I have a payware airport for my “home” airports (CYRO and CYOW) but that’s about all I’m interested in.
I agree, Pyreegue’s EGNX is the current state of the art.
Also, if you fly in VR, immersion into a detailed airport environment becomes significantly more desirable compared to when flying pancake monitor, glued to the FMC (not that there’s anything wrong with that!)
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What most people think when they buy airports are because they’re better than default auto-gen airports. Sure, it’s just a place to land and take off from, but for airliner simmers such as myself, having an accurate and close to reality look of an airport, its terminals, it’s accurate parking stand and markings are all important for a nice immersive experience.
I usually have a home base airport where I take off from and land to across many different routes. And they also have this sense of nostalgia on when you frequently fly to and from as a passenger. Having that accurate buildings, landmarks and parking spot really does add to the immersion of a virtual flight.
You’re a GA simmer for example. Imagine if MSFS doesn’t have accurate satellite imagery, no photogrammetry and no accurate terrain mesh and texture. And they sell an addon that would make all the sceneries realistic and accurate. Wouldn’t you like to pay for it to make your sightseeing flight more enjoyable?
Even a bad quality payware airports can still be better than default autogen ones, especially when it’s the base where a simmer take off from and land to. And good quality ones are just definitely worth the price.
Bottom line is, everyone is different, everyone has a different expectations and goals on what makes flying in MSFS enjoyable for them. You like to spend money on better airplanes and flight experience, that’s all cool. But airliner simmer like myself who has emphasis more on autopilot and LNAV VNAV capability of aircraft do see airports as a major immersive factor. There’s usually fewer aircraft that we’d like to fly in the sim anyway. Give us PMDG 737, 747, and 777, QualityWings 787. Fenix A320, Toliss A320neo, FlightFactor A350 and we’re going to be just happy and fine. And the rest of the budget will go to airports to make the flights more realistic and accurate.
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Due to the lack of great scenery I was an airliner pilot in earlier sims. I liked A2A addons before but I didn‘t enjoy flying them as much as I do now. Usually I did the same as all the other guys, loaded up my 747, tool off, let it follow its route up there and then had fun approaching and landing on a detailed airport which I really enjoyed looking at. I’ve never gone into this airport tourism to check out terminal interiors etc. To me it was important that an airport was detailed and credibly correct. I‘ve never cared if this yellow line over there was a meter too far to the left. And I had about 100 airports in P3D 
Now in MSFS I still like good looking airports/airfields but I have changed my flying. The 737 has been parked for half a year or so, I hve almost only flown small prop planes, recently the largest one one the Blacksquare Kingair and the C414, now the A2A Comanche was added and I will add the next A2A planes. You wouldn‘t typically land at KJFK, WSSS, VHHH, EDDM, etc with them so I don‘t buy these airports anymore. What I‘ve done so far was a LOT of back country flying. There is a huge amout of great freeware available thanks to this amazing community, my German, Austrian and Suisse Alps look amazing and there is so much to discover. I usually fly the Kingair and Cessna in the USA, a huge country that will take some time to check out lol. We have tons of smaller airports now that are much much cheaper than the great hubs and are often beautifully detailed. I do enjoy them, not with the drone maybe but I love them when I taxi there. I fly in VR and it looks just so good when an airfield is done in detail. But I enjoy the whole flying now, flying over towns or along mountains and just looking outside. The well done airport just adds to the great experience now, it doesn‘t desperately MAKE it like in P3D.
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I feel the same for the most part. I generally have zero interest in purchasing any scenery and I’d rather spend money on a new aircraft rather than scenery.
With that being said, there are two exceptions. if there was a good airport scenery available (on Xbox) for Wittman Regional Airport with all the accurate buildings and EAA Airventure scenery, I would LOVE to have it (as long as it was done in a way where everything isn’t constantly popping in like at the airport graveyard). I’d also probably be interested in accurate scenery for a small local airport that I use all the time. Other than that, I don’t see myself ever spending money on scenery.
Does anyone else think of airports as nothing more than runways, taxiways, and parking spots?
Nope, not me.
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I’ve worked hard fixing up a few airports personal to me: correctting taxiways, signs, runway parameters, lighting, painted lines, photogrammetry horror shows, trees, flooded water corrections, etc.
Now when I fly into AI generated airports, all I can see are the problem. 
Sometimes I wonder if I should try the market place simply to make them available for Xbox users. But since I don’t make 3D models of airport buildings, I feel it wouldn’t be worth charging money. Even though I’ve put in countless hours of work.
I’m always on the fence with charging. I can see if it’s a major upgrade that is hundreds of person-hours, doing buildings with blender, creating object libraries, etc.
But if it’s minor upgrades and corrections, what about grouping them into a regional package and charging a reasonable price? Like Northern California, Ohio, etc.
If there were a way to quickly fix runway lights (like editing in a mass database versus a graphical SDK for each individual airport), I’d be all over this. I’m actually a bit irked there isn’t an easier way.
