Hello from China! We hope you enjoyed our airports.
In recent months, I’ve been observing very low traffic on our featured days of the ATC schedule. Compared with over 100 or even 200 inbounds for other hub airports (just saw that in RKSI a few days ago), this is what we have today in Chengdu: only 60 arrivals.
In fact I haven’t seen a Chinese hub get over 100 arrivals for a long time. Even when Beijing Capital is the hub, the arrival count is stuck at 90-ish. It’s becoming a monthly routine that during a Chinese hub day, everyone’s just flying to KLAX, EGLL, you name it.
In another case, when Chinese airports are featured together with other East Asia airports like RKSI or RJAA, our airports are completely overshadowed by them. It’s really frustrating to work on an airport for months only to find out they’ve been ignored.
So here’s our question: What’s stopping you from choosing our airports as your destination?
Is it because:
The unfamiliarity with Chinese airports/airspace?
That it’s hard to find a realistic route?
That a certain livery for your route of choice is missing/buggy?
That you’d prefer flying if there’s a flash flight/community event?
Or you just don’t feel like flying in China? 😥
We’re curious about your thoughts, and above all, we hope our airports can be filled just like other hubs in the ATC schedule!
I also have the same problem. Every time the ATC schedule has so little traffic in Chinese airports. At the same time, with the efforts of the Chinese team of IFAET, we have built so many beautiful 3D airports. Every time we update, we hope that more players can fly in these airports. But reality is the opposite of imagination, which really makes people want to understand😭😭😭😭
I used to fly some routes in China because of the good scenery and mountains. I flew into China for Events and It is kinda hard to find a realistic route that is short bc almost all the routes going into China are from the US or from Europe. Also, there isn’t much ATC coverage in China. I usually flew long routes to China. I think more events in china might attract more people to fly into china.
For today, I would say the lack of long haul routes, only cargo and we don’t have most of them in game. Chengdu is poor in international flights. That’s my opinion
(idk, I’m part of those 60 inbound so 🤷)
Livery choice has gotten a lot better I feel like, I just don’t know how to deal with the airspace is China, on FR24 coverage stops before aircraft touch the ground, and the routes taken seem to always make 90° turns 😅
Also airports are huge, I spend a lot of time taxiing.
Basically it is a bit more work imo to fly in China. The few times I’ve flown there it was a pleasure, it’s just not an automatism like I would for Europe or NA.
I was trying to do a flight out of Chengdu today, but I gave up. My reason was the real lack of liveries for Chinese carriers, if they added more I’m sure China would see a lot more traffic - especially on days which IFATC are staffing them.
I’m probably not the target audience of this question, I consider flights from China as much as US as long as I have time tbh. My last long haul was from China for example 🙂
It really is a shame China is such a beautiful country with lots of different scenery, The only thing for me is the lack of Chinese Narrowbody Liveries!!
While the lack of flights to and from China is disappointing, I think a lot of it comes down to the relative lack of Chinese liveries for narrowbody aircraft, with only one or two liveries available and some airlines being absent entirely, like Sichuan Airlines, along with there being very few realistic routes to do with the Chinese widebody liveries, with the exception of Air China. Most of China Eastern’s long-haul flights are flown with either the A330-200, which is an aircraft variant not in Infinite Flight, or the 777-300ER, which is confirmed but not yet added. In the case of China Southern, most of its long-haul flights are operated with the 787-9, which is not yet confirmed to be coming, or the 777-300ER, which was just released in 24.3.
In any case, I believe that greater exposure, e.g. live events, and the addition of new liveries for Chinese Airlines allowing for realistic routes will see traffic to and from China pick up.
My take on it is that it’s just a general lack of familiarity or interest. The airports you all have built are great and I visit them fairly often. However, the way I play Infinite Flight (and I know many people are like this) is that I tend to bias places where I’d conceivably travel to or vacation in, sort of exploring my interests around the world. I’m an ABC, but China to me just doesn’t scratch that itch the way something like Tokyo, Honolulu, or Western Europe do (and I feel like most Western-based people may feel the same way). Additionally, it seems like a lot of Infinite Flight players are based in the West (not sure if that’s statistically true) and many (especially Americans) are just completely unfamiliar with China. Of course they’ll know Beijing and maybe Shanghai, but I feel like if you asked the average American Infinite Flight player to drop Chengdu, Xiamen, or Xian on a map they’d tell you that they’ve never heard of those cities before. I’m sure there’s a subset of people who play Infinite Flight to explore new places but in my opinion the scenery isn’t really good enough to make me want to care or motivate me to do that.
Once again, not your or your team’s fault at all. Great airports, great quality. Just far away and unfamiliar.
