First of all I would like to outline, that I really enjoy playing this game so far.
I think that there is still a lot of potential and as a professional airline pilot in real life, I came across some thoughts I would like to share. I have to admitt that I did not read across all posts in this forum, so if there are a few things, that have already been mentioned, I ask for apologies.
- Landsite: Of course, the airports would look a lot more lively on the outside, if there were parking lots, hotels, gas stations etc. Also there is definitely a need for multiple floor terminals and road access.
The shops and restaurants are a nice addition to the game, but in my opinion there is still a need for various additional services, such as travel agencies, rental car agencies etc.
- Airside: There should be more types of parking stands for aircraft. The current type of medium stands with air bridges should be used from B737/A320 upwards. In reality, planes like the CRJ, hardly ever use air bridges, so for those type of small airliners, which are already equipped with stairs, there should be a new type of medium stand without air bridges.
Also, it would be a nice addition to the game, if there were remote parking stands with bus transportation to the terminal.
Additionally, I think it should be possible to connect certain stands to certain runways, just as you do it with baggage bays and security chekpionts already. This would allow for much bigger airports with more coordinated traffic. Same thing goes with airport services. Why not dedicate certain vehicle depots to certain stands to allow for better coordination? Also the option to set up standard taxi routes to and from runways would benefit coordination and efficiency.
Concerning runways, I noticed that there is an (intentional?) difference in scale. If you place a 1000m runway, this equals exactly 125 squares of taxiway. However, 1 large square of taxiway equals 4x4 small squares. If you place a bathroom in a 4x4 square, the room shows a size of 16m². This means, that a 1000m runway is actually just 500 meters long. This also aplies to the width. I noticed that the wingspan of a CRJ700 ingame almost covers the complete width of the runway, which is 5 large squares, or 20 small scales. If 125 taxiway squares equal 1000m and the width of a runway is 5 squares, this would lead to a width of 40m. Given that the actual wingspan of the CRJ700 is just above 23m, the scale deviation applies to the length and width of the runway.
The width of most common runways vary between 23 and 60m and most medium airliners require at least 2000m length for takeoff and landing. I understand that an actual full scale 2000m would use (too) much space ingame, but why not diversify the runways in width and length?
-A small runway could be 20m(5 squares) wide and minimum 600m(150 squares) long to cover GA and small passenger aircraft up to 19 passengers. It may also consist of grass.
-A medium runway could be 32m(8 squares) wide and minimum 1200m(300 squares) long to cover all medium aircraft up to Boeing 757.
-A large runway could be 44m(11 squares) wide and minimum 1800m(450 squares) long to cover all larger aircraft which are supposed to be implemented I guess and hope.
I am aware that under these circumstances taxying would require a long time so I also suggest that game speed should be at least halved and aircraft movement speed outside the apron as well as on the runways and in the air slightly increased. Even under given circumstances, one landing every 5 ingame minutes is virtually impossible, so a decrease in game speed is essential. This would also effect turnaround time of aircraft and would allow for more daily operations.
Let me know what you think. In my opinion, these changes would bring a new degree of realism to the game.