We offer many routes that are no longer flown in real life. But what airport should they be flown to? Taking Hong Kong as an example, Chek Lap Kok replaced Kai Tak in 1998. Varig served Kai Tak for years, but Chek Lap Kok only briefly. So which airport should Varig Virtual serve? The answer is not easy.
The answer is easy for cases like Northwest's old Detroit-Seoul Gimpo service. Northwest moved its Seoul services from Gimpo to Incheon, but situations like the Varig one are less clear. In the past, we've decided by saying, "the purpose of Discontinued Flights is to bring the past to life. So, which airport would the flight serve today?" The unfortunate result is that there's less variety and choices than otherwise, and of course, more choices is the core of what makes SimAirline.net special.
So, we've decided to reverse our old decision and go based on the airport the airline primarily served. We've made some changes over the last few weeks, but here's a full list of those made and coming:
-AOM: Bangkok moves from Suvarnabhumi to Don Muang
-British Airways: Nagoya moves from Centrair to Komaki, Kuala Lumpur moves from KLIA to Subang, Seoul moves from Incheon to Gimpo, Tehran moves from Khomeini to Mehrabad
-KLM: Nagoya moves from Centrair to Komaki
-Sabena: Athens moves from Venizelos to Hellenikon
-South African: Athens moves from Venizelos to Hellenikon, Bangkok moves from Suvarnabhumi to Don Muang
-Swissair: Athens moves from Venizelos to Hellenikon, Bangkok moves from Suvarnabhumi to Don Muang, Tehran moves from Khomeini to Mehrabad
-Varig: Bangkok moves from Suvarnabhumi to Don Muang, Hong Kong moves from Chek Lap Kok to Kai Tak, Nagoya moves from Centrair to Komaki
-Virgin Atlantic: Athens moves from Venizelos to Hellenikon
At the same time, we're going to add some more clarity to how we list airports at SimAirline.net. For example, our website only says "Rome." But Rome has two airports, Ciampino and Fiumicino! In the past we haven't included the airport name for Rome because all our airlines serve Fiumicino, but we'd be better off by making this perfectly clear. The new format for cities with multiple airports will follow the form "Rome (Fiumicino), Italy." Finally, we'll rename how we list New York Kennedy and Paris de Gaulle, to the more often used "New York (JFK), NY" and "Paris (CDG)," respectively.