So this is a really weird question, so if this doesn’t make a lot of sense, I can understand that .
I’ve been playing WoA for a while now, and over the past few years I have had an extremely strict (almost like OCD) realism playstyle which I take very ‘seriously’’, meaning I only use realistic contracts, terminals, gate assignments, and that kind of thing, as you guys have probably assumed from my recent posts and guides .
My question for the community is, and more specifically for players who have been in this situation too, is how have you incorporated your own and other players fleet aircraft into your realistically-played airports?
I ask this because I’ve always wanted to start my own fleet and do connections and that kind of thing, but for me personally, having ‘fake’ airlines and aircraft with a livery that doesn’t exist in real life totally kills the sense of realism for me. I already have my own custom livery, airline name, and several aircraft unlocked, including the SF34, AT76, B463, CRJ9, E190, B752, C17, and B748, but I’ve just never really used any of them because of what I previously said.
Please let me know if you guys have any solutions to this, I don’t know if this needs to be a mindset, way you play certain aspects, etc. I know this seems like a dumb problem but it has been bugging me for a while, I appreciate all input!
I too try to play realistically, but not too a point where I’m following irl routes to the letter, not that there’s anything wrong with that . E.g., my PRG has a lot of irl ryanair routes at it and I had photos of Czech airlines planes at airports to work out where they regularly sent their 734s/atrs lmao. My Qatar Airways and Emirates are 788 and 777 respectively, yet I have Gulf Air A320/A321s, Saudia A21N and even an Air India A21N, just because that is feasibly what they might operate if demand was high enough.
Only really at my BRI do I have my own airline of about 10 planes I’ve gained from the pass, which I have in an Italian style livery and operate on routes to both playable airports, but capitals of nearby country’s as a sort of regional airline. It can feel kind of flat operating basic liveried planes in and out of your airport once you’ve finished levelling I can agree, they just look out of place. I tend to park them up on a remote stand once their use is fulfilled.
I personally can’t wait for the 747 classic freighters as I can finally have plain white or coloured tail options fly in and out as they do a lot of airports irl, something the likes of 777 or 330F’s just don’t do. I feel your own cargo airline makes sense though if you have that available as I feel unlike a pax airline, it can look shabby and out of place.
Anyway, keep us updated, I’d like to see how you go
Maybe try limiting operation of fleet planes to few aiports (mine are MCT, IAD and soon LHR, BKK, LEJ) so that you can keep your realistic playstyle on all other airports. Also maybe you could limit the number of fleet planes that you have so that you can handle them first before you let the realistic airlines land and be handled. That’s what I do so they don’t get mixed with the airline contracts.
I personally follow real routes/gate assignments to a T if I can, but I always find there’s some room for my alliance planes somewhere to fit in. Usually I’ll just reserve one or two gates for player planes if the IRL contracts use an array of gates. If space is limited due to the realistic contracts, I’ll have player planes share gates with them (but have the player aircraft scheduled first at the gate so I can handle them in the shortest time). For example, at my LHR, I have plenty of Terminal 5 gates for BA and Iberia, so I let my airline reserve a few gates there for N/S American routes, and a few Term 3 gates for all my other airline routes. For other players planes, I have them split into vacant spaces in Term 2 and 4.
Bangkok is similar, where I use some of the abundance of A remote stands (100s) for my airline, and share some S terminal stands for other player planes.
Sydney on the other hand is much fuller when it comes to the Internetional Terminal (I dare not use the Domestic Terminal for international player planes), so I share gates and utilize the passenger/cargo combo stands for spillover.
I play LHR based on an adapted real daily schedule (bar the freighters which are fictional) I have my own fleet of almost 100 aircraft now.
I don’t use the scheduling system because atm it’s not in a format that would work for me so have a spreadsheet divided into 16 slots with 45 arrivals in each slot.
I’ve added my own fleet in and around the ‘real arrivals’ and it works well.
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. E.g., my PRG has a lot of irl ryanair routes at it and I had photos of Czech airlines planes at airports to work out where they regularly sent their 734s/atrs lmao. My Qatar Airways and Emirates are 788 and 777 respectively, yet I have Gulf Air A320/A321s, Saudia A21N and even an Air India A21N, just because that is feasibly what they might operate if demand was high enough.