Message to devs: Heavy under-representation of Chinese fleets

#1

This is a message to the devs. I commented on the 757 thread already that basing livery choices solely on community interest will heavily underrepresent China. Here are just some numbers for an idea:

This table shows the top 10 airlines excluding cargo and regional according to Wikipedia. I counted the number of current fleet aircraft (according to airfleets.net) that has a livery in IF and divided by the total current fleet as a percentage. The first number does not count air frames that are not in IF. The second number counts air frames that are not in IF. Note that I counted A321-100 as -200 in IF and B773 as B77W in IF.
American 80.9 76.3
Delta 90.4 78.4
United 88 82.5
Southwest 100 95.4
China Eastern 1.5 1.3
China Southern 2 1.7
Ryanair 99.6 99.6
Air China 20 16.2
Lufthansa 100 82.8
Turkish 55.2 45

The numbers speak for themselves - the 5th and 6th biggest fleets in the world, CES and CSN have 2% fleet representation in IF. And if you check the aircraft type, they are all widebodies. Air China is pretty bad as well, but at least there are narrowbodies.

I really think the devs should consider how to represent these larger fleets better, apart from just looking at community vote counts, especially because registration was a problem until recently. Just as an example for underrepresentation, there are over 100 A320s and B738s for both CES and CSN, and yet there are less than 5 votes on the livery requests.

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#2

Numbers are cool, but then there’s the other number of user database. People don’t know the world and airlines outside of their region bubble too well, and most of the people (and bubbles) are in Europe and North America. I too want to see more aircraft from outside west Europe and North America, but unfortunately it’s the same thing as with the ATC schedules - if it ain’t NA or EU it won’t be as popular, with a few exceptions like, for example UAE. Also, are you sure about the numbers in the second collumn? I went through all of the China Eastern subsidiaries on wikipedia and only got 16 liveries which means that 1.7 is just mathematically not possible.

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#3

I counted by the number of aircraft in fleet not the number of types.
Still having ONE livery of the 5th and 6th biggest airlines in the world is crazy, especially because CES had ZERO liveries before 19.4.

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#4

My apologies, misread that. Yeah, it’s quite sad that such big airlines are left out, but I guess that’s what we have to deal with for the time being, as IF need to appeal to the majority. Also, while we didn’t have the China Eastern livery, we did have China Cargo which is their cargo subsidiary, but it’s still miserable, I’lll agree

#5

While I do understand you, I can also see why there isn’t more Chinese liveries in this simulator. Naturally, we all want to see the livery of our national airline(s) included on the newest aircraft, or for that sake on an older aircraft. It makes sense, I always hope to see the SAS livery on new aircraft. But it’s not guaranteed. Now, in regards to your table - I see what you’re talking about, and yes, the biggest airlines should be featured more, I do, however, see why they aren’t.

Without knowing the user base and the demographics of that, I understand the reason. A few weeks ago I saw a similar topic to this. Not in regards to fleet, but concerning accessibility to Chinese users, especially the language and the options you have when paying for a subscription.
It’s not secret that China’s internet is heavily blocked, and VPN’s are basically required to access the simulator and important things inside the simulator. I’d bet that this scares off users. A shame, yes.

Like @Alexander_Nikitin said, Infinite Flight and its subscribers are mostly from Europe and NA. A company, in order to succeed, needs to cater to its prime target group, it seems that most of this “prime” target group (myself included), are from the aforementioned regions. Therefore it would be a great idea to give these subscribers the liveries they want, since a Delta/Lufthansa livery on the newest plane would be used more, thus being more popular, keeping subscribers and in return, giving the company green numbers on the bottom line.

I understand your frustrations, I love flying different liveries around this globe, but not everyone feels the same way. I understand why the developers ensure that most planes have the liveries of the most popular regions of the world.

Just my 2 cents, which turned into a whole dollar, apparently.

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#6

Yes I am from China. But this is not just about the fact that my own countries is lacking liveries. The issue is the biggest non-US airlines happen to be in a region where IF can only be accessed on iOS, and the devs are talking about diversity yet not addressing this problem.
Hope they add the CSN B757.

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#7

So, I’m seeing many comments that are saying the reason there are less Chinese Airlines might be because of IF’s current region demographics. While this is true, it may also be the other way around. Many people may not want to use IF because their local airline isn’t represented, and part of the reason IF has more European/US users may be because there are more European/US liveries in Infinite Flight.

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#8

Hi there!

I know, money always rules. But from a very biased perspective, there are a lot of people flying with IF now. Aviation as a subculture are getting more interest back in China. Thus the market is gradually opening up for IF. Chinese airlines have cool livery too (Except air China, they sUcked), it would be nice to have them in the sky.

