations/licences, it restricts you to what planes you can fly until you get them.
I hope that helps