That’s what originally going me into scenery development. I was tired or running over taxi lights and PAPI lites, etc. Then in it turned into an OCD habit of trying to make everything perfect.
Hopefully 2024 with have better AI and stop misplacing airport lighting, flooding streets, and turning trees into badly morphed buildings.
But considering they say scenery content will be compatible, it has me wondering.
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The whole reason I haven’t gotten into it is because there is a cyclically updated database of correct (updated) approach lights, VASI/PAPI, etc, and I don’t want to get two dozen airports (or worse, hundreds) into a 1,000 airport project and they finally figure out how to easily implement it and completely make my work worthless. So I’m waiting for 2024 before I even start a project like that.
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Yup, I’m curious to se how it goes.
I’m surprised they haven’t released any WUs with improved AI scenery to address some of the more common issues. But a big issue to doing this might be having to support existing 3rd party scenery in places that fixes the AI stuff.
I have some published regional water fixes, with a few in the works. I really hope 2024 makes them obsolete.
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Well that’s just it. If they have to exclude 3rd party scenery, then someone could easily squat on a bunch of airports to prevent them from being updated. Otherwise, where do you draw the line as to what level of 3rd party scenery warrants an exclusion vs what doesn’t? It doesn’t seem right that everybody else should suffer through some of the nonsensical, uncorrected AI-generated output just so a vendor can make money in correcting it at a basic level.
But at the same time, what kind of guarantees do you give people who are putting their time and money into developing something that might be fixed en masse soon?
Scenery design scares me for this exact reason.
I like to explore the “bespoke” or payware Airports. Taxi around and check out all the scenery. For me it’s about the visual experience, especially Airports I’m familiar with. BTW I’ll mention my specs for that awesome experience I claim I’m getting. Asus strix mobo Z690E, i9 13900KS, Asus Tuf 3090, Corsair 6200Mhz Dominator 32GB ram.
Yes. I do not really pay much attention to the scenery at any given airport. I have been to a lot of airports over the years and know the generic looks of most of them in The United States. Microsoft does not do a bad job of getting the essence of most airports. So that’s plenty fine for me. All of the details that people complain about not being there however, I don’t really pay any attention to. I’m more interested in getting up in the air and flying around.
As bad as the scenery in general in MSFS and it’s lack refinement is, (and it is pretty bad IMO) I don’t mind it all that much because Xplane, DCS, and the other sims out there do not have the kind of scenery that overall looks good as a whole. It’s only when you start really paying attention and letting yourself do more sight seeing than flying that you start to get a little disenfranchised with MSFS. Xplane is so ■■■■ cartoony and generic that you cannot ignore the Micky Mouse feel of the sim. It’s only strength is night flying. DCS is pretty klunky at times too. I also spend more time messing with the settings and fixing s4!+ in DCS that I don’t fly as much as I’m messing with the software to get it to work correctly. So I don’t really mind MSFS scenery as much as others do. I learned a long time ago that ATC, Weather, and scenery are part of a simulator. They are not reality and the nature of the beast is such that none of them will ever be very realistic or up to most people’s standards.
Just start using empty fields for taking off and landing to give your OCD a rest 
When it comes to just pure scenery, there are a few mountain airports, and many airports in the UK that are just so truly unique, that they are worth getting. I don’t know what it is with those UK airports but they can sure be charming.
Otherwise, most of the free airports I get are to bring them up to realistic, hand crafted standards.
I do sometimes get IM’d by student pilots wanting their home airports fixed.
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To me, interiors are a nice touch. At least what can be seen from the outside when you’re in your plane. Anything beyond that is a waste of memory and CPU / GPU cycles as far as I’m concerned.
I’m all about accurate exteriors and surrounding areas I’ll be seeing on approach or departure. So far, Roman Design and SimAddons airports have been some of the best I’ve purchased.
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Yes, there is no life in it.
No soundscape at the airport like fire brigade having a mission to do, no birds, no rabbits next to the runway, no runway slope like in RL, miserable standard lighting of the airport/runway whereas a real airport shines like a diamond at night and even during the day.
And of course people. Without AI people no real immersion.
I am like most, just care more about all other aspects of FS rather than detailed buildings at airports. There are much more important things for the developers to fix!
Trees growing high right at the end of the pavement! Misplaced runway lighting - sometimes they float in the air hundreds of feet high! Many airports that should be lighted are not. Most if not all taxi lights are misplaced so you run right over the little posts they set up in the middle of the tarmac.
And I won’t get into the wierd instructions given by AI controllers.
But to each his own, that’s what makes this a great hobby!
I have noticed a new trend developing, notably with iniBuilds addons, for options to disable certain features such as interiors. So now in addition to the fairly common option to disable static aircraft there is a growing list of items that can be disabled for people having performance issues on lower end systems etc. This is a good step in the right direction as it gives more choices and control for the user, rather than limiting things for everyone.
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