#9

@xsrvmy You’re 100% correct here. I don’t see any logic behind people saying demographics are taken into account. I’m from South Africa, and yet I have only ever completed 1 flight with the SAA A330, and barely any other flights with the 737’s. China is extremely underrepresented in IF, the one I am most upset about is Air China. I find their livery so amazing, they’re one of the worlds largest airlines, and yet I can only think of 3 aircraft ingame that have a AC livery, the 737-700 (not even the normal livery), A319 and B788.
It’s one of the biggest downsides to the simulator and I do not know as to why the devs have not mentioned it, even though topics like this are released often.

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#10

Could be both. The google block actually means you need a VPN to get IF on android though, and it’s pretty hard to set up a VPN from within China. I have done it before, but that’s only because I was able to tether a VPN connection from another device. Notice that it’s only mainland that’s underrepresented. Cathay, EVA and China Airlines are represented pretty well.

We do have 4 Air China liveries and some regional liveries though. What confuses me is why we have the regional ones instead of CES and CSN narrow bodies. Like most people would agree that they’d rather have CES 738 instead of Shandong airlines CRJ.

@Josh_Tomaz Air China code is CA lol, and the liveries are B737, A319, B789 and B748. It could also be that the devs are thinking more by region, because Taiwan and Hong Kong are represented well.

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#11

Mmm, the sight of an intriguing, well-built, and thoughtful topic. Beautiful. I wholeheartedly agree. đź‘Ť

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#12

I can fully understand your concerns. Even tho Turkish Airlines is one of the biggest worldwide, its also weakly represented on IF. Shortly they’ve added the B77F with the update. But as I know the devs are mostly adding the American liveries since the majority of the players come from there. Unless BA, AF, KLM and LH all other european Airlines are also under-represented. If the devs should add Chinese liveries, then they should equally also add the other major airlines as well for a well balanced equality.

#13

That’s probably because 738 is missing, and I’d just use 739 for that.
Actually IMO a good representation means either having several liveries, or having at least one narrow body (if airline has one) and one aircraft capable of doing the longest route of the airline so that all routes can be done with livery.

#14

These are extensively represented throughout the fleet. Yeah, we don’t have Lufthansa A321, yeah, we don’t have Air France ERJs, but there are more than enough liveries of them compared to the other airlines around europe

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#15

Speak of “representation”, indeed we have a decent amount of Chinese liveries in IF, but they aren’t frequently used as they are not so iconic and representative. Just a quick check on fr24 and you will find that it’s not A319 and CRJs that fill up China airspace. The backbones of the “big three” airlines (as well as other Chinese carriers) , the A320, A321, B738, A330 and B77W have so far got ZERO Chinese liveries. They are what we really need.

Sincerely hope the devs to take this into account. A huge potential market awaits.

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#16

I’m not saying this “makes anything okay” through your scope, but here is what Philippe has said regarding liveries after people were upset the ANA B77W didn’t make the cut:

And Misha’s reply prior:

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#17

Yeah this is the main problem. We need a CSN and CES narrowbody.

@MrMrMan That does not excuse the lack of a narrowbody though. You can’t just say a B787 represents an airline well - it does not even fit at some airports. Also you realize it’s only mainland China that’s having this issue right? Cathay, EVA and China Airlines are doing just fine.

#18

I’ve read them before, what confuses me is that since they want diversity of the fleet as well as sufficient storage, how come we can have 3 AAs for B772, 4AAs for B738, 5 Frontiers for A320, BA for almost the ENTIRE fleet (just found out when checking the BAVA thread) , but “can’t have enough storage” for a single Chinese livery of those aircraft? That would definitely increase the diversity they want.

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#19

TBH the devs should really look into saving space instead. Most liveries are white so they should’t really take that much space.

#20

In my memory, we already had Air China A319 / B737-700 / B789 / B748 ; China Eaetern A359 ; China Southern B788 / B77F ; China Cargo B77F ; Cathay B77W ; A330 ; China Airline B77W / MD-11…and so on.
But for Chinese players, we really need more China’s airlines livery. Like Air China; China Eastern; China Southern; Xiamen Air; Hainan Airline; Sichuan Airline…These airlines have many kinds of aircrafts, like A320 ; A330 ; A340 ; A380 ; B737 ; B747 ; B777 ; B787 ; B757…
China’s airlines have huge fleets and they also play an important role in the world. We really think China’s airlines are not getting enough attention. If Infinite Flight’s devs can add more China’s airlines livery in Infinite Flight, I think IF will attract more Chinese players to participate in this game. Moreover, this is consistent with IF’s goal of pursuing diversification in the development of players.

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