It’s worth a shot. I’ll try it.
Traffic is non existent for me at the moment on the game, ever since the recent update theres nobody/
That’s been it for me as well. There was less and less the last couple of patches, but since Tuesday, the skies are barren for the most part as I described. I do see SOME traffic, but like I said, I calculate it’s about 10% of what there should be.
Ok, I just tried this. I was hopeful it would perhaps work, as your logic was sound. I put my ground airline traffic to max. Sat on the apron at CYOW for about 30 mins while I was doing some prep work for dinner. Came back and checked.
FlightRadar24 shows 16 planes (plus 1 helicopter) in the air in the direct vicinity of CYOW. In game on my Garmin map and in LNM, 2 “Live traffic” planes visible only.
There are definitely WAY more planes parked at the gates, but they’re not moving around or doing anything. They’re just set dressing.
It was a good hunch for sure, but alas makes no difference. 
Did you compare to FlightAware? 16 planes in the vicinity of an airport at any one time seems like quite a lot to me… I certainly would be reticent about flying with that many planes in the vicinity of an airport.
What is your expectation?
16 planes in the general vicinity. Yes. And I mean within 50-ish miles. There were 3 on arrival, 1 on departure. This was on FlightRadar24 which tracks the real traffic.
In game, zero planes arriving or departing. The 2 planes were transiting traffic at 30k+ feet.
FightRadar and FlightAware are basically the same thing. They track flights in the air.
EDIT: I just crossed CREE 704 in game. Checked FlightRadar, and it was exactly where it was supposed to be. However, within a 20NM radius from me, there should be 5 other planes in the air. In game and in LNM, I see 1 only…
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant. I thought you meant you had 16 planes in game.
Yes. 16 planes in real life according to FlightRadar (just compared it side by side to FlightAware. Shows the same data in both). But only 2 Live Traffic planes in game.