ISSUE DESCRIPTION
The ATC system in MSFS 2024 shows critical flaws that severely impact realism, immersion, and traffic coordination. These issues appear more severe than in MSFS 2020 and make in-game ATC nearly unusable:
- ATC gives contradictory or illogical instructions (e.g. unrealistic altitude or heading assignments).
- AI aircraft do not coordinate properly: they block the player on final, taxi through them, or ignore presence entirely.
- ATC assigns traffic to land on occupied runways or instructs multiple aircraft to use opposite ends of the same runway.
- Frequent low-passes by AI aircraft over runways instead of proper go-arounds or patterns.
- ATC logic often fails completely on large airports with multiple traffic streams.
- Players are forced to use third-party tools (VATSIM, IVAO, Pilot2ATC) to get basic realism.
- Regression from MSFS 2020: FS2024’s ATC feels significantly less reliable.
These issues happen in both IFR and VFR contexts. I’ve reviewed other ATC-related bug topics, and none seem to capture this complete systemic breakdown.
FREQUENCY OF ISSUE
- Every session using in-game ATC with AI traffic enabled.
- Happens at both large international and small regional airports.
REPRODUCTION STEPS
- Load into any controlled airport (e.g. LFPG, KLAX, EGLL).
- Start an IFR flight with live traffic or AI offline traffic enabled.
- Follow ATC instructions and observe surrounding AI behavior.
- Note conflicts, poor separation, and incorrect clearances.
YOUR SETTINGS
Platform: PC (Microsoft Store)
OS: Windows 11 Professionnel 64-bit (10.0, Build 26100)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 12-Core Processor @ 4.4GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER (16GB VRAM)
RAM: 32 GB
Display: 2560 x 1440 @ 144Hz
DirectX Version: DirectX 12 (Feature Level: 12_2)
Storage: SSD
Developer Mode: OFF
Community Folder: Empty