It seems that SCL is the next airport and we have heard about that for times so honestly no surprise for me at least.
Glad to start the topic as a tradition on this forum and welcome to have a say. I see SCL would be an efficient airport to play with interesting architecture so I am very happy to play it when released…
For those who don’t know what’s happening, see this post from devs and the teaser image.
SCL is a fantastic airport. It’s easy for players have mutual flights with SYD and GRU. The operation mode of the long-distance parallel runways are similar to MCT(double takeoff and double landing), and the aircraft is very close to the stands as soon as it leaves the runway(the taxiing distance after landing is so short). The only concern is that the number of stands is relatively small (about 120), resulting in insufficient handling crews, and the taxiing distance for takeoff is quite long.
My instinct is that the number is okay, similar to the numbers of GRU. There are also many split stands (split the F gates to 2Cs so that basically you have 3 ground staff for 1 F gate rather than 1).
However due to two independent arrivals, yes, I didn’t have such issue with GRU even with manual optimization on runway operation so there would be landings uninterrupted by departures. Maybe we have to get prepared for some planes waiting on the ground to be handled but that’s a normal situation in many airports.
Since the game count the travel time at pushback that does not look like a big problem for me at least
Interestingly, this will actually be the 4th smallest airport, because the majority of these are shared stands. What this brings up is the possibility of having major crew shortages for those who operate mostly E planes. However, this also has the huge benefit of likely making the airport more full.
I agree with your point of view. After taking into account the shared stands, the number of handling crews is sufficient. Moreover, there is no runway crossing at SCL (unlike LHR and MCT, where aircraft need to cross the runway, resulting in lower landing efficiency). So players are able to completely use the tower manager to maintain a 1:1 ratio of takeoffs and landings, maximizing the efficiency of the double runways operation(In my opinion, we only need to open the approach and takeoff managers. The pushback and delivery of stands can be done by the players themselves easily).
it doesn’t anymore btw. Travel time starts when you (or the control tower) hits take-off when the aircraft is taking off. If you close the game with planes still waiting to take-off, they will only start their travel time after a 5-10 minute time penalty (don’t know the exact time)
I think the very first step is to create the airport with all its buildings and runways. In the next step, dynamic elements will be added, such as jetways and lighting, etc. In my opinion, the image posted is not indicative of when the airport will be released. We don’t know how old the image is or what stage the airport is at. The developers have surprised us a lot recently and I’m very curious to see when the innovations mentioned in Devblog 27 will be released. All in all, we were promised a lot more for this year. All aircraft from V1 are to be revised and, as recently confirmed in a comment, even the A338/9 was to be revised this year. Some things take time but overall some things will come this year and some faster than expected.
They showed a similar model for syd in December 2023, but the airport came out 7 months later. So just because they showed the model doesn’t mean it’s actually coming any time soon.
