Hi: I have perhaps a unique way of enjoying my flight simulation...I like to fly around airports; Not between airports, but around them, doing touch and go's, approaches, etc...I would appreciate anyone's opinions on which simulator, X-Plane or P3d has the best, most realistic scenery airport addons, both payware and player made...I plan to upgrade to one or the other simulators soon, and want to make the buy that would be most enjoyable for me...Again; not interested in add-on textures, mesh and so on...Just airports! Thanks for the advice...

Steve in Kansas

If you ever fly around airports at night, I think it's probably no contest with X-Plane's night lighting and high number of individual light sources. Great moving car headlights and street lights on roads and urban areas near airports at night too. That's one of X-Plane's killer features.

In daylight, there are many very good large airport add-ons in X-Plane, but the coverage isn't as wide (yet) as FSX/P3D so your favorite airport may or may not exist in a highly detailed version. Also, there aren't as many highly detailed small GA airports like the ones made by Orbx. Although there are a few very nice ones like the beti-x Bella Coola CYBD payware.. 

Another difference is that X-Plane doesn't do seasonal terrain changes. It's summer all the time. There is an add-on for winter textures, but it won't automatically create snow with add-on airports. 

Aside from that, I'll have to let others compare, because it's been a long time since I've looked at P3D airports.

The night lighting is one of the features of X-Plane that really attracts me to it...Thanks for the detailed reply!

FSX/P3D= lots of highly detailed expensive payware airports all across the world, with comparatively few very nice freeware airports with custom objects

XPlane= Not as many very highly detailed payware airports, but many more nice freeware airports with custom objects than what is available in FSX/P3D. Also, I find the default objects in XPlane to be more realistic. 

Finally, in XPlane scenery design is much, much easier. If you notice something missing at an airport you're flying around you can open it in overlay editor and add the appropriate object very simply and quickly. 

It depends on the region. But X-Plane definitely sets the bar for high-end sceneries nowadays. For example, EDDF (Aerosoft) and even more so KLAX (Mister X), among many others, are exceeding their P3D counterparts in detail and especially performance.