At the moment a lot of people are working on model matching to improve what live AI looks like in the sim. Microsoft itself is working on its own solution as far as we know, but there is a major problem.
At any given time, Flightaware isn’t really “aware” (yes, I did a pun :P) of the specific model of tens or even hundreds (depending on the time of day because it seems to be more widespread in Asia and Middle East) of Boeing 737s around the world.
You can see them here:
This is an issue of Flightaware’s side, mind you, because Flightradar24 has no such issue, as far as I could find.
This causes a massive problem for model matching, because what MSFS does is simply “Oh, I don’t know whatever this “737” is. It isn’t an official ICAO code for any aircraft, so let’s just spawn a generic plane regardless and call it a day”
This basically stumps whatever attempt at model matching users do, and will be an even more serious problem when Asobo tries to do their own model matching, because they’ll be left without data to do so effectively in several regions of the world.
The only real “solution” to this would be for Flightaware to do their homework and “learn” the models of these 737. If I and their competing service can find them (and I can in a literal minute for each airline involved), so could they, so that’s not exactly a shiny showcase of performance on their side.
Of course, Microsoft could shift their partnership to FlightRadar24 (and I’d do this if this was possible and I was in their shoes. It’s simply better), but I don’t know if this is feasible of whether FR24 would even be interested.
So MS should definitely apply pressure on Flightaware so that they solve this issue on their side. It really isn’t hard and I don’t understand why this issue is even a thing.
There are several operators in Japan affected by this issue (for instance) like Skymark and Solaseed, that have ONLY B738s and Air Do that has only B737 and you can find this information right on their official page with thirty seconds of googling.
The alternative would be for the simulator to recognize “737” as a valid code and let people working on model matching do their thing with it, likely at the airline level. This is only a stopgap workaround, but I don’t see any reason not to implement it.
Another much more encompassing solution would be for Flightaware to provide the specific registration of each aircraft to MSFS, which at the moment it does only for general aviation aircraft but not for airliners. Then, let people match models and liveries via specific registration instead of airline and model. This will be indispensable if we want to actually match special liveries, which at the moment is impossible and it’s a serious limitation.
Of course, up to suggestions if others have possible solutions and workarounds MSFS could implement.