Complete rebuild of the in-game aircraft image library, covering all ~700 aircraft variants.
Higher resolution images for a noticeably cleaner and sharper UI.
Consistent quality baseline across all aircraft, including replacements for many older low-quality, blurry, or black-and-white images.
Correct variant accuracy: Each aircraft variant has its own dedicated image, matching real-world differences where relevant.
New sources: Over 200 images have been re-sourced for better quality and better technical accuracy.
Era-appropriate visual styles so the look evolves naturally through aviation history.
The update includes new internal automation tooling and workflow for better image management and source tracking.
Other improvements
Dynamic manufacturer names can now handle complex changes. Example: DHC-7 fleet was first produced by de Havilland Canada, then acquired by Bombardier, then some of the Bombardier's production went to Viking Air, and it later renamed to De Havilland Canada when rest of the production was consolidated.
More manufacturer corporate data is added to the Dynamic manufacturer names feature. These include changes of the Canadian aircraft industry (DHC, Bombardier, VikingAir), British aircraft industry (Armstrong, de Havilland, Vickers, Bristol, Hawker, BAC, Scottish Aviation, British Aerospace, BAE Systems), French aircraft industry (Sud, Nord, Aérospatiale) and remaining US manufacturers (Fairchild, Swearingen, Lockeed, Martin). With these updates the Fleet Commonality v.2.0 is now completed and the full historical logic for manufacturer changes (and associated costs) is now present.
The aircraft manufacturer name changes are also now posted in Dashboard's Aircraft News.
Improved used aircraft price listing mechanism for AI broker listings.
Further upgrades to our development stack by modernizing development environment, versioning tools and project management structure.
Fixes
Country of manufacturing was not correctly shown for A220 fleet.
Various small fixes in the backend systems to keep the code clean and up-to-date.
Nominal range value for aircraft from used market did not show correctly if an upgrade (winglets etc.) was already installed to the aircraft and seating configuration was being changed during the purchase (display issue only).
Fixed an issue where automatic A/B checks could be skipped when the airline was beyond the credit limit and automatic C/D check scheduling was attempted but could not start due to insufficient funds.
Fixed additional base airport rules for airlines from the Netherlands and France prior to EU Open Skies.
Added new "About the Game" section to the website with several pages of information and details about the simulation.
Improvements
News highlight announcement banner added to site header.
Minor visual updates to "Game Subscriptions", "Game Achievements", "Billing History" and Shop's "Order History" pages.
Achievements page is visible also to guest visitors.
Game Area index page has now a small welcome message at the top to guide new users (can be hidden from the close icon). Also the 2nd level (sidebar) navigation is added there to improve the structure.
Various minor tuning to layout, information, and visual cues in various places to give more information to visitors not familiar with the simulation.
Updated various backend and maintenance tools in the Admin area.
Updated logging systems of the backend processes.
Technical changes to the system resources build process.
Several scripts and systems of the Core website updated.
Some refactoring done to the game data loading and listing systems for better code maintainability.
Social media announcement posts styling refreshed slightly.
Fixes
Contact Us page did not always load if clicked from inside an active game world.
Notifications of unread in-game messages did not always appear.
Game Subscriptions page confirmation popup did not close properly after ending a game subscription.
Game worlds list ("departure board") added to AirwaySim website front page.
Major component change to the core website: Font Awesome icons changed to new Web Awesome component library, allowing easier development of unified UI elements in the future.
Sim build version, and page load speed information is now also visible to logged-in users at the site's footer (as "nice-to-know" info, and in case of any problems).
A few minor technical improvements made to user's login session handling for better loading times.
Upgraded our local development environment to a new software stack, and implemented a set of new project management tools.
Some internal database selection logic changes made for better security/configurability.
Fixes
Fleet Commonality Calculator failed to work if selected engine had internal ID number >1000 (misconfiguration).
Airline HQed in the Netherlands Antilles was unable to open additional bases in mainland NL.
Base Airports page did not show the clarifying text that French (mainland) based airlines could open bases also in the French overseas departments.
Minor layout fixes to the main navigation structure.
The aircraft manufacturer names are now dynamic, and follow historical changes.
There have been various mergers of aircraft manufacturers throughout the history and this new small feature aims to model these changes. The update is part of the fleet commonality v.2.0 update, and with this change we can make the fleet commonality bonuses work even more accurately than before.
Example #1: Dornier and Fairchild-Dornier were previously separate manufacturers in the database, but have now been merged, with a name change from Dornier to Fairchild Dornier in 1996 following the buyout. This allows you to benefit from fleet commonality manufacturer bonuses if you fly Dornier 328 and Fairchild-Dornier 528/728/928.
Example #2: In 1997 Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merge, thus all McD aircraft are being manufactured by Boeing after that date. However since there is no actual manufacturer commonality involved, since both companies retained their own production lines and systems, there is no manufacturer bonus in fleet commonality for opearating B737 and MD-80 series after the merger, but you do get a bonus for operating B717 and MD-80/90 ( = situation remains the same as before the merger).
Example #3: Bombardier sold the Cseries development to Airbus in 2018, thus creating the Airbus A220. The manufacturer name changes only for this aircraft series, and not for other Bombardier aircraft models.
The update does not affect the aircraft model names, so even though Boeing buys McDonnell Douglas, the aircraft model names remain as McDonnell Douglas MD-82 etc.
The British aircraft manufacturer name changes are not yet modelled since all what happened there in 1950s to 1970s is rather complicated. There might be also some other omissions in the data, but please let us know and we'll update.
Added exception to fleet commonality calculations: If the fleet group has more than 1 aircraft in total, AND all of them are for sale, except for one-two aircraft (which are not for sale), AND those particular planes are in maintenance AND have zero routes, then they do NOT count for fleet commonality. This (rare) case happens when you are selling your entire fleet in the used market, but need to keep the C/D checks valid. Previously the single plane in maintenance of the otherwise inactive entire fleet would have created commonality costs even though the fleet was not in operation, and change is made to not create unnecessary costs of a fleet that you do not actually operate.
Bankruptcy and airline closure news listings improved. The Airline News feed at Dashboard shows a bit more information of each closed airline, such as the CEO's username, airline HQ airport (among other bases), and number of aircraft per each base, base's opening date (incl. airline founding date for HQ), and the possible alliance membership of the airline, and also the fleet listing of the airline (fleets in operation, for sale, or long-term storage; not those that were leased out). [change applies only to pages of v.2.0 code, thus manual airline closure via Office->Bankruptcy doesn't yet post this type of expanded news]
The new salary calculation rules will be also in effect in Airline Generations and The Age of Flight game worlds, refer to changelog dated 31st Jul 2025 ("Game Balance Updates").
Fixes
Base airport selector did not show correct airports when opening a new base for airline based in the French "departments".
Filtering by individual aircraft model in Manage Routes -> Destination View did not work.
Airline bankruptcy news did not always show up at the Dashboard's Airline News feed.
Game clock (time of day) calculation in one internal backend function could have exceeded 23:59, putting some game news into the wrong game date.
For extremely large airlines, the staff management interface at Office -> Personnel page was limiting the amount of staff you could hire manually (UI limit).
Aircraft Information listing page showed the "age" of aircraft that were already scrapped.