Seing the latest xp12 tremendous improvements in pretty much all the areas, I've decided to give it a go. I've already purchased some airports, but would like to add some more European international airports. What would be the absolute best? There are many very talented developers for MSFS like Pyreguee, inibuilds, Flytampa among the others, but I am very unfamiliar with the xp12. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

X-Plane 12 has pretty much all airports included - many of them at a very high level of fidelity.

Many people think (as I do, too) that it is not necessary to install 3rd party airports at all.

There are often users who will start to download and install a ton of extra stuff before they have even tried X-Plane once - I think that is like pouring salt into your soup before you have even tried it 🤣.

So - why not fly X-Plane in the "vanilla" state for a few days to get a feel for it, so you can better judge what you want to improve.

Caveat: There are some users who are "tinkerers" - they rarely fly, but love to get extra content for their simulators and install it, the more the better.
If you fall into that category, by all means, tinker at will 😆.

24 minutes ago, Litjan said:

Caveat: There are some users who are "tinkerers" - they rarely fly, but love to get extra content for their simulators and install it, the more the better.

Or uninstall!

I echo what Litjan said.  The default airports are very well done.  Note that many of them have been created by the user community (you may have heard the term “scenery gateway”) with a passion for getting their “home” airports just right.

Having said that and contradicting my own advice, I’m waiting on a sale to purchase all the Alaskan airports from Northern Sky Studios 😂

Edited October 4, 2025Oct 4 by Gilandred

Try the default airports first. You'll be surprised how good they are.

Thank you very much guys, will try the defaults first. I have to say xp12 development has come a loooong way. Enjoying the FF 777 v2 and Toliss A320 neo immensely. 

I second the opinion that the default airports are really good. I haven't bought a single airport add on for X Plane 12 

Use default airports; and download with WED from the gateway updated versions; best solution.

16 minutes ago, Marc22 said:

Use default airports; and download with WED from the gateway updated versions; best solution

Why, they are getting updated more regularly now, and anything in your Custom scenery over writes the default. Which means you may miss out on updated scenery

3 hours ago, Marc22 said:

Use default airports; and download with WED from the gateway updated versions; best solution.

No, NEVER download GATEWAY airports manually - neither by using WED nor directly from the Scenery Gateway. You will effectively lock yourself out from any future automated updating.

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by Litjan

1 hour ago, Litjan said:

You will effectively lock yourself out from any future automated updating of those airports you've downloaded manually because airports in "Custom Scenery" always override their counterpart in "Global Airports".

Fixed the last statement. Let's not scare the entire herd here.

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by Bjoern

1 hour ago, Bjoern said:

Fixed the last statement. Let's not scare the entire herd here.

I think it is better to scare people from doing stuff that is to their own detriment than to try to explain it, when the matter is most likely well past their ability to understand and will just lead to them shrugging and doing it anyway, then.

I did, however, edit my post to make it clear that my advice only pertains to GATEWAY airports (you can naturally download other custom airports to your hearts content and THAT will lead to a lock-out of the Gateway counterpart, which is desired).

You would not believe how many people sign up to the Scenery Gateway because they believe that it is necessary so they can download the "updated airports" from there and will in addition "lock" airports (which you are only supposed to do if you want to improve it) in an attempt to download it.

I think that the concept of the Gateway airport is fairly simple...yet there is a substantial part of the X-Plane user base that does not understand that concept and for them it is better to stay away from both the Scenery Gateway and all attempts to update Scenery Gateway airports manually.

tl;dr You do not need to do anything to enjoy frequently updated default airports in X-Plane.

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by Litjan

On 10/6/2025 at 1:42 PM, Litjan said:

I think it is better to scare people from doing stuff that is to their own detriment than to try to explain it, when the matter is most likely well past their ability to understand and will just lead to them shrugging and doing it anyway, then.

...

You would not believe how many people sign up to the Scenery Gateway because they believe that it is necessary so they can download the "updated airports" from there and will in addition "lock" airports (which you are only supposed to do if you want to improve it) in an attempt to download it.

Simple solution for that: If you press the "Download" button on the Gateway, you'll get a popup explaining the consequences of manually adding Gateway airports. Acknowledging starts the download. If there is a subsequent complaint because of versioning issues, you can always tell people they acknowledged the risks by starting the manual download and termminate communication.

 

Optionally, implement a deposit for manual downloads. Downloading from the Gateway costs $1 (if the version is newer than what's in XP) or $10 per airport (if Gateway and XP version matches) and requires a Laminar ID. Reimbursement follows when the global airports package begins to be newer than the version downloaded from the Gateway and there has not been a complaint submitted about versioning related issues from the user's Laminar ID in three months or when the user submits an updated Gateway package from WED. If user stupidity is as grave as claimmed, this could becomme a substantial stream of additional revenue for Laminar.

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by Bjoern

29 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

If there is a subsequent complaint because of versioning issues, you can always tell people they acknowledged the risks by starting the manual download and termminate communication.

The goal is to provide a good customer experience. It is not to assign the blame to the user, even if in fact it is his own fault.

This is along the same line of why Laminar takes more and more choices away in the UI - people have a hard time making the right choices, will rarely read or heed "warnings" (have you looked at the latest US statistics on literacy rates of High School graduates?) and will not remember what options they picked when troubleshooting - instead turning to Laminar support with a "but why can´t I see that new airport you are writing about in your release notes, heeeeeeeelppp!!!"

Ultimately the user will rarely blame himself, even if Laminar support explains to him where he f**ed up - it´s always "oh well, that is stupid, why do you make it like that?". People are people.

The way to provide the user with a satisfying experience is to take the ability to mess it up for himself away in the first place - even if that sounds like leaving him with less choices. 

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by Litjan

6 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Simple solution for that: If you press the "Download" button on the Gateway, you'll get a popup explaining the consequences of manually adding Gateway airports. Acknowledging starts the download. If there is a subsequent complaint because of versioning issues, you can always tell people they acknowledged the risks by starting the manual download and termminate communication.

 

Optionally, implement a deposit for manual downloads. Downloading from the Gateway costs $1 (if the version is newer than what's in XP) or $10 per airport (if Gateway and XP version matches) and requires a Laminar ID. Reimbursement follows when the global airports package begins to be newer than the version downloaded from the Gateway and there has not been a complaint submitted about versioning related issues from the user's Laminar ID in three months or when the user submits an updated Gateway package from WED. If user stupidity is as grave as claimmed, this could becomme a substantial stream of additional revenue for Laminar.

You must be feeling rich...